Thursday, May 8, 2008

The Children's English Hour - Week Five

It was Earth Day on Tuesday, so this week focused on nature. I created a special new song, based on the wonderful "He's Got The Whole World In His Hands". I needed props for the song so I made a "world" out of felt and filled it with pictures of endangered species and environments - the kids learned about "animals and places that need our help". We passed the "world" around in a circle and as each child pulled out a picture we sang, for example, "He's got the coral reefs in his hands" or "she's got the whales and the dolphins in her hands".


Because the weather has finally decided to be warm, breezy and sunny, and because of earth day, I decided it would be fun to make a toy to honor wind power. We made pinwheels!










Happy Earth Day everyone!

Thursday, April 24, 2008

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!

Sunday, April 20, 2008

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!






Monday, April 7, 2008

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!







Wednesday, April 2, 2008

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.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

The Children's English Hour - Mittwochs


Liebe Eltern, liebe Kinder,

Für den Children’s English Hour Kurs der am Mittwoch den 2. April um 14:30 startet, sind noch einige Plätze frei! Möchtet Ihr mit machen? Spricht uns an!

0511/9202866
0172/4344768

info@childrensartworkshop.com