Planets

Looking at Planets is great fun as its something children are always fascinated with. We started the class seeing which planets the children knew, Earth and Mars seem to be the two they always remember. We looked at the rest counted how many there are then put them in order from the sun recognising the smallest and biggest ones. After ordering and labelling their Planets the children painted a big Earth and hung an astronaut and space ship off it to make a mobile hanger. We finished making a Space picture with rockets and stars, lots of glitter and shiny paper.

Up in the Sky

With lovely sunny spring days upon us I thought it would be nice to stare up at the endless blue skies and see what is up there. So this week we looked at 'things in the sky' , the children told me everything they had seen in the sky, clouds, stars, rain, kites, .... which we drew and labelled on the big white board. The children then coloured, cut stuck and label the different things. We then used some of our recycled boxes to make planes and finished off making kite in the sky with cotton wool clouds. [ http://www.dltk-teach.com/alphabuddies/mkite.html]

Welcome to two new students Elizabeth and Michael ;]

New term Spring Time

It was so nice to finally get back to Buenos Aires to the sunshine and my beautiful home. I have managed to avoid winter once again and arrive just in time for the start of Spring. This is why I thought a Spring time topic would work well to make the kids aware of the changing seasons. We looked out of the window and discussed what changes we can see in nature and how each season has different things to look out for. I had the children label different parts of a tree to work on letter recognition. We then made our own standing trees and used crate paper to make giant flowers. It was so great to have all the children back and I am so looking forward to this last term.

Married !

So after having left you all for the Argentine winter I can happerly confirm that me and Jose did finaly marry in Tuscany this August. Now reality slowly seeps back and I will be returning to Buenos Aires to start classes the week of September 12th.

Looking forward to seeing all the children again and some new faces I hope !

Family Trees

Last week we made our own family trees. We wrote out on the big white board the names of everyone in each family then the children could copy them onto an apple. A tree was painted and the apples stuck on to create family trees. We also did some collage work by sticking crate paper on a board to create waves and added fish on top.

The Body

Looking at the human body is always a great one for key vocab. I have this big hanging body I like to put up for these kind of classes. The body parts are written on post its and the kids can go and pick them off or use them to copy the names for their own hanging bodies. We also found time to make funny faces putting a range of silly features into an empty face. The song 'Head and Shoulders' is of course also a fun way to help the kids remember the different parts of their bodies.

Australia

We took out the map this week and found Australia. Looking at countries is always a fun thing to do with both children and teenagers, even now I love looking at a map. I asked the kids which countries they knew or had visited. We located them on the world map and then went on to search for the largest and smallest counties in the world. We talked about the animals that lived in Australia and of course the main one we linked was the Kangaroo. I then showed the children some aboriginal paintings of animals and explained that we would try and copy them with our own 'dot' painting. I had made animal shapes for them to draw around then they just had to fill them in with dots. We also made a turtle puzzle with pieces being cut out and stuck down.