Showing posts with label English. Show all posts
Showing posts with label English. Show all posts

Tuesday, 28 January 2014

Valentine's Day Themed Lessons

Children love having 'themed' days in school and Valentine's Day offers a brilliant opportunity to link a wide range of subjects under one big theme. Here are some ideas that I have tried out in the past!

English: Creative Writing/Reading
I made out a big card for the class with the word 'love' on the front in a heart. I left it out on the morning of Valentine's Day and told the children that it had arrived in the post for them. First of all, we predicted what might be inside the card. We then opened it up and played a game of I Spy. We spied words with capital letters, words starting with ___, the word love, etc . We then read the card together. Following this, I covered the words on the card with blank sheets of paper. We had to match some words written on flashcards to the card, where they were missing/covered. We wrote a new card as if we were writing it to Mammy and Daddy, as a class (LEA). They children then created their own cards using our class card as an example (To ___, I love you. Love Mary.) 

English: Sight Word: Love
We learned this song during the week leading up to Valentine's day:
                        
We also used the word in our writing and read stories with the word in it.

Maths: Counting to 20 and Estimation
I gave the children out little bags of sweets and they had to estimate how many sweets were in the bag. We then counted them all together emphasising moving them to one side as they were counted. When we counted 20 sweets, I asked them to eat one and tell me how many they think they have left and then to check this number. I then got them to make me little groups of sweets: 3, 5, 10, 15, etc.

I handed out a template containing various heart shapes (see below). We looked at each heart on the IWB and talked about how many sweets they thought would fit into each heart size. We noted them beside the hearts on the IWB. They had to test how many sweets would fit into each heart after this and they wrote the number underneath the heart. We compared answers with estimates.

Art: Jim Dine Hearts:
I chose this activity as the children could complete it in a short time without much help, perfect for a mini theme based art lesson! We looked at some examples of Jim Dine's heart art and talked about the colours he used. We discussed words to describe the marks he used and the shapes of the colour blocks. They drew a big heart on a piece of paper. They coloured inside the heart with warm colours (using similar shapes) and outside the heart with cool colours. They then painted the pictures with a little olive oil to create a stained glass effect. I blotted them before leaving them to dry. When they had dried I added paper borders (using mounting paper that I had measured and cut into a border with a blade). I rolled them up and tied them with a ribbon. I attached a little heart shaped pink notelet to the ribbon on which they wrote a message (to their Mum or Dad).

Religion/History: The Story of St. Valentine
We looked at this video and talked about it afterwards. They each recreated a scene from the story on a piece of paper. I selected some pictures to display along with sentences about the story, on the wall.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Monday, 13 January 2014

Sight word games!

I have had a request to share some ideas on how to teach Sunny Street sight words to Senior Infants and as a result, here is a little compilation of ones I like best. I have collected some of these ideas from various places over the years and come up with some myself, so apologies if I can't give credit to whoever came up with the activities originally! There are a mixture of activities here suitable for whole class teaching, literacy center activities, group activities and pair activities.

1. Tic Tac Toe: 
Go through sight words with the class to begin with. Then, with words on a word wall in the classroom and using a pointer/feather to point to each word, chant the rhyme: 'Tic, tac, toe, here we go, where we stop, no one knows' (point to a different word for each word of the rhyme). When you land on the final word, the class call out the word they have landed on. I like to use quiet voices, loud voices, fast, slow, deep and high voices to say the rhyme to keep it interesting. You can also ask individual children to name the word after a couple of rounds as a group. Ask children to be the teacher for another variation on the game.

2. Bingo:
Make out bingo cards for the class, (having about 6 different versions so they do not all have the same card). Pull the words out of a bag and get them to place counters on the correct words to make three in a row. 

3. Hide and Go Seek:
Hide a few words in different places in the room. Get the children to find and point to the word ___. 

4. Beat the Clock Flashcard Game: 
Get them to see how many words they can name in a minute.

5. Sight Word Songs:
Heidi's Songs on Youtube has some great songs with actions to teach sight words. Great transitional activities too. 

6. Stepping Stones:
Get the children in groups to play a leap frog kind of game where they have to be able to read the word before they can jump onto the flashcard.

7. Toss the Coin:
Using the same cards you used for bingo, get them to toss a counter and when it lands on a word, they must read it. Take in turns. 

8. Pick a Card:
Get them to play pick a card using small 3 inch long word cards, with a partner or with you on a one to one level when you are hearing their reading. See who can win the most cards. If they cannot read a word, it goes back into the bunch and they can try again later. 

9. Roll the Dice:
In pairs/with teacher, have all of the flashcards upside down, roll a die and count that many cards before you turn the one you land on over and read it. If you can read it, you can keep the card. If not, place it back where it was and play again.

10. Writing Words: 
Get children to practice writing words on sand, on whiteboards, on blackboards and with the look, see, cover, write, check strategy. Play beat the clock by getting them to see how many times they can write the word in a minute. See if they can beat their own record. Make the words out of playdough.

