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Last update: May 25, 2010
Rishon English Group - 2009-10
Dear Parents
See you next lesson!
Please MAKE SURE that your child brings his/her yellow folder!!!
Please COME ON TIME! Arriving late disrupts the lesson for everyone.
The Themes - 2009-2010
| June 2010 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| June 7 | June 14 | JUne 21 | June 28 |
| "T" is for (be a) Tree | "V" for Verb ... | "W" is for Weather, Water and Wind | "Z" is the End (of Year Party) |
"T" is for "Be a Tree"
An important lesson: safety around dogs.
Every year, many children are bitten by dogs simply because they don't know the proper way to act around a dog.
A child who is frightened by a dog should NEVER run. The dog will always be faster. An agressive dog may bite, a friendly dog will want to play chase. No matter what, the child may be knocked over.
The thing for the child to do is to "be a tree" - plant your roots in the ground, fold your branches and watch your roots.
Children must also learn the correct behaviour around familiar dogs. Dogs don't like hugging and kissing; don't take food or toys from a dog, don't annoy a dog when it is sleeping, eating, or caring for its puppies.
Click here for lots of information.
"V" is for Vowel
An introduction to the concept of parts of speech: nouns (things), verbs (action and being), and adjectives (describing). A difficult concept for young children, but an introduction to the "theory" of our words. We made up sentences describing pictures and pointing out the verbs; we played "Simon Says a Verb"; We read the story "To Bed or Else.
"W" is for Weather, Wind and Water
Such a hot day deserved some wet fun. We discovered that water only runs downhill, we read the "Wind and the Sun" and we learned weather words.
| May 2010 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 3 | May 10 | May 17 | May 24 | May 31 |
| "N" is for Noise | "O" is for Old Woman | Shavuot theme: "P" is for pyramid | "R" is for Rhythm and Rhyme | "S" is for Shapes |
"N" is for Noise
"N" is for Noise and what better story than the Bremen Town Musicians by Grimm.
After reading and talking about the story, we created our own "animal band."
Here are some nice links to go with the story:
Read the story online.
A silly noisy game!
"O" is for Old Woman
First we spent some time exploring the letters and sounds that make up our names and practicing writing.
We listened and then made up a little book of the song "There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly"
Here are two good links to the song online: one and two(my favorite - love that New York accent!) and here is the link to the book we made
The children received handout pages to practice reading and writing.
"P" is for (Food) Pyramid
Just before Shavuot, we discuss dairy and all foods and the food pyramid.
Heaps and heaps of food-related worksheets.
We learned and practiced a great many food words. Reinforce them constantly or they shall be soon forgotten! E.g. oil, sweets, candies, cake, watermelon, pear, strawberries (and other fruit), lettuce, cauliflower, onions (and other vegetables), bread, cereal, meat (one child knew it as "ham" from Green Eggs and Ham), chicken, fish, cheese, beans, and more!
For homework thay have some workpages which should be brought back completed next week.You can get the work pages here and here. And here is the answer key.
"R" is for Rhythm and Rhyme
We discuss and explore the difference between rhythm and rhyme.
We spent some time copying rhythms and making up rhythms.
We told each other the story of the Gingerbread man. Here is the story online.
Then we did the erasable poem
We started making a gingerbread-man chain, which was to be of rhyming words. Unfortunately, due to a late start (the class is supposed to begin at 15:30 and end at 16:15), we couldn't finish. We will complete it next week. Meanwhile the children are encouraged to decorate their gingerbread men to their delight.
| April 2010 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| April 5 | April 12 | April 19 | April 26 |
| No class Erev Pesach | "Blue & White" Theme | No class Erev Yom Hatzmaut | ."M" is for Music |
Blue & White Theme
First we read the story "What Was I Afraid Of" by Dr. Suess. It is about tolerance and acceptance and teaches the lesson that you should not be afraid of things with which you are not familiar.
Here is an animated version, and here is the story read out.
Then we discussed what we like to do on Yom Ha'atzmaut
We played hidden pictures.
Keywords: Map, flag, picnic, Knesset, Jerusalem, capital city, independence, country, fireworks.
"M" is for Music
We learned the names for a number of musical instruments and then we played and sang the song Oh, We can Play on the Big Bass Drum. Every child had a number of instruments and had to "perform" on them in the correct order.
The version we did used these instruments: Big Base Drum, Violin, Flute, Saxophone, Trombone, Piano, Triangle, Guitar, Tambourine, and we did it in a chain-format (so by the end of the song we were doing all the instruments together).
I think that this was a very successful lesson and would be happy to know how your child enjoyed it!
They got worksheets to take home.
By the way - many more wonderful songs here:
| March 2010 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 1 | March 8 | March 15 | March 22 | March 29 |
| No Class | Post-Purim Theme | K is for Kitten | Pre-Pesach Theme | No class Erev Pesach |
Post Purim Theme
The children drew pictures of their costumes and described them.
We read a rhyming story about dressing up.
K is for Kitten
The children learned a song called "I Want a Purple Kitty,"
We discussed pets
We read a story "What Would You Do with a Kangaroo?"
Pre-Pesach Theme
The children prepared a pop-up Happy Pesach card.
We discussed the story of Pesach in English.
| February 2010 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Feb. 1 | Feb. 8 | Feb. 15 | Feb. 22 |
| "G" is for Garden | "H" is for Hen | No class | No class |
"G" is for "Garden"
We discussed gardens, growing, and vegetables.
