Magic Bubbles

Taro Gomi, Hong Ting and Koi

My project for week for was inspired by the fun book "Where's the Fish" by Taro Gomi - you might be familiar with Taro Gomi's well-known "Everyone Poops" - and the traditional chinese Zheng music of Hong Ting.

After singing our favorite English songs "Bubble, Pop"" and "Open Shut Them", we read "Where's the Fish?" which was great fun. Taro Gomi's little red fish is quite adventurous and finds himself hidden among all kinds of stuff. The kids loved searching for the little fish and shouted "There's fishy!" with me when they found him.


Then we rolled up our sleeves, donned smocks and got Zen with bubble wrap.







The result: beautiful Koi with colorful scales!

More proof that The Children's English Hour is for Dads!

Andy Warhol's Colors

Week three of The Children's English Hour was all about color... especially Andy Warhol's colors. In Andy Warhol's world, anything goes - even blue horses and pink cows in a row!



Warhol did any thing he pleased with color and so did we with surprise bags!

The Children's English Hour - Week 2

What do caterpillars and toes have in common? Our lesson this week! After fun with our favorite songs, we read Eric Carle's masterpiece "The Hungry Caterpillar". There are so many wonderful creative projects to do that support learning language concepts introduced in this book: numbers, fruit, food, pupation...

This time, though, we focused on toes! Toe-print caterpillars that is!

Squishy Turtle

Last week we started off the Children's English Hour spring classes with a look at some sea creatures. The fabric book Squishy Turtle and Friends from Priddy Books is a cheerful, amusing introduction to our friends in the sea from crabs who know how to pinch tiny toes to oysters with a precious gift hiding deep inside. I was also excited to sing "Bubble Bubble Pop!", a song about how aquatic animals move in the water and a true crowd pleaser!
Then we made hand print blue crabs. Most kids don't believe me when I tell them that crabs are blue, so I have to show them a picture.


This is also a wonderful way to get the kids to learn their color words: "Crabs are green!" "No!" "What color are they?" "Crabs are orange!" Occasionally we'll see differently colored crabs as well, as the kids open themselves up to their creative energy. One of the most enjoyable aspects of this project is painting color onto our hands!





Today's musical accompaniment was the ever-enjoyable Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano by Claude Bolling.