We're cool - shades & ABCs!

Hiro cracked me up yesterday (for once not belting me in the gonads) with his super cool Korean dictator look, clinging to his cell phone throughout class. The girls are always cool anyway, and have lovely singing voices as you can hear. You can hear lots more Fotobabble creations we have created in classes at http://www.fotobabble.com/media/list?username=LunaJim

We'd love to know what you think - leave us a comment below?!

Scrabble with six year olds?!

Absolutely! And do you know what, it cured a bad case of the "mummy mummies" this afternoon - which was a pleasant surprise!

Our first time to play, and with six players Jim-Sensei had to be fast & loose with the rules (including not keeping a score!)

Main aim was to recognise/match lower case letters ("sensible" font a big bonus!) & to be able to say what the letters they were matching were. Big group = plenty of thinking time (big ABC chain on the wall) & time to locate matches on the board.

Each child took a fistful of tiles (four!) and took it in turns to put two on the board; lots of mutual support, as we were not trying to win. Pick up two more. Play ended when we'd filled the board & run out of letters. Achievement ;)

On the way, incidental game playing/turn taking language (repeated every turn!) as well as letter revision, getting them the right way up & distinguishing especially between p/q/d/b. 

And we sat & played very nicely for over half an hour; that "change activities every 5 minutes with YLs" myth debunked again!

Next time we play, we will win points for putting the last letter in a word to complete it, and for reading it/saying what the picture is ;) And everyone will still be a winner! 

What's your favourite YL board game?

February highlights - a slideshow

A month of snow flurries and icy roads, sniffles & sneezes, colds and cold feet!

But also a lovely month to make things - especially chocolates (for the teacher -we like!) and Valentine's cards for loved ones. I think you'll agree, we had a very nice time :)

Making an alphabet book - not gone digital yet!

Rummaging for Es

One problem I think all teachers have is making sure kids don't forget their ABCs when they are learning PQR, or their a/e/i/o/u when looking at b/d/g/p etc. Remember you can only do something for 10 mins with kids (I disagree, actually, if you get the activity right ie with variety inbuilt)...you only get 45 minutes a week, and it has to be fun, and do songs, and not get anybody trampled, and somebody's got a nosebleed?!

Last year I saw Barbara Hoskins-Sakamoto show how she made a digital A-Z booklet, which I liked very much (using Voicethread). My little charges are not quite there yet for tech, so we have been cobbling together an analogue one instead (we'll scan them later and go web 2.0 then). I like this little scheme as we are recycling the flashcards & everyone ends up with a different mix i.e. each is unique. It is an ongoing little project for the next few weeks - with glue and crayons and everything. (I didn't want to go entirely homemade as the drawing can be unpredicatbly abstract with learners this age - cute of course, but a bit hard to use again later!)

End product will be a handmade A-Z dictionaries with loads of meaning for their owners...this teacher couldn't avoid the fun of making his own :)

Not three yet!

Now I know my ABCs

I know it looks a bit counter-intuitive to have the alphabet reading right to left, but I knew Sho would be turning around to check his progress. He's also left-handed, so I wanted to see if this way around would  make any difference (plus Yusuke  was running capital letters on the other side of the table to 'mirror' his progress). Not entirely scientific but it worked!

Rule of the house is 'If you're using materials, milk them!' So the ABC song at speed, then a rock/scissors/paper (janken) race. Now, taking out a few letters each time to upset the rhythm/actually recognise the letters (and not repeat a memorised pattern) a real challenge they got their teeth into.

Lastly, for fun, same games but using the animals - some unusual ones to slow proceedings down (promote 'need' to ask me 'What's this?' in a hurry - narwhal, squirrel, umbrella bird, jaguar & vulture).Again, take out the easy ones & you've got yourself a dentist's dream - high speed drilling!

Putting things together

I have had this jigsaw puzzley kind of game lying around in our games cupboard since I visited the UK last year - never opened it until today. I wanted to let my lovely Friday afternoon group explore it together, before we split up into two groups from next week.

With a lrage-ish group (six children) this kind of thing can get very grabby quickly, which I don't like... we try to encourage good behaviour in the school and a healthy respect for each other, so please and thank you go a long way. To do this we worked in two groups, looking for the letters to build words - most of which we know. This presented the problem of d/b/p/q all looking alike; the tabs on the pieces were the clue they needed to work out.

To prevent hoarding I asked them to work together on one picture at a time, and to help each other. This is something I always like to see in my class, as the children can teach each other so much more quickly and effectively than I can (if they listen!) - gossiping in this kind of activity is all task focused and therefore a good thing, with gentle direction.