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If you're happy and you know it

28 February 2012

Introducing a song book to your students is a great way to help develop their speaking and listening skills. Each week the students will learn a new song to sing and recite. They will learn the words, actions and also complete a craft to reinforce the key concept/s of the song.

The first song we learnt was 'If you're happy and you know it'. This song was introduced whilst we were learning about feelings. After learning the original version the students discussed different ways to move/act to different feelings e.g. If you're angry and you know it stamp your feet, If you're excited and you know it high five a friend.

We also completed a craft to match the song. This will be displayed in each students song book next to the song print out. To create the craft the students first made handprints in paint. They then looked through magazines to find facial features of happy people, and glued these onto a head template. Finally the students coloured in the t-shirts on the head templates and added wool for hair.

I then displayed the pictures together under the title 'If you're happy and you know it'. Each letter in the word happy is presented on a patterned paper plate. I also added a description of the task to the display so that when the parents are looking at their childs work they have a better understanding of the task.

You can download everything you need to complete this activity here.

Remember 'keep calm and pretend it's on the lesson plan!'

Top Teacher xx

Nifty Names

24 February 2012

Teaching young students how to write their name correctly is an important (but time consuming and occasionally frustrating!!) aspect of Early Childhood Education. When I found out that I was teaching Kindergarten this year I went straight to the oracle (AKA Anita!) and this is one of the most important things she told me to do...

I have created this name chart to assist the students in my class with writing their own name on their work.

Each pocket on this chart is half an envelope which is the stuck down with double sided tape. Each pocket has the students name and photo on the front (photos have been blurred for privacy reasons) and inside each pocket are cut up name tags. When the students begin working on a new piece of work they are sent to the chart to find their pocket and retrieve a name tag. To begin the name is written in outline form. Once they have mastered this the name tag will be in dotted print.

How do you teach your students to write their name? We would love it if you would share your tips with us on our Facebook page.

Remember keep calm and pretend it's on the lesson plan!

Top Teacher xx

Marvellous Mat Manners

22 February 2012

Use these cute picture prompt cards to create your own Mat Manners poster. This will help prompt and remind your students of your expectations during mat time. The 6 behaviours we have focused on include: eyes are looking, sitting nicely, ears are listening, mouth is closed, thinking brain on and hand up to talk.

On this poster I have attached each picture card using velcro spots. That way if I want to focus on a specific behaviour I can remove it from the poster and place it on our whiteboard. At the beginning of each mat session we quickly revise each picture card, as I read it the students do the action.

Sitting nicely - legs crossed tap hands on knees, Mouth is closed - finger to lip/zip lips closed, Eyes are looking - check students eyes, Ears are listening - cup ears, Thinking brain on - fingers to temple, Hand up to speak - raise hand.

Remember keep calm and pretend it's on the lesson plan!

Top Teacher xx

News.. Love it or hate it??

20 February 2012

Most teachers dread the monotonous 'news telling session', however we know how important it is for their oral language development. Hopefully these cards will make the news telling sessions a little bit easier to bear!

This is a set of 5 news telling cards to help your students retell events. It includes when, who, what, where and why. Each card is A4 however you can print them smaller to suit your needs.

Ways to use these cards include:

Have them up on the board and students move a magnet to each card as they talk about.
Have them up on the board and another student listens to the news teller and as each card is spoken about they can put a magnet on it. At the end see which ones have magnets on them and if there are any that do not, go back and talk about them.
Have them up on the board and students use a 'pointer' to touch each card as they talk about it.
Lay them on the ground and students step/jump on each one as they talk about it.
Hand the cards out to students in the 'audience' who then have to listen for that specific information. They then have to retell that information at the end of the news. Eg the person who has the 'when' card has to listen for when the news occurred and will then share this information with the class. If this news teller did not inlcude this information it provides an opportunity to go back and talk about it.

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