Showing posts with label fun English activities for children. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fun English activities for children. Show all posts

3.11.15

Easy and Effective Flashcards Games Ideas for Preschoolers

Flash cards… These Cards with a word and/or a picture on them that teachers use during their lessons, and which are particularly useful, for teaching a foreign language without using the children's first language. (Check out chapter six of my guide for more details.)

So, you're a teacher or parent who's fresh off the boat and someone has suggested that buying flashcards might help you grab your young learners' attention during English classes. You went out and bought a set and... now what?

Sometimes, especially at the beginning of the school year when I show my students the first set of flashcards, during the first classes, they become very excited and there's always someone who literally begs to hold them. I usually let them because I 'm always curious to see how they'll use the cards. As children usually tend to repeat what they've learnt with their school teacher, sometimes they come out with cool ideas I can reuse, but, unfortunately, when it comes to flashcards, they just sit quietly and start to slowly show one card at a time, asking 'What's this?'. If you are in a  classroom  with  the  desks  organised  in  rows  without  much  space  for  moving  around,  I  imagine  that's  the  most  obvious way to use flash cards. Even so, I think it's worth exploring some more drilling games you could use to make the most of your flashcard sets in order to grab your students' attention and speed up their learning process.

So here's list of flash cards games for  children who can't read yet:

Flash!
Choose the flashcards you're going to use and hold them so that the children can't see what's on them. Pick one card and turn it around very fast, so that students only have enough time to take a peek at it before you turn it back round.  Ask what it was on the card and if nobody answers, show them the flashcard again, but a little more slowly than the first time. Repeat until somebody gives the right answer. Once shown how to proceed, you could also call on some of your students and let them be the ones to turn the cards round quickly.

Slowly!
Obviously this game is the opposite concept to the one above. Choose the flashcards you're going to use and hold them so that children can't see what's on them. Pick one card and turn it round very slowly so that the kids will have to pay a lot of attention to be the first to guess what's represented on the card. Again, once shown how to proceed, you could also call on some of your students and let them do the trick.

Point to…! or Walk to…!

Walk around the classroom sticking a set of flashcards to the walls round the classroom. Get the children say the names as you stick them up, then say 'point to the rabbit!' or any other item shown on the  cards. The children listen and point to the correct flashcard as fast as they can.

"The Walk to…!" - version allows the children to stand up and go over to the card. However, in order to avoid a crowd of 24 kids pushing and pulling (and screaming and crying :o) ) to touch (and possibly destroying it) the only one card in the room which shows what you've just called out, I'd definitely suggest using at least 3 copies of the same set of cards, spread out all over the classroom.

What's missing?
Stick a set of flashcards on the board. Have the children say the names as you do it. Then say 'Close your eyes!' and once their eyes are closed, take  one card off the board. At that point say 'Open your eyes! What's missing?' and let the children guess the name of the missing card. The funniest part of this game is that  the second time you say 'Close your eyes', the children will start to cheat. Pretending to be a little upset and surprised (yes, just like a clown), call out the name of each cheating little monkey and tell them to reeeeaaaally close their eyes this time. You'll see how easy it is sometimes to make a child really happy.

Kim's game
Stick 8-10 flashcards on the board, eliciting the names. Give your students 1 minute, or less, to look in silence and try to memorize the flashcards. Then remove all the cards from the board and finally ask them to say the names they can remember. While they're telling you the right answers, repeat the names of the items and stick the cards back up on the board, in the same order they're being called out by the kids.

Flashcard chain
Sit in a circle with the children and with your set of cards.  Pass the first card, e.g. cheese, and ask a question 'Do you like cheese?' encourage them to answer 'Yes I do/ No, I don't'. After answering, the child asks the same question while passing the flashcard to the next child and so on round the circle.

This game is quite flexible because you can choose different questions depending on what you're currently studying, or you can change the questions for statements, e.g. 'I like cheese' or I don't like cheese' , I would like…, I can…, I have got…, etc.

Another option is to have every single child holds a different card, while the first child says ' I like cheese', holding the card which shows the cheese so that everybody can see it. The second child, who is holding the card with,  let's say, the lettuce then says: 'I like cheese and lettuce'. The third child, who's holding the card showing ham, says: 'I like cheese, lettuce and ham'. Keep playing until the last child in the circle has mentioned all the cards.

WARNING! Always expect some mess the first time you introduce a new game to young learners, because, as they say, practice makes perfect and children need a lot of it. This way, the second time will be a little tidier and quieter and the more you practice and adjust the game to your students needs and characteristics, the smoother the game will go.


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7.8.14

Summer Camp 2014: UNDER THE SEA

Most children's favorite topic always tends to be 'animals'. You can introduce them to the strangest and weirdest animal in the world and they will remember what it's called. That's why, of course, I gave squids, lobsters and jellyfish a try.

You can find many pictures and activities here, here and here.

