The Snail And The Whale

Well, one of our favourite projects of the last term was learning all about the long a sound. We used Julia Donaldson's The Snail And The Whale to help us get creative, an idea inspired once again by Belair.

We did lots of activities to sort words into ai, a_e and ay categories. Then we made our Snail and the Whale display, adding words everyday or so to the correct group. We also sang the corresponding Jolly Phonics songs; picked out long a words in stories; created whales in Art; compared long a and short a words, sorting them into groups; read sentences with long a words and then wrote our own using words that we had collected throughout the week or brainstormed as a whole class.

This project would also link well to any topics on the seaside, journeys and non-fiction (information about whales).

William's Wish Wellingtons and Nouns in Year 1

I found a great unit on nouns in Belair Hands On Literacy. 

It's based around the cartoon William's Wish Wellingtons. We watched the cartoon and then discussed nouns. In the first session the children completed a character profile. As usual I included lots of opportunities to use 'has got', one of the language targets for the Trinity exam my kids do at the end of Year 2. 

In the next session the kids created a noun book based on William The Pirate. They had to choose a noun for each page, considering the headings: person, place, thing and animal. The main responses were pirate, the sea, ship and parrot.

We will make some more booklets throughout the week based on more of William's adventures!

British Council Language Assistant 2007

In 2007 I was lucky enough to work as an English Language assistant in Barcelona! The school was lovely and my Spanish colleagues were really motivated and full of great ideas for lessons. I worked at a whole school level, helping with grammar sessions, reading stories and playing games. At the end of the year, we had to prepare Year 6 for an English language game show - a very fun and unique experience!

English Language game show on Catalan TV

Preschool themes

Here are some of the themes I used in my old preschool class.

Africa

Songs: One Elephant; Down on the Savannah, An Elephant Goes Like This.

Themes: animals. hot and cold places.

London

Songs: London Bridge; I'm Driving In My Car: Hickory Dickory Dock

Themes: transport

Sing A Song of Sixpence

Songs: Sing a song of sixpence; Princess in the castle; Princess Pat; Old King Cole

Themes: royalty, counting, baking.

Incy Wincy Spider

Themes: weather/ Halloween

Songs: Incy Wincy; It's Raining, it's pouring; Singing in the rain; Five little pumpkins; Witches come on Halloween.

High Frequency Words

Keyword Kingdom

Every year I create a high frequency word display. This is obviously a great reference for the children during lesson and it can also be a resource for bingo, spelling tasks and other games. 

Keyword Kingdom: Year 2 permanent display to practise high frequency words.

Spiders Explained

Usborne Beginners

This Explanation Unit is based on Spiders...great for grabbing the imagination of all the boys in my Year 2 class! Children enjoy the chance to research this topic. I used Spiders from the Usborne Beginners series to start off the topic. Here are some of the teaching points covered...

Fiction versus non-fiction

Children have a selection of fiction and non-fiction books. They browse through them in groups and chat about the differences. Then we sort the book titles into a Fiction/ Non-fiction table.

Alphabetical Order

Some spider based activities to work on alphabetical order!

Index

Children have lists of words from an index and they have to jot down the page numbers in a table. They will then have a go at writing their own indexes...

Labels and Diagrams

Lots of labeling activities to 'tell some one what something is'...

Glossary

Little definitions of spider related words such as web, silk, egg etc.

Write An Explanation!

Finally children can write an explanation about how spiders create their webs. I use videos on Youtube to introduce this part...

Library Time

We set up a class library full of non-fiction books. Children read them when they finish their task and during silent reading/ group reading activities. The boys in particular enjoy the books on offer. Usborne have a lovely collection of non-fiction books for children.

Native American Art Project

This Autumn in Year 1 we did a Native American Art project. Whilst we were being creative in our Art room, we listened to Native American music. As a plenary, we listened to some simple tales, based mainly on the animals encountered by the Native Americans. Here are some of the finished pieces and our final display.

Native American Scenes

Totem Pole

Christmas Nouns

'Twas The Night Before Christmas...

I use this poem at Christmas to help teach nouns. Children listen to the poem and in pairs jot down any nouns they hear. They sort these nouns into three columns - person, place or thing. They enjoy working as a team during this activity. 

Getting Creative...

I then allocate a noun to each child and we use art materials and LOTS of sparkly glitter to create pictures for our display. ICT can be incorporated too as children can print out labels for their nouns - remembering of course to use capital letters with proper nouns.

Displays

 I have to say, this one of my favourite parts of the job. I LOVE doing classroom displays with the children, especially if we can make them really eye-catching and colourful. Here are some of the displays I have done in the past with various classes.

Fantasy Stories. Year 1.

Electricity Year 2

Life Cycles. Year 1.

Science. Year 1.

Harry Potter. Year 2.

We're Sailing to the Galapagos! Year 2.

Hundertwasser Project. Year 2.

Spanish Story unit. Year 4.

Portraits Unit - based on Andy Warhol. Year 2.

Plurals

Plural Soup

This little activity fits in well with instructional writing and recipes. We discuss the basic plural -s and then add ingredients to make a soup. We also practise 'there is' and 'there are'.

Descriptive Writing

How to Catch a Star

by Oliver Jeffers

This is a lovely story about a little boy that wants to catch a star. Again I used the Hamilton Trust planning scheme to get ideas for this unit. Browse down for our display work.

Brainstorming Adjectives

Brainstorm adjectives about a star...bright, golden, glittery, luminous etc

We also describe the rocket...a red speedy rocket, a fast gigantic rocket, a fun  pointy rocket.

How would you catch a star?

We always have a lively discussion about how we could possibly catch a star.

What will you do with your star?

Children write about what they would do when they catch their star. Some cute answers from the past include taking the star to see the Eiffel Tower in Paris and taking the star out to a birthday dinner.

Similes

After reading Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, we discuss similes...what can a star be like? A star is like a diamond, a wish, a piece of salt, a speck of glitter.

Writing poems

We finish off by writing our own night time poems.

Diary Writing and Recounts

Recounts

This is one of my favourite Year 1 topics! Thanks to Hamilton Trust again! The story is very cute and the children find wombats hilarious! 

It is a great time for learning the days of the week and discussing personal experiences.

Adjectives

The children draw a wombat in the middle of their page and then we have a lively discussion about how to describe our wombat. We end up with words like hungry, sleepy, furry, cute, chubby etc.

Children then write sentences using their adjectives. 

Writing a diary

We discuss how we use our school diaries and why they are useful to us. We sing songs about days of the week. We create our own diaries by adding the things we do on a particular day of the week.

Writing a recount

Next on the agenda in this topic is writing our own recounts of a day out the children have experienced. We start by watching Wallace and Gromit in A Grand Day Out.

Then we set about thinking and discussing any memories we have about days out. Finally we write up our recount about our day out.