Killing time with a jigsaw & YLE Starters practice!

As I have written in the description, this was not a planned practice - we were waiting for her study-buddy to arrive and had already put the massive jigsaw together and talked about the things we could see.

The smaller cards I'm holding would be larger in an actual Cambridge YLE Starters speaking test (and the picture a lot simpler!); there would be eight to choose from, and at most the candidate would be asked to place only three into the picture (so we overdid it a bit here!). Note though, we've never done this before and were coming across new words (which we have not learned eg frog, kite) which we might not know, but we do know they were not apples or fish! Not all the vocabulary is in the Starters word list either - never mind!

My students have not come across prepositions before, so we were learning (and teaching each other) as we went. You can see the dynamic changes instantly with the boy joining us? The girl assumes the role of explainer & intermediary, supporter etc. This would not happen in an actual test - one at a time please! The examiner would have a script & time-plan to follow, too. We would be sat at angle like this, or next to each other. I think it is clear that young learners CAN DO if given time & a fair chance; they don't need translations or super-genki distractions!

We are going to be adding more Cambridge English speaking test practice videos on our Youtube channel this year; you can already find loads of examples of our learners making/singing/doing/giggling (a lot)...mostly fun & games at Luna but this I think the proof of the pudding: a serious CAN DO pay off.

Alphabet graffiti

Time to decorate our pre-school cardboard buildings, gluing on stars, crescents, squares and rectangles - all the shapes we cut out for windows & doors etc last week! Then we experimented with paint-water mixes in a soaked sponge, to use as a dabber thingy - squeeze a letter into it to get 'colour', then stamp the letter onto the walls of the house - alphabet graffiti!

It also seemed a very good idea to autograph our constructions with palm prints; very messy but a must!

We welcomed a newcomer to the fish tank, won at a festival mid-week, and realised the caterpillar has 'gone' from the beans...metamorphosed or been eaten? One of our runner beans has a sprout over 9 feet high and heading for the flat above school - our very own beanstalk situation. Eyes peeled for a giant!

A river inspection after all the rain - the sun is out today:

• We can't see any rocks - there's too much water!
• We can't see any ducks - the water is too fast!
• We can't see any fish - the water's too muddy!
• We can't see a troll - the grass is too high!

We did see a lot of beautiful, big, black dragonflies though - never seen them before. Gorgeous! 

Bob the Builder's puzzle was tricky - three puzzles in one so co-operation essential, and a bit of thought after lunch. Have a good weekend everybody - pre-school is out for a long weekend :)

Trains, vowels and a picnic in November

Hijiri joined us in pre-school on Tuesday - he's been away for a while and was really sweet to see the girls literally take his hand and guide him back into the swing of things; it didn't take him long to get totally immersed in things and 'forget' about mummy! (He was going to come today, too, but mummy got a cold & best stay away from school).

As we know he into his trains, we showed him our train set and he helped us cobble it together - trains crashing into each other, bridges and tunnels in no time at all. Carnage!

We showed him a couple of our favourite songs and games, and he particularly liked the physical aspects of the Hokey Kokey and our vowel race, as you can see.

The weather today was so nice we just couldn't bear to stay inside; we took a blanket and had a picnic lunch on the riverbank outside Luna. The girls enquired about Trolls, but we couldn't see any :) It was a great change of scenery for us, with butterflies and ants to watch. There was a plane circling around, and a troop of kindy kids paraded past us too.

Lovely funshine and healthy appetites, all made us a bit sleepy in the afternoon. We know how Goldilocks felt when she gate-crashed the three bears' house - we watched her on DVD and started to remember the songs! Creative & problem solving puzzles are in high demand, no less so today. A new 60 piece one posed no real challenge, apart from size - took up the whole table!

Jigsaw learning

At first glance, you might think trying to do a jigsaw puzzle in class is a bit of a lazy cop out!

If you just sit there & don't make any English happen, then you'd be entitled to ask for your money back, that's for sure. However, I'm allergic to refunds!

Aim of this class was some very early prep for the YLE Starters speaking test - these lads are too inexperienced to have a bash at that just yet - and to develop some co-operation/reduce snatching.

Method? Well, kind of made up as we went, because it was pretty tough to predict how the boys would respond to this fairly free activity. They actually surprised me in that they found it very hard at first to "see" the picture. So they started asking me simple questions - pointing at the blank next space in the carpet & asking me "What's this?" !

Once we had the frame sorted out, they were off to the races & needed calming down a bit - time for instructions like "Don't walk on it" and "Let him put it there" etc. I like this puzzle because the bonus baggy has mini cards of all the main vocabulary. First we matched, then some dictation (no writing) - "Put the duck on the tent" and so on.

Do they know all the words? No way. I haven't taught them prepositions either...all about context and experimentation. Trying is not the same as being wrong a lot! They were checking their ideas with each other a lot as we got on with it, and quickly coming to conclusions about meanings & teaching themselves - much better way to learn than being 'told' by me!

As we went, other questions were obvious - asking about colours, shapes, number; "Have you got a ...?" or "Do you like ...?" We had a ball, and truly milked this excellent resource for all it was worth. Only problem is, I have only got the one puzzle!