Crazy about Clothes!

Hi everyone, I'm back again with another thematic unit, this time based on the topic of clothes. Hope you find it useful in your planning! I have tried to include as many useful resources as possible!

Geography: Clothes from around the world
We talked about clothes we wear for special occasions and when and where these occasions might be. We then talked about the clothes they wear in other countries for special occasions. We followed Teddy on Tour to some countries to check out what they wear:           
                

Some children tried on a sari, a furry coat and a kilt and we all tried to see if we could remember which country they are worn in!

We then wrote in the country names under these pictures (with help from the board!) and coloured them in beautiful bright colours!

History: Growing and Changing

We talked about how different the clothes we wear now are to when we were babies. We talked about why we can't wear the same things babies/adults wear. We dressed the paper dolls on the board (baby, child, adult) using clothes I got online, printed and cut out. Here are pictures of the paper dolls and their clothes.

Baby clothes      Child's clothes

Baby paper doll             Child paper doll

Adult paper doll       Adult dolls clothes

We then drew pictures of a child, baby and adult and the clothes they would wear and labelled them appropriately.

Science: Materials
We played a game where we had to run around the hall and touch different materials I called out. (Wood, plastic, metal, glass, cloth, touch something smooth, soft, rough, that can tear, that won’t tear etc). We then looked at some materials I had collected: Woolly jumper, leather runner, cotton t-shirt, furry collar, feather filled jacket and discussed whether the material was hard, soft, rough, smooth, would it tear, was it waterproof? Then I got them to walk to the picture of the animal/plant (laid out on the floor of the PE hall) that the material was made from.  After we had discussed all this and they had identified the correct animal/plant for all objects I held up the items one at a time and they had to run to the correct picture. If they went to the wrong one they were out. We played this game about three times. It was really fun and a great end of the day activity!

Art: Paper Dolls
We discussed what kinds of clothes we wanted to draw/stick onto our paper doll templates. We designed trousers, t-shirts, jumpers, dresses etc for our paper dolls. We stuck on buttons and hair also to bring them to life. Here are our creations!

English: Poem: Put on your Coat

Stuff an arm 

into each sleeve,

put on your coat

before you leave.

Zip the zipper

right to the top,

and cover your head

whenever rain drops.

James Hörner

Gaeilge: Éadaí agus an Cóchailín Dearg
We did píosa drámaíochta about an Cóchailín Dearg. I got children to dress up in costumes (red cloak, wolf ears on a hairband, showercap, axe, apron, hat) to get in roll as the various characters in the story. They acted out the script as I read it. I made sure every child got a chance to act it out. (We also used this for practice on 'cé hé seo?'). Gradually they started to join in and understand various words in the script.

http://students.ou.edu/J/Curtis.N.Johnston-1/red_riding_hood.jpg

Here is the script I read out:

An Cochailin Dearg:

Bhí an Cocailín Dearg sa bhaile. D'fhag sí slán le Mamaí agus le Daidí. Chuaigh sí go dtí an choill. Bhuail si leis an Mac Tíre. Bhí scanradh uirthi roimh an Mhac Tíre. Rith sí go dtí teach a seanmhathair. Chonaic sí a seanmhathair. (All join in) Oh, feach ar do shuile! Feach ar do chluasa! Feach ar do fhiacla! An Mac Tíre a bhí ann! Rith si amach an doras. Tháinig an gearrthóir adhmaid agus maraigh sé an mac tíre. Bhi an Mac Tíre marbh agus bhí áthas an domhain ar gach duine eile!

(If you see any grammatical errors/misspellings in this let me know as I wrote it out myself!)

There are just some ideas about teaching subjects around the topic of clothes, if you've got any others I'd love you to comment below! Happy Teaching!

Homes and Houses

Back to some thematic unit resources and ideas for anyone teaching a unit on the Homes and Houses theme! Hope you find these useful!:
History: Homes in the Past
First the children drew a picture of their house on one half of a sheet and told their partner (and a few told all the class) what their house was like, how many rooms it had, what it was made of etc. 
We then looked at houses people lived in long ago, when our Great Granny and Grandad were little. I laminated pictures of old thatched houses and they used whiteboard markers to circle parts of the house that were different than their own. Each group got a different style of old house. 

These images do not belong to me. They are used for education purposes.

We then talked about all the things we saw and I got them to point them out to me in their picture. (Show me the straw roof! Show me the little door! Show me the stone walls! Show me how many rooms they had on your fingers etc.)
They then drew a picture of a house from the past to complete their drawing.

Science: Electricity at Home

We discussed why our class CD wasn't working (it wasn't plugged in - silly teacher ;) ) and this led us into a discussion on electricity, plugs and switches. We played 'I Spy': we spied things in the classroom that use electricity and I pulled some items out of the magic bag and they told me whether they used electricity or not. (Useful tip: They need a wire and a plug if they do!) We coloured things in our workbook that used electricity and crossed out the ones that didn't.

The following week we discussed electrical safety and read the story:

 ‘Lil’ Plug and lil’ Red Safety Adventures'   

We made stop signs and held them up anytime the characters in the story were doing something dangerous with electricity.