11. I'm Thinking of a Word: 
While looking at your word wall, tell them you are thinking of a word that starts with/ends with/has the vowel _ in it/rhymes with etc. Get them to name the word and point to it.

Hope these are useful! Let me know which you like best!

Wednesday, 8 January 2014

Consonant Digraphs

A lot of time is spent teaching various blends and digraphs in Senior Infants once they have solidified their knowledge of basic sounds and blending. I like to begin teaching digraphs with the consonant digraphs: 'sh', 'ch', 'th' and 'wh'. I find they pick these up quicker than others, as they can name words that start with these sounds quite easily. The sounds are often more useful to them in their reading too. Also, while I find they often confuse vowel digraphs with each other, they rarely have this problem with consonant digraphs.

As I have made and found so many resources connected with these sounds, throughout my time teaching in infants and in learning support, I have compiled a list of the various activities I used with the children. Keep in mind that I did not use every activity for every sound and some were only used when all 4 sounds were covered. The activities can be combined to form a lesson or alternatively some could be used in literacy centers!

1. Jolly Phonics:
As in most schools, I used the Jolly Phonics programme to teach the sounds sh, ch and th initially. You can find the video here. I played the video on many occasions for the children while they ate their lunch. I found playing these songs and other vocabulary building songs and stories (e.g. The British Council LearnEnglishKids website) to them, calmed them down before they went outside and it also meant they were learning at a time which can sometimes be wasted learning time. Surprisingly, they did not seem to mind the repetition!

2. Other songs:
 I also used this video to show them the various words that can be made using the sounds.
I made up the following posters using screen shots from this video:



3. Trace the snake:
I put the following pictures up on the IWB and got them to only shout out the sound if we landed on the particular one we were learning, while tracing the snake pattern in the air. I varied the speeds so that it was more exciting. These are edited resources of something I found online.



  4. PowerPoint:
You can download the PowerPoints I made and used by clicking on each digraph: th sh wh ch.

5. Worksheets:
I have downloaded, created and used various worksheets where the children must either circle/cut out/colour/sort the wh, sh, th or ch words.

6. Pictures of words:
I had the children draw pictures of a word containing the sound and their pictures were put up on the wall around the sound being covered that fortnight.

7. Sorting bowls:
I had 4 colourful party bowls in the middle of the table, each labelled with a sound (sh, th, ch, wh or any other sounds you want to include). They had to sort their selection of picture cards into the bowls in the center of the table according to the sound each began with.

8. Board game:
In groups they played a board game where if they landed on a consonant digraph they had to name a word that started (or ended) with the sound. They then could roll again and take another go.

9. Bingo: 
You can download several bingo cards I made up to test the children's recognition of the sounds here. You can also play the game with words in the boxes as opposed to just the sounds.

10. Storytime:
I read the children a story containing words starting with the sound in question and they had to put their hands on their heads when they heard a word containing the sound. Prim-ed do a series of poems featuring these sounds such as Theodore Thatcher and Walter the Whale. Oxford Reading Tree and similar companies also sell books which are quite simple and dedicate each book to a particular digraph. This is also a great opportunity to use a Big Book too!







I hope some of these ideas get your creative juices flowing! Let me know if you have any other ideas for the teaching of these sounds!





Tuesday, 27 August 2013

First Day Jitters...

Often teachers, especially NQT's and teachers who have not taught in a particular class level before, can be slightly apprehensive about the first day back at school after the summer holidays. Here are a few practical ideas for planning out your first day back:

1. Toys: 
The first thing that any infant teacher should plan for their first day is to have adequate toys/jig saws/lego available for the children to play with as soon as they come in. Having toys ready means the children are occupied if any parents want to have a word with you and it also gives you the opportunity to make observations of the children and how they interact while also giving you a chance to interact with them one on one before formal class begins. It is up to the teacher whether they want to leave toys on the tables before the children come in, or whether they prefer to leave them on a set of shelves and get children to choose their own from the shelf to bring back to their seat.
(The later may be easier to introduce later in the week (especially with Junior Infants) as you can take the opportunity to train them as to the correct procedures for doing this: pushing in your chair, going back to your seat straight away, bringing back your work when it is finished, etc.) Personally, I like using a play rota system once the first week has passed, where I name each group and put a picture of a toy beside their group on a chart, changing it daily, ensuring every child gets a chance at every play station. (I will post an entry on structured play rotas soon!)

