Summer Camp 2014: AT THE BEACH

As they say "Time flies when you're having fun!", and July has just flown away. I can't even believe it!

I had the opportunity to teach my own Summer Camp again in the same place as last year, with even more children aged 4 and 5.

This year we worked on holidays and I'm sure you've already guessed the topics: at the beach, under the sea and in the woods.

Let's start from the beginning: AT THE BEACH

First of all, I introduced the new vocabulary using this pack where you'll find flashcards and activities about beach items.

We played beach ball games and...

Simon Says at the Beach
Simon Says at the Beach is simply a game of Simon Says with beach theme movements like these.
Walk like a crab. 
Snap like a lobster. 
Swim like fish. 
Roll your arms like a big wave. 
Tip toe like you're walking on hot sand. 
Dig in the sand.

Sand Bucket Bean Bag Toss: set up sand buckets and play a beanbag toss game.

What time is it Mr. Lifeguard?
This is a fun game to play outside. You can change the name to suit any
theme.
The children all line up against a wall or fence.
And one child, (Mr. Lifeguard) or the teacher faces away from the
children, a good distance away from the children.
The children yell, what time is it "Mr. Lifeguard",
Mr. Lifeguard answers 1 o'clock, and the children all take one step toward
Mr. Lifeguard.
The children yell again, what time is it "Mr. Lifeguard",
Mr. Lifeguard answers (fill in the blank) o'clock, and the children all
take same number of step toward Mr. Lifeguard.
This continues until all the children are very close to Mr. Lifeguard,
then Mr. Lifeguard will answer it's midnight, and chases the children back
to the fence or wall that they started at. The first person Mr. Lifeguard
touches will be the new Mr. Lifeguard.

Beach Hide and Seek
Play the game the same as above, except hide the beach object. Then
tell the children individually whether they are "hot" or "cold" to the
relation of the object. Allow the other children to have a change to
hide the object, and tell children whether they are "hot or cold". It may be a good idea to discuss the meaning of hot and cold before you
play this game.

Beach Shape Fishing Game
Tie 3 feet of string to a wooden spoon. Attach a magnet to the end of
the string. Cut and laminate many different colored, and sized beach
shapes from construction paper (not too big though). Attach a paper clip
to each shape. Spread the shapes on the floor and let your child try to
catch the shapes. Have them try to catch the red shape.. or the biggest
shape. For a twist, label the shapes with letters or numbers. Ask the
children to catch a specific shape, or ask them which shape they caught.

We sang these songs:

My Beach Ball Song
sung to "Mary had a Little Lamb"
 
Once I had a beach ball
a beach ball
a beach ball
Once I had a beach ball
Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce

Beach Song
Tune: The Farmer in the DellSong - words by Laurie Patsalides

I'm walking to the beach; (Walk in place.)
I'm walking to the beach. (Walk in place.)
I think I'll find a shell in the sand. (Pretend to dig.)
I'm walking to the beach. (Walk in place.)
Repeat with different motions for physical activity (running, stomping or marching).

And every day the kids enjoyed a handicraft activity:

Sand Art
Allow the children to glue sand to a piece of paper to create a beach scene. Add white torn paper for clouds, colored torn paper for umbrellas.

Make your own Leis
Supply the children with flower shapes, a hole punch and string. Have the children punch a hole in the flowers and lace them onto the string for a necklace.

Beach Towel
Have the children design their own beach towel with scraps of paper, ribbon, markers, crayons etc.

Beach Umbrella Art
Cut out a beach umbrella shape and have your child decorate it with paint, glitter, fabric, crayons, or whatever you can come up with.

Sunglasses Art
Cut out a sunglasses shape and have your child decorate it with paint, glitter, fabric, crayons, or whatever you can come up with.

I also showed them a book called "ToThe Beach!" written by Linda Ashman, which besides being a rhyming picture book, it is also really funny. The children couldn't stop saying "These people are crazy!"