Following the story, to sum up the learning, we played this brilliant game to revise and test the children's learning:

 Spot The Danger Interactive Game

Geography: Homes

We discussed and played matching games with the rooms in the house and what they contain. We then created these (one house made at each table):

 Each member at each table got a room to design and decorate and then the group put the 'puzzle' together and stuck it into the house frame.

http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/01/33/25/
1332594_fed6200e.jpg

The following week we learned about the various types of homes locally and internationally. We performed actions to learn these home types (e.g. apartment - stand on toes, igloo - make a circle with arms on knees, tepee - make a triangle with arms over head, terraced - link hands with lots of people, semi- detached- link hands with one partner) (I got this idea from another website, but can't remember where sorry!) We then made one of the house types from lollipop sticks (each group got a different type to make). This was loads of fun for everyone.

Art: The House That Grew:
We talked about the story of the house that grew:

    “A husband and wife moved into a house in the middle of the forest. At first this house was very small, but, as time went on and the couple had more and more children (go into detail), the house got bigger and bigger. The husband and wife kept thinking of new and exciting things and rooms to add to their house, things that no one had ever thought of before. If anyone saw the house they would think it was the strangest house they had ever seen. They tried to make every room they built have something to do with things that the child liked to do. It was the most funny looking house that there ever was, with all kinds of strange things sticking out of it, lots of different shapes, things made from the funniest of materials, furry things, shiny parts, wooden things, holey parts, all stuck onto it from every direction!”
We made collage houses using various material types with lots of 'funny' extensions!

Music: Building Composition
We talked about things you would do on a building site when building a house. We mimed some things we could do (using sounds) and the rest of the class guessed what activity it was. We created a building composition with each group taking a particular working tool to do the sound and action of. They all drew a picture of the tool they were making the sound of and we stuck these onto a long sheet of paper to form a composition sequence. We performed this following the composition chart (using dynamics also). 

English: Poem:     

Chores

http://hookedonthebook.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/kids-chores.jpg

‘"Do the dishes,
Clean your room,
Use the vacuum,
Then the broom,
Wash the laundry,
Fold the clothes,
Clean the fridge,
Then the stove,
Wipe the counters,
Mop the floor,
Scrub all around,
Your bedroom door,
Clean the bathroom,
Toilet and all.
Get all your things,
Out of the hall,
You listening, Tom?"

I have to go,”
“What’s that Mom?

I wasn’t, no.”’ 

 from http://zelmo13.easycgi.com/childrenspoems/poempoetry43957.htm

Our Homes and Houses Noticeboard:

Maths Centers in the Morning!

Finally, I'm back to school after the summer hols and back to the blogging after a long hiatus!

http://jeps.edublogs.org/files/2011/04/76881213math-image-gif-sqq9sg.gif

For the last two months before the holidays, I began trying out maths centers as an alternative to literacy and play/oral language centers. While the centers did not involve as much 'exploration' of the room as my literacy centers, this almost suited the mood of the children at the end of the year, as they can get quite hyper as the year comes to a close and the weather gets finer. I felt that these activities were still very enjoyable for the children but involved less classroom management issues as the children completed them all at their desks.

Here were the centers I chose (some of these I got off this site: http://www.kidscount1234.com/mathcentersandgames.html where you can find loooads more maths center ideas - colours, shapes, tessellation etc):

1.) Counting counters:

Each child at the table had one of the above sheets with different numbers on it. There was a bowl of counters in the middle of the table. The children put a given number of spots on the butterfly/ladybird, they put counters in the bag and 'apples' on the tree using counters. These sheets could be made using the numbers 1-10 but I felt at the end of the year that my students were well able to use numbers 1-20.

http://ithinkmaths.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/counters1.jpg?w=500

2.) More or Less Cubes:

The children were given a bowl/bag of cubes each (with two colours of cubes in the bowl). They wrote the two colour names at the top of the sheet over each column. They had to close their eyes and pick a handful of cubes out of the bowl/bag. Then they wrote in the amount of each colour they picked out under the colour name on the top two lines. They circled the colour number there was more of on this go. They repeated the exercise until the sheet was completed.

(Trust me, its easier than it sounds!)

http://www.thinktonight.com/v/vspfiles/photos/LER4285-2T.jpg

3.) Making Number Necklaces:

I gave each child at this table a sheet of the above sample and a jar of beads. They had to line up the beads around the shapes to make a 'necklace'. I would also consider having the children thread spools onto string for this exercise if you have the resources to do this and can label the strings with numbers!

                                                                                         

http://www.craftsuppliesforless.com/images/pearlized%20pony%20beads.jpg                                             http://www.bababump.com/

4.) Piggy Banks:

The children at this table each got one of these sheets of piggy banks each and they had to fill them with coins left on the table. We made quantities of 2c-10c using 1c, 2c, 5c and 10c coins.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/business/03/euro_cash/currency/img/5_2_1.jpg

5.) Race to Ten:

This is my favourite station as it is so brilliant to use as an informal way of introducing take away and revising addition with infants. Each child gets a game board and each of them take turns around the circle to roll two dice. One dice has numbers 1-6 on it and the other has a mixture of + and - signs on it. If they get a +3 they put on three counters, if they get a - 4 they take away 4 counters from the board, etc. The first child to ten is the winner.

These stations could definitely be changed and added to throughout the year especially with other bought maths games/shape hunts/number hunts/colour hunts etc, but I found these to be a good start with my Senior Infants. I may get a bit more adventurous with them as time goes on! 

Happy Teaching!