Grumpy Dumpling
Ili's kindergarten blog
Colour Matching Activity
I’ve found a very nice activity from Playdough to Plato and I wanted to share it with you: popsicle stick patterns. It comes with a free printable.
The kids got to match the colours of our popsicle sticks to the ones on the paper, and also to practice the colours in English. Each child first said the colours on their card, then placed the sticks in the pattern.
For those of you who love quiet time boxes/ busy boxes, this would be a suitable activity for 3-5 y.o..
Colours, Colours Everywhere!
So…the kids just returned from the winter holiday. Some of them forgot some words and on top of that, we have new kids in our group. That’s why we decided to review basic colours.
Gogo took us to his own planet and taught us and his friends some colours. You can check this great Gogo’ Adventures with English episode here.
Also, we listened to a fun Super Simple song, called “I See Something Blue”. The video can be found here and the lyrics on their website.
We also practised scissor skills by making these coloured bracelets. We just cut some straws in shorter pieces and then put them over the pipe cleaners of the same colour.
Tomorrow we’re going to have fun playing with coloured rice: we’re going to pretend we’re cooking and play some vocabulary games. Check the photos for some ideas.
I love teaching colours, because there are thousands of ideas for crafts, songs, games….anything you can think of. If you want to play some educational computer games about colours, be sure to check British Council Kids. The painting games that they have online are great! This one is suitable even for my 2-4 y.o. who have just started learning English.
Action Box
Kids love pretending to be something or someone else – they enjoy being doctors, cooks, lions, birds….Their imagination develops aongside their gross motor skills.
That’s why I’ve created an “action box”, with basic verbs and nouns (mostly animals). Even young kids with a different mother tongue than English will understand the instructions.
You can download it here.
This weekend I’m giving away this printable to a lucky person – If you are interested in participating, go to my FB page, Grumpy Dumpling.
Feelings and Emotions
Every morning during circle time, we talk about feelings – how we are feeling at that moment, what makes us feel happy/sad/angry and why, or what we do to make others feel happy/sad/angry/etc.
We have a song about feelings – another one from Super Simple Learning – that we modified a little bit. It’s called “Can You Make a Happy Face” and these are our lyrics:
Can you make a happy face,
happy face, happy face,
Can you make a happy face,
My dear children?
We’ve used ice cream stick puppets (see photos below) to learn the words. Sometimes we also play “The Happy Face Game”, where we hide flashcards with feelings in the classroom and after singing, the kids look for them. There are tons of ideas on feelings and emotions…these are just a few of our favourites.
Songs about Colours
Throughout the first years of kindergarten, children will learn to recognize colours, by practising locating objects of a specific colour when asked, ordering objects of different colours into matching colour groups, comparing objects on the basis of characteristics and physical properties, such as color, shape, size, etc.
Also, by using water colours, markers, chalk, pencils, glitter, playdough, oil pastels, and paints for art and crafts, most of them will understand how primary colours mix to create other colours.
Colour is a basic concept that kids need to grasp, and that’s why Circle time is perfect for colour songs - routine helps kids memorize better. Here are a couple of songs that my kids enjoy:
Sesame Street: OK Go - Three Primary Colors
Super Simple Songs: I See Something Pink
Super Simple Songs: I See Something Blue
… (Red, red) is the colour I see,
If you’re wearing … (red) than show it to me,
Stand up and turn around (or “Stand up and give a bow”)
Show me your … (red) and then sit down.
Sometimes we have treasure hunts with coloured building blocks or plastic shapes, while singing I See Something Pink/Blue from Super Simple Learning.
If you have very young kids who just started learning English, you can also watch this episode (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZk6skQho6k ) from Gogo’s Adventures with English. It’s a funny show that teaches kids basic words and phrases in English.
Flashcards for Your Morning Circle
Flashcards are a very useful resource when you teach younger kids, especially when we talk about a foreign language. You can use them to play fun vocabulary games, such as Word Twister, Word Hopscotch, Which One Did I Hide?, Word Hunt, etc.
For Circle Time, we use flashcards for the weather, the four seasons, numbers, shapes, colours and other categories.
You can download some of my flashcards from my TPT shop: Grumpy Dumpling.
Morning Circle Songs
Morning circle is the perfect time to teach greetings and to get to know each other. The kids talk about how they feel, what they like (food, colours, toys, seasons, weather), about their families and friends, about what they had done the day before, etc.
These things are very important for a teacher to know, because then she/he can include these ideas into daily activities, such as art and crafts, physical education, music, math, and reading. For example, if a kid likes the colour green and cars, he will be more enthusiastic about an activity that involves these two – you can make a parking lot with numbered lots and cars; then the kids have to park their favourite cars on the space that has the same number. This way, the kids practise number recognition with their favourite toys.
We start morning circle by singing "Hello, Hello" and saying who is present. We have a lot of songs for saying “Hello” and our names, but here are our favourites:
Here We Have Many Friends (tune: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star)
Here we have many friends
And … (name) is one of them
He/She can hop and he/she can bow
He/She can turn around right now
He/She can show us marching feet
Now … (name) please take a seat.
Good morning to you!
Good morning to you (clap your hands), good morning to you (clap your hands),
Good morning, good morning, good morning to you (clap your hands)
Good morning … (name) (clap your hands), good morning … (name) (clap your hands),
Good morning, good morning, good morning to you! (clap your hands)
Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello and how are you?
Hello, hello, hello, hello to you, and you, and you
(then hum it, then whisper it)
Teacher: Good morning … (name) how are you today?
Child: Fine, thank you!
Teacher: Can you tell me who’s sitting next to you?
Child: … (name of the kid next to him/her)
Good Morning Mr. Rooster – from Super Simple Learning
Hello! – from Super Simple Learning
Hello, Hello! – from Super Simple Learning
I hope you enjoy these songs! Be sure to check out all the songs from Super Simple Learning: they are great for teaching English.