Also read: IN THE WOODS and UNDER THE SEA

--> Quiero leer este post en español

Lucy dedicates a lot of time and love to thinking about and writing the posts she shares with all of you. Because she believes that a better teaching is the key for a better future. If you find any help, value or joy in this blog, please consider becoming a supporting reader. A donation, in any amount, will be gratefully accepted. 

                                                   

 

Spring - Lesson plan1 - BUGS

Spring is definitely my favorite season and this time I decided to teach a little bit of science to my preschoolers. Bugs, plants, flowers… 

They are all around and it's interesting for the kids to take a closer look at them, in English too.

I started with the famous, but not environmentally conscious, bumble bee song and then we played that phonic game Bees and Flowers I told you about several posts ago. This time I drew daisies, tulips and sunflowers to make sure my students would learn flowers' names. 

At the beginning the kids were using the more general word flower they already knew and I had to explain them that flowers are like children: each one has a different name.

They seemed kind of enlightened by the concept. It was so cute!

After buzzing around for a while I introduced vocabulary about bugs like, spiders, ladybugs, snails, bees, dragonflies, caterpillars and butterflies, using flashcard games.

To help them remember a couple of the names in the list above you can use these two songs: One about ladybugs and the other about the spider and… prepositions of place!

This second one is not only catchy but also really useful.

To make the most of it and also review numbers from 1 to 20 we played a card game you'll find here on page 13 and 14. Instead of the trowel card my students were hiding and looking for… a spider!

In addition, I used some pages  from these two books: 

- Color and garden. Flowers 

- Daily Learning Drills. Grade K 

Finally we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Actually, we read it again because I had never realized before that it also shows the butterfly life cycle. 

An ESL teacher isn't expected to teach such scientific facts, so I usually use that same book to teach food, days of the week, numbers. It has been surprising to discover a new use of the story after owing it for 6 years.

Here you can download a cute picture of a butterfly life cycle to cut and use as a puzzle.

Next post… flowers and plants!

Meanwhile enjoy the springtime!

        


---> Quiero leer esta entrada en español


Lucy dedicates a lot of time and love to thinking about and writing the posts she shares with all of you. Because she believes that a better teaching is the key for a better future. If you find any help, value or joy in this blog, please consider becoming a supporting reader. A donation, in any amount, will be gratefully accepted. 

                                                   

    

ANORAK - Summer Special

Still on vacation? Don't miss the latest issue of Anorak magazine!

This month it is 100% dedicated to games and free-time activities. 

Your children will be amazed and entertained by more than 30 pages full of typical summer puzzles such as: find the differences, crack the code, spot the missing objects, join the dots, mazes and many more games.

As always there are great illustrated stories, book reviews and interviews with real children!

And last, but not least, kids will find out how to create peculiar characters that will inhabit their own comic strips! 

Brilliant!  

This August we won't run into any bored little faces! For sure!


More about Anorak - The happy Mag for Kids

Teaching English Through Games: GUESS WHO?

Over these years of teaching children I got the clear idea that every single structure of grammar or word of vocabulary learnt using textbooks must be put into practice.

Why?

Because the use of the language during situations that require an extra effort to express themselves to reach a goal will make those structures and words stay in their brains forever.

How?

If your students don't have any possibility of having 'real English experiences' in their lives, what you can do is to provide them with games.

Yes, GAMES!

Playing any games in English is an excellent strategy to get them involved into the real use of English and you'll reach two important goals at the same time:

on the one hand you can get their full attention and participation with practically no effort, and on the other hand you'll have them practicing what they have previously learnt in a more natural and relaxed way.

One of my favorite games is 'GUESS WHO?'. 

It's really useful to work on questions using the verb to be, the construction have got and the present continuous in the 3rd person, besides vocabulary about physical appearance and articles of clothing.

"Is your person a man or a woman?"

"Is he/she fat/old/young/middle aged?"

"Is he bald?"

"Has he/she got blond/fair/dark/red/white/long/curly/ straight hair?"

