How's the Weather?

The aim of this activity is to learn weather vocabulary and to create a rutine, beginning our classes with the question: What's the weather today?
It could be very interesting to make all together a "Weather clock" and the children could look outside every day and record each day's weather.




Let's prepare some flashcards, representing cloudy, sunny, partly cloudy, rain, snow, storm, windy and winter sun, to say then a Weather rhyme, doing the actions and showing the flashcards. 
We can stick the flashcards on the wall, in our Weather corner.

 

Weather rhyme, by Vanessa Reilly and Sheila M. Ward:

It's snowing, it's snowing
brr, brr, brr,
It's raining, it's raining
pit-a-pat, pat,
It's sunny, it's sunny,
phew! phew!
It's windy, it's windy,
whoosh! whoosh!

Songs are a great help to enhance language development. So, I would suggest practicing with the song: The Sun Comes Up!.
We can sing this weather song all together, doing the mime.

And to end up, we ask the children to look at the pictures on the left, with the different weather. Now they have to draw lines from each picture on the left with the drawing on the right. 

Counting numbers with rhymes

Rhymes are a very fun way to learn vocabulary, besides it can help to work rutines. Children love rhymes and they can learn rutines and skills.
Let's learn this fragment of the rhyme "One, Two, Buckle my Shoe". Children will learn to count numbers.

One, two, tie my shoe.

Three, four, shut the door.

Five, six, pick up sticks.

Seven, eight, stand up straight.

Nine, ten, count again!

At first, we say the rhyme doing all the actions described in it, and encouraging the children to join in.

Then, together with the children, we say the rhyme and act it out.

Now, let's sing a fun numbers song called "Ten Little Numbers", to count from 1 to 10 with a very catchy tune.

With the game "How many apples", we can learn to count from one to ten and to ask using the question phrase "How many" to response with numbers.  Click on the link below:

http://www.eslgamesplus.com/videos/numbers-how-many-apples-esl-video/

How are you feeling today?

I think it is a good idea to ask the children how they feel when we begin our class. It can help them to express emotions.


Let's prepare a poster and some flashcards with different feelings. Every morning, at the beginning of the class, we can stick the flashcard on the poster, after asking them...
HOW ARE YOU FEELING TODAY?

Every time we show them the flascards, we can teach them the words and mime facial expressions.

Click on image to download the worksheet and print out the pictures to prepare the flashcards.

Now, let's listen to the song: 
IF YOU'RE HAPPY AND YOU KNOW IT

We listen to a very simple version of the traditional song, which is more suitable for young learners.

We sing the song all together and do the actions described:
Clap, clap / Big smile / Sniff, sniff / Sad face / Stamp, stamp / Frown

Storytelling: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

One way to introduce preschoolers to English is through storytelling. 
The Very Hungry Caterpillar is one of my favourite illustrated albums. 
It is a timeless and simple story. And it is a wonderful resource to practice English.


We will enjoy listening to the story
We will learn vocabulary: days of the week, colours, fruits 

Firstly, we show the book to the children.
Then, we can watch a nice video...

And now... Maths! Counting with fruits.
We can make copies and distribute the templates. Click on image to get the printable.