There Are Cats in This Book

...and they like boxes, pillows, yarn, fish and turning pages! Three cats - Moonpie, Tiny and André -in this colorful, interactive book by Viviane Schwarz introduced us to fun new words and opposites.


The children were very excited that they were asked by the cats to "turn the page!" and "open the boxes" and "blow on the page" to help the cats dry off after a fishy tidal wave (the cats were very thankful, and fluffy!) Then, we had fun opening and closing a box, rattling it to see if it was loud or quiet, and putting different colored balls in and out of the box - careful listening was required! Our project this week used yarn - the cats' favorite thing! The children practiced cutting and gluing colorful yarn onto Moonpie, Tiny and André.

The results were fun!

After our project we sang Tall & Small, and played with our parachute making the colorful balls fly up and down. Our stamp dialogue for today was about - what else? A cat! A blue cat like Moonpie! (and we all had to blow on our stamps to help dry them.)


Musical Accompaniment: Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano - Claude Bolling

Vocabulary: page, purr, yarn, red, yellow, blue, box,open, close, pillow, pillow fight, fish, tidal wave, dry, blow, fluffy, goodnight kiss, yawn, blanket, glue, scissors, up, down, tall, small, loud, quiet, listen

Phrases: turn the page; blow on the page; open the box; close the box; shake the box; take the red ball; put the blue ball back into the box; glue the string onto the cat/piece of paper; sticky fingers; wash your hands

Winter 2009

In this round of The Children's English Hour 2009 we are focusing on opposites. It is snowy and cold in Hannover this week, so we began with hot and cold, and Ezra Jack Keats wintery The Snowy Day. After warming up with our Friendship Song, Open, Shut Them, and The Energy Song, we did a little experiment. Each of the children was given an ice cube to hold and as the drips began to drop we learned the words ice, cold, ice cube, and melting. We then moved to the radiator which was hot and put our ice cubes on top to see how long it took for them to melt! Our creative project was foamy fun: who can make a snowman out of shaving cream? Each child was given a tray, a squirt of shaving cream, and some utensils. Several lovely snowmen were indeed built, but some kids found it more fun to put a dollop on their nose, or even mimic daddy shaving! We completed the lesson with Magic Bubbles, a parachute game with colorful mittens, Tall & Small, and the goodbye song. 

Creative musical accompaniment: Bach's Cello Suites performed by Yo Yo Ma

Vocabulary: hot, cold, melt, snowman, snow angel, ice cube, heater, water, drip, shave, shaving cream, spoon, fork

Wintertime Themes

December was a busy time at the Children's Art Workshop! Here is a brief, colorful summary of our English lessons and projects:

Fun with opposites and origami penguins - this lesson was inspired by Oliver Jeffers' wonderful adventure tale Lost and Found.

Every year we make our own wrapping paper. A collection of themed rollers encourage kids to learn wintertime words: reindeer, sleigh, snowflake, tree, snowman, angel, present... 

"It's a dark, dark, cold cold night. Mama stirs the fire. Baby Rustles in his sleep." Olivier Dunrea's "It's Snowing" is one of the loveliest children's books I know.

This two-step project involved creating wintertime scenes with oil pastel on black paper and then spraying the drawings with white paint ... it's snowing!

These faux stained glass leaves look great on a Christmas tree or in a window. It was a longer project, and the kids were great about asking for things in English: may I have some green paper please? May I have white ribbon please?

Thank you, boys and girls, for a wonderful, creative holiday season!

Augustus and his Smile

This week in the Children's English Hour we spent time exploring feelings: happy, sad, and angry. We practiced the song "If You're Happy and You Know It!" with super silly motions - not just clapping your hands! When we sang about being sad we had to pat our heads, and if we were angry we stomped our feet. The kids made up other motions we could do if we were feeling a certain way, so we came up with some great (and sometimes silly) vocabulary! Our story time book for this week was Augustus and His Smile by Catherine Rayner, a lovely book about a rambunctious, curious tiger who searched far and wide for his own missing smile. Because feelings are strongly associated with emotions, the kids were able to paint their own colorful portraits of Augustus the tiger with watercolors!

Musical accompaniment for our creative project: Some playful, early pieces from Thelonious Monk

Vocabulary: happy, sad, angry, smile, frown, watercolors, all the colors of the rainbow, paint brush, cup of water, tiger, clap your hands, stomp your feet, pat your head, jazz, piano

Olivia!

This week we focused on dressing up. What better way than with Olivia! The children found the book very funny, and easy to understand with Ian Falconer's incredible illustrations. Most found Olivia's sand castle building skills the funniest.

For our creative project we made Olivia paper dolls. The children cut out the Olivia shaped dolls and then "dressed them up" with red tissue paper and red markers. Ball gowns were a popular option, as well as bathing suits, and even lederhosen. 

And of course, we listened to Maria Callas during the project.

With a Baaaah Baaaah Here and a Baaah Baaah There...

It was a wild and wooly week at the Children's Art Workshop, continuing our focus on farm animals- mainly sheep!

With A Moo Moo Here and a Moo Moo There!

Never have I heard a song sung so loud. Because most children in Germany are familiar with Old MacDonald, this is a super easy song to learn in English, and a great tool for building animal vocabulary. We always sing it a few times and the last time around I simply point to the animals in the book First 100 Words and the children gleefully belt out the song! And, did you know that Old MacDonald also has tigers, penguins and elephants on his farm? 

After singing lots of our favorite songs in English, we created cow masks!

The animal oriented hour ended with a fun parachute exercise, monkeys jumping on the bed, and lots of mooing!