"Has he got a moustache?"

"Is he/she wearing a hat/ eyeglasses?

I also recently found another "Guess Who?" , a kind of a copy, which is even a little more complex and complete than the original one because it shows pictures of whole children, not only their faces, wearing a larger variety of clothes and playing some games. 

So my students can practice more vocabulary about colours and clothes, and use the present continuous with the verbs wear and play.

100% engaging! I promise!

It would be so amazing to find even more versions of this game!


       

I design series of activities based on a communicative method that will help children to practice the grammar they're learning at school.

Many ESL activities, I see, are nothing more than 'fill in the blank' exercises that only teach kids how to fill in blanks and miss the whole point of learning to speak and understand a new language.

It's much easier and more fun to learn by doing, and you'll be surprised at how quickly you'll see valuable results. 

You can get my activities on my online store:

http://childreneslworksheets.bigcartel.com

LEARN THE COLOURS! by Stephane Husar and Loïc Méhée

A new school year has just begun and I've been assigned to a pre-school mixed group of old students of mine, aged 5, and new students, aged 3.

The main challenge, in this situation, is how to present topics that my old pupils already know to the new ones without being boring and using material and books they haven't seen yet.

It's a really difficult problem to work out!

Fortunately, I came across this bilingual book collection, 'Aprende Inglés con Cat and Mouse', edited by Anaya, which in some way partially solves my problem, at least until Christmas! 

The first book I've been using over the past two weeks talks about colors, as you can read on the title. 

Cat and Mouse are the main characters who will show many balloons and teach your kids what colors they are.

The book scheme is really basic and repetitive, the pictures are colorful and bright: elements, as already mentioned in my previous post about teaching from books, that make it easier to convince young minds that a new language can be simple and fun to learn.

To complete the color experience I added complementary fun activities to involve all my students' faculties in the learning process.

First day:

I read the book aloud and then I played the game 'Touch something… Red!' 

As you can imagine it's a game where they have to run around the classroom to touch something colored as I require.

Finally we sat down to paint a clown holding several balloons, each one had an assigned color written in it. This way the oldest children could start reading and recognizing the colors' spelling while the youngest ones just had to listen to me pronouncing the color's name and choose the right crayon to paint the balloon.

Second day:

We listened to the Cd that comes with the book, repeating the lines.

Then I drew some balloons on several sheets and let the children paint them using their favorite color.

Afterwards, using the same drawings, we played a game they really love.

There is a child who's the captain of the ship and stands alone at one side of the classroom. At the opposite side, there is the rest of the class (lees one) holding usually flashcards but in this case the sheets previously painted.

Finally there is one kid who's going to be the shark, placed more or less at the same distance from the captain and the rest of the classmates.

When the captain calls out a card, pronouncing these words "I can see, I can see a blue balloon across the see!!!", the student holding the blue card has to run towards him avoiding the dangerous shark's clutches!

This game is also helpful to start to get used to saying adjectives before nouns.

Third day:

I proposed that we perform a little play using the book's lines as a script.

So, two by two, each one holding a flashcard respectively showing a cat and a mouse, recited the lines while the rest of us were holding the sheets with the different colored balloons.

I can say it was great and un unexpected success!

The oldest ones, after just a minute, were acting by themselves and the youngest were, little by little, recognizing and pronouncing the correct balloon's color. 

Beside, it's an activity you can repeat several times over the month. It seems they don't get tired of it! 

After the 'theatre' we sat down to play the "I spy" game. 

Display some animals flashcards on the table (but you can use anything colored), and then say: "I spy something with my little eye…" They must ask "What color is ti?" Tell them the color you're thinking about and they have to point to the card showing the color you said.

In this case the oldest were reviewing animal vocabulary at the same time that the youngest enjoyed the pointing experience. They loved it!

I hope I've been helpful. I'll soon review more books and present more related games and activities.

You can take a look at the whole collection on Anaya's page: Aprendo inglés con Cat and Mouse