English sounds, INFANTIL/PRESCHOOL, Kindergarten books

Dear Zoo literacy activities

“I wrote to the zoo and they sent me a…”… I would never have imagined how engaging a simple beginning of a story could be. So, Dear zoo has become in a must have book in our classroom library.

“I wrote to the zoo and they sent me a…”……nunca pensei que un comezo tan sinxelo poidera chegar ser tan atractivo para os rapaces. Así que, Dear Zoo pasa a ser un imprescindible na nosa biblioteca de aula.

Why do children love Dear Zoo? Firstly, because of its subject matter. Kids always enjoy visiting zoos, talking about their pets, seeing animals on TV or wacthing animation films like Madagascar.

Por que lle gusta tanto? En primeiro lugar, pola súa temática. Os cativos gozan visitando zoos, falando das súas mascotas, mirando pelis de animais,…

Before reading the book, this book provided a great opportunity for activating prior knowledge while sharing experiences through simple questions like (in their mother tongue):
Who has been to a zoo? 
What was it like? 
What animals did you see there? 
What animal was your favourite? And so on. 

Asemade, antes de lelo, partindo dunha serie de preguntas na lingua materna, permitiunos compartir experiencias e activar coñecementos previos.

Secondly, because of its simple, repetitive and funny language. The lift-the-flaps make it engaging and suspenseful read both ways. After reading it a couple of times, children involved in the story naming the animals in the cages or moving like the animals.

En segundo lugar, grazas a súa linguaxe simple, repetitiva e divertida. As solapas fan que os rapaces sen enganchen a historia grazas ao suspense que provoca intentar adiviñar que hai dentro de cada gaiola. Despois dun par de lecturas en voz alta, todos querían dicir o nome dos animais ou imitar o seu movemento, o que os fixo partícipes da historia.

Thirtly, because of the vocabulary that allows us to talk about. It provided not only the opportunity for learning animal words in a fun way, but practising colours and adjectives, comparing animals or making different conecctions. I read the book aloud, page by page and then I paused and asked children if they were able to name or point to something that was big or heavy or someone in the class who was tall or grumpy. 

Por último, o vocabulario. Dear zoo no só nos dou a oportunidade de aprender o vocabulario dos animais dun xeito divertido senón que nos permitiurepasar as cores e adxectivos. comparar animais e establecer diferentes conexións. Parando en cada páxina, pedinlles que sinalaran obxectos da aula grandes ou pesados ou a alguén que fora alto ou algo gruñón.

Moreover, we focused on how letters sound. Reading is not an aim in kindergarten but teaching letter sounds is one essential step in teaching kids to read. This can be done in various ways, but one of the most effective methods is to use flashcards.

Ademais, centrámonos en aprender o son das letras. Aprender a ler non é un obxectivo de Ed. Infantil pero recoñecer o son das letras é un paso esencial para aprender a ler, sobre todo empregando tarxetas.

 PHONEMIC AWARENESS & WORD RECOGNITION

INITIAL LETTERS & TRACING

Art Crafts, Winter Project

LOVE POLAR BEARS

Valantine’s Day is here and our polar bear is in love!

This is one of the most famous winter celebration so, we decided to involve Valantine’s Day in our winter project. We celebrated it in class with some cute artcrafts.

CLICK TO GET THE PRINTABLES

Love bears 3D krokotak

Love bears card krokotak

Kindergarten A

Kindergarten B

Winter Project

Polar Bear. What do you see?

Winter is here, and with it comes an opportunity to incorporate meaningful winter activities in our classrooms! 

I’m excited to share with you some amazing winter themed resources for your classroom! Here you have some activities to introduce this topic in kindergarten. 

WINTER LITERACY ACTIVITY

Read!

Children love Eric Carle’s books because his books always offer children the opportunity to learn something about the world around them through simple stories and wonderful illustrations.

Below is an adapted book based on Eric Carle’s “Polar Bear. What do you hear?”. Upon reading, learners can identify animals, winter activities and numbers.

WINTER MOVEMENT ACTIVITIES

For added fun, use these winter activities yoga to stretch together as a class!

Get ready to roll, slide, clap and bounce in this winter snowman brain break and movement activity “Snowman Dance”. Kids movement activity for winter and January music and movement activities by Sandra at Sing Play Create.