We read a story about growing vegetables from Reading A-Z (Level E) and did related workpages.
We played Vegetable Bingo!
Keywords: Tomato, cucumber, carrot, corn, cabbage, onion, eggplant, lettuce, cauliflower and more!
REVIEW THE NAMES OF THE VEGETABLES EVERY TIME YOU EAT!!!
"H" is for (The Little Red) Hen
Talked about wheat and what is needed to turn it into bread.
Read and acted out the story.
Made a card (to be completed at home) which is like a mini story prompt.
Keywords: wheat, seeds, harvest, thresh, grind, mill, bake, oven, bread
Links to workpages:
Rhebus story ...
Alphabetical order
...
Unscramble ...
Wordsearch...
Worksheet
| January 2010 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan. 4 | Jan. 11 | Jan. 18 | Jan. 25 |
| "B" is for Bear | "C" is for Cookie | "D" is for Days of the Week | "F" is for Frog |
"B" is for Bear
We read the story "We're Going on a Bear Hunt"
We created scenes for the each event in the story and acted out the story.
"C" is for Cookie
We read "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
We talked about "cause and effect"
We did a maze using the events in the story
"D" is for Days of the week
Learning to read, recite and have fun with the days of the week.
Writing practice click here for printout
Online game to practice reading
Easy word search to print
Word Search online
We read the book, What Day is Today, and sang the song, Today is Monday, meatballs.
Craft Activity (to take home) - make a "days of the week book."
"F" is for FROG
We read a book about frogs from Reading A-Z (level D - Frog is Hungry) and did accompanying worksheets. For our craft activity, we made an origami jumping frog
| December 2009 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Dec. 7 | Dec. 14 | Dec. 21 | Dec. 28 |
| Pre-Chanuka topic | Chanuka - no class | Little Red Riding Hood - Retold | "A" is for Alligator |
Dec 7- Pre-Chanuka Topic
We played some games and read a story about Hanuka, and sang some English Chanuka songs!
Dec 14 - chanuka, no class
Dec 21 - Little Red Riding Hood, Retold
We read THIS story "Little Red Riding Hood, A Newfangled Prarie Tale
We created toilet-paper puppets
See them here.
scroll down a bit and see a picture of both the models.
For the wolf, you need only to cut out the curved piece to glue to the front of the tube.
Dec 28 - A is for Alligator
We had a lesson on alligators, and did an alligator craft,
But we ended up reading "Spaghetti I Say" due to popular demand.
| November 2009 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov. 2 | Nov. 9 | Nov. 16 | Nov. 23 | Nov. 30 |
| The Seasons | The Extraordinary Egg | Rosie's Walk | The Elephant Song | Spiders |
Nov. 2 - The Seasons
We read Changing Seasons. Vocabulary: summer, spring, autumn/fall, winter, hibernation, migration, and more....
Note: I have downloaded most of the books from the Reading A-Z Site. Just let me know which ones you want, and I will send you the file for printing! A great opportunity. Why not try to order a book a week?
Nov. 9 - The Extraordinary Egg, by Leo Lionni
A story about friendship.
We learned the skill of "prediction."
We talked about animals that hatch from eggs, and also studied the parts of an egg, both raw and cooked.
Vocabulary: Parts of the egg - shell, membrane, aircell, white, yolk, chalaza; extraodinary, pebble, commotion, alligator, platypus
The children received work pages and a template to make their own egg riddle to bring back next week to class.
Nov. 16 - Rosie's Walk, by Pat Hutchins
We learned prepostions: around, under, over, through, past
Vocabulary: chicken coop, haystack, windmill, farmhouse, yard, rake, beehives
Check out the animated version of Rosie's walk!
The children received a page to design their own farmyard, and a little "Rosie" puppet to act out the story. Parents are encouraged to have the child tell their version of the story!
Nov. 23 - The Elephant Song
Although I wanted to read the book "But No Elephants," by Jerry Smath, I deviated a bit to teach a bit of phonics, and the concept of syllables and at least one vowel per syllable. Practice counting syllables in words that the children encounter during the week.
We watched The Elephant Song, by Eric Herman
I gave them the lyrics so you can sing along!
Vocabulary - all sorts of animal noises and motions: slither, bark, bray (donkey), roar, squeek, stomp, quack, chirp, ...
Spiders
There's a Spider on the Floor song
We watched The Very Busy Spider, by Eric Carle
We created a mini book on spiders
We created a spider toy from pompoms, elastic and googley eyes, with which to sing the song!
| October 2009 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct. 5 | Oct. 12 | Oct. 19 | Oct. 26 |
| . | . | . | Green Eggs & Ham |
October 26 - Welcome!
I gave out a printable book for the children to tell a bit about themselves, draw their families and friends, and some of their favorite things. .
The children took them home to finish and bring back the next week to share with the group.
I read the story "Green Eggs and Ham" and we played a rhyming game. I handed out folders and colors to all the children.
I made up this page in order that you can follow what we are doing in class.
Reviewing the vocabulary and talking about what the children did in class is very important in order to reinforce the material and have the children retain some of what they learned in class.
Children are invited to bring books, poems, or anything else they want to share with the class. If you can let me know a day or two in advance, I can adapt the lesson to the topic!
Also, if there is a topic that your child is interested in, please let me know and I can try to make a lesson on it.