For the handicraft time I picked the jellyfish from among these puppets and we made
1) a fish decorated with cupcakes paper liners
2) a seahorse with plastic eyes and decorated with anything you'd like 



The children loved singing this song during their handicraft time and we also learned these ones:

Mr. Lobster and Mrs. Crab by Debby
('Old Macdonald Had a Farm' tune)

Mr. Lobster and Mrs. Crab
pinch and snap all day
Mr. Lobster and Mrs. Crab
pinch and snap all day
With a pinch pinch here and a snap, snap there
here a pinch, there a snap
everywhere a pinch,pinch(snap, snap)
Mr. Lobster and Mrs. Crab pinch and snap all day.

 


Fish in the Sea by Jenny
('The Wheels on the Bus' tune)

The fish in the sea go swim, swim, swim
swim, swim, swim, swim, swim, swim
The fish in the sea go swim, swim, swim
all through the day.

The lobsters in the sea go pinch, pinch, pinch,
pinch, pinch, pinch, pinch, pinch, pinch,
The lobsters in the sea go pinch, pinch, pinch,
all through the day.

The octopus in the sea go wiggle, wiggle, wiggle
wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, wiggle
The octopus in the sea go wiggle, wiggle, wiggle
all through the Day

The crabs in the sea go click, click, click,
click, click, click, click, click, click,
The crabs in the sea go click, click, click,
all through the day.

We played 'The ball goes to…' and, of course 'Go fish'.

Very nice books to read aloud while studying sea animals are:
"Swimmy", by Leo Lionni
"The Rainbow Fish", by Marcus Pfister
"Mr Seahorse", by Eric Carl







Summer Camp 2014: AT THE BEACH and IN THE WOODS

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10.1.13

Writing Tip nº4: THE FAIRY-TALE SALAD


If you've been reading my latest posts about books, you would certainly have  noticed a common theme (imprint?): the fact that some characters of a fairy tale, in some way, land in another one and meet its protagonist, giving birth to new tales or even novels.

It's the case of Hansel and Gretel in Gidwitz's book 'A Tale Dark and Grimm', but also of 'Witch Hazel' who moves from the story of Snow White to Hansel and Gretel.

But he most famous example, I can think of, is certainly the story of the ogre 'Shrek': a worldwide known case of fairy-tale salad.

Chapter twenty of 'The Grammar of Fantasy' by Gianni Rodari talks about this possibility of mixing different fairy tales to create new adventures and new developments of old and well-known stories. 

It's interesting because young readers have to deeply know the characters' inner worlds and the landscapes they move in to do this experiment of literature.

It's a good excuse for an accurate text analysis.

So, let your children think about what could happen if Little Red Riding Hood met Tom Thumb in the wood and if Pinocchio arrived at Granny's house: the Wolf would get every single tooth of his mouth completely destroyed!


16.12.12

Christmas Songs


Children's favorite period of the year is around the corner and I usually teach simple songs to cheer the classes up.

This modified version of 'We Wish you a Merry Christmas' is perfect for the very young ones, because they can move a little while they're singing it. 

Picture by Emma Reilly
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
and a Happy New Year!
Let's all do a little clapping,
Let's all do a little clapping,
Let's all do a little clapping,
for Christmas is near!
Refrain...
Let's all do a little jumping,
Let's all do a little jumping,
Let's all do a little jumping,
for Christmas is near!
Refrain...
Let's all do a little twirling,
Let's all do a little twirling,

Let's all do a little twirling,
for Christmas is near!
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
and a Happy New Year!
For the older ones, aged 6-7, I chose these two songs:
I'm showing these videos and trying to teach them the lyrics during the last 15 minutes of class. It's a process that requires repetition, but, as seeing the same words several times is also the best way to learn to read, I'm sure they'll make the most of it.


10.12.12

Writing Tip nº3: THE CASUAL SYNTAX


Chapter ten of 'The Grammar of Fantasy' by Gianni Rodari talks about Dadaist and Surrealist games to look for a 'fantastic theme' that will help your class to write stories.

An easy one to set up in the classroom is the Casual Sintax.
The students, one after another, have to secretly answer these 6 questions:

question 1: WHO WAS HE/SHE/IT?

question 2: WHERE WAS HE/SHE/IT?

question 3: WHAT WAS HE/SHE/IT DOING?

question 4: WHAT DID HE/SHE/IT SAY?

question 5: WHAT DID PEOPLE SAY ABOUT HIM/HER/IT?

question 6: HOW DID THE STORY END?

The first pupil answers the question and folds the paper like an accordion. He passes the folded paper to his classmate, who will answer the second question, fold the paper again and pass it to the third one and so on until the paper accordion will reach the sixth and last student of the chain. Once he has answered the last question you can unfold the paper and read the answers following the order of the questions. It'll be hilarious and perhaps you'll find material to write a whole story.