WINTER MATH ACTIVITIES

Make practicing visual discrimination and counting lots of fun with this winter themed activity

SNOWFLAKE ART CRAFT

A great snowflake crafts for kids are simply by buttons, take a sheet of cardboard, carve it out in the shape of a snowflake, stick a white sheet to it, then just stick some beautiful button to it or the glittered buttons

WINTER SONGS

Little Snowflake brings together the same team that created the Twinkle Twinkle Little Star video to tell a short story of a snowman brought to life by the magic and beauty of snowfall. As he tries to ice skate, he learns the value of perseverance and teamwork. Along the way, we get to learn and review parts of the body (head, nose, hand). I hope you love it!

Autumn projects, Good books to read in autumn

We’re going on a leaf hunt

It’s time to say “bye-bye summer” and “hi autumn”. The days are shorter and the nights are cooler, but leaves are turning yellow, red, brown and orange, filling the forest with wonderful colours. It’s time to welcome this new season into our classroom and take the opportunity autumn gives us to plan a leaf hunt.

But before starting our new adventure, we chose one of the most popular books for younger kids with a catchy song and fun illustrations perfect to pair with this activity is We’re Going on a Leaf Hunt by Steve Metzger.

Art Crafts, Spring project

Napkin butterfly artcraft

We are really excited because spring is here. Warm and sunny days, colours everywhere, animals waking up, insects flying around, trees turning green and flowers growing make us feel really happy. So, we decided to celebrate this new season with this cute butterfly artcraft. You only need some everyday craft supplies like paper napkins, felt-tips and pippe cleaners for the body. Glue on a couple of googly eyes, and you’re done!

And , let your children’s imagination flies!!!

For younger kids, this is a great way to practice fine motor skills, as well as learning about the seasons and simply having fun with hands-on activities.

INFANTIL/PRESCHOOL

Kindergarten 20-21

In spite of all the steps we had to take last year to protect ourselves and reduce the risk of catching or passing COVID-19, we managed to enjoy in our English class developing a great amount of activities.

Here you have a summary of lot of them. It was something we had pending


A pesares de todo o que tivemos que facer para protexernos e reducir o risco de coller ou propagar o Covid-19 durante o curso pasado, arranámonos para poder disfrutar das clases de inglés.

Aqui vos deixamos un resumo de parte delas. Era algo que tiñamos pendente.

feelings, Good Books for the first day of school, INFANTIL/PRESCHOOL, The Colour Monster

The Colour Monster Goes to School

Every new school year we start school with a suitcase full of books and stories especially selected for enjoying and learning at the same time.

Our first book was The Colour Monster Goes to School, a perfect story for the first day of school because everybody ever felt like The Colour Monster does….excited and nervous when he arrives , wondering what school will be like.

Como cada ano, comezamos o curso cunha maleta chea de libros escollidos especialmente para aprender e gozar. O noso primeiro libro titúlase The Colour Monster Goes to School, unha historia perfecta para os primeiros días de cole. Porque….sabesde? Quen non se sentiu algunha vez como o monstro de cores, vnervioso e excitado preguntándonos como sería o cole?

It’s perfect to introduce the vocabulary related to school objects and facilities, colours, actions, …

Ademais é perfecto para presentar o vocabulario dos distintos espazos do cole e dos obxectos da clase, así como para traballar as cores, accións,…

After reading the story, my preschoolers created different signs for our classroom and other facilities at school. They were really thrilled with the idea of giving the other teacher their signs. And so were teachers!!!

Despois de ler o conto, os meus rapaces crearon uns carteis para a nosa clase e outras clases e espazos do cole. Non sabedes o encantados que estaban por agasallar aos profes cos seus traballos. E os profes tamén!!!!!

This activity also allowed us to connect, for the first time, sounds and letters in English through facial gestures and body movements.

Esta actividade premitiunos conectar por primeira vez os sons e as letras en inglés empregando movementos e xestos.

This year, we are participating in a Etwinning project with other European schools called You feel, I feel. So, it was a good opportunity for us to work with emotions (HAPPY, SAD, NERVOUS) and discover when and why we feel as we do. And …Do you know? We all are happy to be at school again!!!!

Este ano estamos participando nun proxecto Etwinning con outros colexios europeos chamado You feel, I feel. Asi que, foi unha boa oportunidade para traballar as emocións e descubrir cando e por que me sinto como me sinto. E sabedes? Estamos felices de estar no cole de novo!!!!!