Sunday, March 24, 2013

As we part for our Easter break...

Needless to say that this week was filled with excitment as Easter is nearly at our door. The children were full of beans, a bit noisier than usual and I have to say that they were finding it hard to concentrate on anything at all. This is why I more or less drop all on-going lessons and concentrated on fun arts and crafts.
 
First, we painted chicks with a potatoe (this surely intrigued the children at first).
 



 
Then we repeated the activity we did last year: we used colourful buttons to fill in the template  of an easter egg:
 
 
Finally, we made our Easter baskets. First I drew the templates of bunnies on card paper. I got the kids to use their fingertips to dot the template. I then added the goggly eyes and drew the bunnies' whiskers and noses. The rest was up to me. It took me nearly 2 hours to make the baskets (using card paper) and stapple the dotted templates to the front of the basket. The basket also needed a handle and a bunny wouldn't be a bunny without its fluffy tail. So I simply glued a cotton wool at the back of the basket. And all I had left to do was to fill the basket with pastel shredded paper and chocolate eggs (without forgetting a few chicks!).
 



 
 
HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!

Paddy's day!

Here are a few photos summarising what we did to celebrate St Patrick's Day:


 

 
paper snakes
 



transferring activities
 

patterned paper and button were used to make these adorable shamrocks
 




krispie buns with a twist
 

Mother's day

I know, I know.. I should have posted this weeks ago but I got caught up. Mother's Day was on March 10th and this is what we did with the children
 
First, using wooden beads and plain pasta, the children made a cute neckalce for their mams.



 
 
I had gathered tuna tins and got the children to clip wooden pegs all around. They added a few gemstones on the top of each peg. I had bought a cute fabric ribbon at Home Focus which said "Made with Love" and I decided to use it as a finish touch. I am disappointed as I didn't get a better picture of the end result but I can tell you that the kids were extrememly proud of their little "pot" as they called them. They used it to hold the necklace they had made when they offered it to their mams!!
 
 


 
 
Hope you all like it!
 

Monday, March 4, 2013

More phonics

Remember this post this post last year regarding our pre-reading activities?   The children were practising their sounds by using a box containing items representing words starting with the sounds in question. 



We only went as far as the first box last year, as this was something new to our classroom. And yeh yeh... I am proud to announce that the children have moved on to our 2nd box this week. 




 As i explained before, it is important to understand that at that stage children do not need to know the name of the letters. They just need to know their phonic sound. Most of them will actually have assimilated both name and sound, but this is not  requirement. The children love these phonic boxes and this is such a great reward for me... Believe me: finding objects was not an easy task and it took me a good deal of time and patience! So seeing the box being so well used and so popular makes it all worth it!!