Divercity

For our second study visit we went to Divercity on June 19^th.

Divercity is a city where children pretend to be adults and work in a fun way to earn money.   They received 200 Divis to start working in the different jobs.  They had more than 50 places to choose from like taking care of babies in Huggies, helping animals in the pet shop, helping people in the hospital as doctors, in Wong being cashiers; putting out a fire as firefighters, they worked washing cars, filling cars with gas, and much more.  However, there were also places where they had to pay like the gym, stadium, and dance studio.  They also had to do activities to do with the bank; for example, they had to open an account and use a card to take out money; they also got their DNI and could take driving lessons to get their driver´s license.

Teachers were only watching and taking pictures because they couldn´t enter any of the places.  Children had to investigate and follow instructions attentively to do things on their own.

All the students had a very good time!!

Happy Father`s Day

Daddy
I feel safe when you are with me;
You show me fun things to do;
You make my life much better;
The best father I know is you.

I'm happy you're my Dad
And so I want to say
I love you, Dad, and wish you
A Happy Father's Day!

Big Time

I was born on June 2^nd and this last Friday, June 1^st I received a great surprise when a teacher called me to my classroom.  My students were well organized waiting for me with an amazing birthday.  They have prepared a nice dance and a beautiful book with their pictures and drawings.  A delicious chocolate cake was handling a candle while everybody was singing happy birthday.  I also received the great surprise to have my siblings with me during the celebration.  This was a very nice moment.  I would like to thank all parents for all the biscuits and gifts they have sent, Miss Paola and Miss Cristina because they worked on this nice party but especially to my dear students because they have shown a lot of enthusiasm and love to me.

Thank you very much!!!!

Red Noses

As I mentioned before in my article English Class we start every week with a story.  Last week we read the story Red Noses.   This story showed us another adventure of the Robbinson family with the characters the students already know. 

 After reading the story I could see that my students were recognizing the words faster and that it was helping them to read. Moreover, we checked the vocabulary words, and we played on the Smart board identifying the words we had learnt as well as other words.  I feel very happy as the students are showing a lot of enthusiasm when participating as well as feeling proud of their work.

This story helped us to teach colours and that is why after an activity with colour cards the students were able to choose a colour to paint their nose.  After that, they had to present themselves saying “My name is ______ and I have a green nose”.  The colour was the one they had on their nose.

Finishing, this speaking activity we moved on to the writing activity where students played with cards on the board writing the sentences in order.

This was a wonderful experience with colour noses!

You can look at what happened through  the pictures. 

I am including three web pages we played in class.  They are about colours.  Have fun!

http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/language-games/paint-it/clowns-face

http://www.roythezebra.com/reading-games/high-frequency-words-colours.html

http://genkienglish.net/coloursgame.htm

Changing Materials

In our Science class I told my students that a material was anything that was made of matter, for example; wood, plastic, wool, cotton, sand, etc., and we also talked about what humans do with them. How they can change these materials to make useful things for us.

We did an experiment in class where children could observe how some materials changed.  We made plasticine. This experience was amazing!

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

1 cup flour

½ cup salt

½ cup water

1 tsp.vegetable oil

½ tsp. food coloring

Steps

In a large bowl mix the salt and flour.  Add the oil and the water little by little.  Add the food coloring.  If you feel that the mix is sticky you have to add more flour.

We also made an experiment by observing how jelly dissolves into hot water because of temperature and how also size and shape changes.  Then students were able to deduced what will happen if we freeze it again.

I added to the theme some games on the Smart board that were very useful to help children to classify materials according to their characteristics.  Finally students worked in groups looking for pictures that illustrated things that were made by man and materials.  Children made nice presentations.

Congratulations, good job!

Here are the web pages of the games.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/scienceclips/ages/6_7/grouping_materials_fs.shtml

http://www.warrinerprimaries.com/exes/sortingmaterials.exe

Changing Materials on PhotoPeach

Ordinal Numbers

We read the story “Ten Little Rubber Ducks”.  After reading the story, we discussed about ordinal numbers.  I handed out stick puppets´ ducks labeled with ordinal numbers.  Children had to line up and stand in the correct order from 1^st to 10^th.  Then I called out different ordinal numbers and the class identified who was in that position.  I finally played some games in the Smart board to reinforce what we had learnt.

Read the story here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMxQxPrEyWI&feature=related

Enjoy the web page with games http://www.internet4classrooms.com/skill_builders/ordinal_numbers_math_first_1st_grade.htm

First Study Visit

Study visits provide children to learn and interact with nature.

We went to a farm called Fauna and Fun. In this place children learnt about plants and animals.

Everything was well organized.  We were divided into groups.  First we painted and decorated pots to plant a plant.  Then, we observed and touched exotic animals like tarantulas, snakes, a porcupine, and a turtle.  This was awesome. Next, we visited the vegetable garden were the students listened about the process of making special soil called humus for plants.  We followed the guide to see the farm animals; we fed them and touched them.  They were lovely.  We were really amazed when we observed a zebu; this is a huge animal but tender.

Study Visit on PhotoPeach