2. Getting To Know You is VITAL!
Teaching infants is slightly different to other class levels in that they can be anxious on their first day with a new teacher, so the first day is a careful balance between setting rules, establishing discipline and then putting them at ease with a new environment and teacher. This is where getting to know you games come into play. You can find so many games online to suit the class level you are teaching. There are some great ideas on http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/ice-breaker-games for younger children.
http://goo.gl/wqWx8L
Often however, keeping it simple can often be just as effective. When I was teaching as a Substitute I used one game frequently as a less time consuming, simpler option which led to very few discipline problems with older and younger children alike. It involved giving the children 30 seconds to tell a partner their name, a favourite film, band and food (you can make this simpler for Infants!) and then asking random children to see if they remember what their partner told them. I may ask four children to tell me what they found out and after I have asked them, I would ask random children to see if they could remember a specific child's favourite thing. Repeat the game as often as concentration lasts. This gives a good opportunity to build up some group points at the start of the day (Another reward system I like for building team work!) and get the children's brains working. It keeps the children's attention and children love the competitive element. It also gives the teacher the opportunity to 'see can I remember all the names', which can be a good crowd pleaser (especially if you stall/mix up names!)
If anyone would like some examples of some other subbing ideas/games leave a comment below and I will post some!

3. News: 

jhan-camp.blogspot.com 
A good first day back oral language activity is talking about and writing about their news. It may seem obvious, but sometimes it's good to stick with tried and trusted activities when it is the children's first day back and you want to make the day go as smoothly as possible! It can also be the case that many of the children may not have all of their books yet so is important to think of activities that you can do with them if this scenario arises. (Colouring/drawing are other simple activities for this purpose!) When writing the children's news with them, write up the generic: 'Today is Monday. It is raining' and then add a sentence from one of the children's news. Get them to draw a picture to match the news also. I like to encourage them to try writing a sentence of their own at the end of their news and while at the beginning of Senior Infants, children may not be competent enough to do this very successfully, it is important that they make an attempt, even if it is just a word/few letters.

4. Writing time:

tx.english-ch.com 
I love to use a door hanger sign on my door when the children are engaged in writing activities. The sign I use has a picture of a child writing and says 'Sh, quiet time'. When we are about to start writing or any other individual work, I go over to the door, pick up the sign and slowly bring it to the handle, while counting down from 5, getting quieter each time until 1 is only a whisper. We have agreed that once it is on the door, no one, not even me can speak above a whisper. It really works wonders!


5. Big Books:

Read them a big book! Question them, get them to make predictions and any other activities you can think of! Maybe discuss what happened at the start, middle and end of the story. Get them to draw three pictures of the start, middle and end events in the story.

6. Maths:
Begin the lesson with a Counting Chorus, where you get the children to count as far as ten/twenty, getting different groups to call out different numbers in the sequence when you point to them. For example: the blue group call out one, the red group call out two, etc.
You can easily organise some kind of counting activity where they have to put the correct number of cubes or counters in the correct template/container (1-10). I have some good counting activities in my Maths Centers' post which you could use for this purpose! This is a good opportunity to see what children remember from last year and observe the children who struggle with counting.


7. Songs:
Have some easy to learn action songs ready for the children to sing on the first day. I personally am a big fan of:
Dr. Knicker Bocker:

Open and Shut Them:


And of course Nursery Rhymes, Jolly Phonics revision, etc.

8. Sight Word Games:
Using a word wall of words from their Junior Infant readers (or Dolch words or even Senior Infant words if you want!), you can use a teacher pointer to play some word games. Tic Tac Toe is a game where you keep pointing to different words while chanting with the class:
'Tic, tac, toe, here we go, where we land, no one knows.'
The card that you land on is the card you want them to read for you. You can start out by getting the class to read out the word you land on and then you can pick confident children to read words by themselves. You can vary the game by speeding up/slowing down the rhyme and starting in different places each time.

9. Have a Reward System in Place:
I like to have all the children's names on a separate board/laminated chart and at the end of each day, I give them a smiley face for good behaviour. I explain to them why they may not be getting one if I decide not to give them one and tell them what they need to do to get one the following day. If they get twenty faces they get to take a prize out of the 'Lucky Dip' bosca draoíochta. If a child is behaving in a way that is particularly impressive, I will give them a smiley face during the day or if they do something that is particularly unacceptable, I will take one away.

10. Rules of the Classroom: 
This is something which can be done later on in the day as an SPHE lesson before the children go home. Get them to suggest some rules for the classroom and talk about why each is important. I usually guide them to suggest these four rules:
I also tell them that I will be giving a sticker to four children at the end of the week who are the best at keeping each rule, reminding them constantly during the week of the rules and praising the behaviours when I see them. This carries on every Friday until each child gets rewarded.


channelnine.ninemsn.com.au
11. Rules in the Line:
I like using the High 5 method of preparing the children to leave the classroom. When they are all in the line and paying attention, I call out High 5 while putting up my hand. We chant while pointing to the relevant body parts: 'Looking eyes, listening ears, hands to yourself, walking feet and finger on your lip.' These are the behaviours I am looking for in the line and if I see a child who is carrying out these behaviours, I praise them in a whisper (It is always important to keep the noise level down as they will mimic your noise level!).

I hope you find some of these tips and lesson ideas useful! Above all else, remember: don't think too big for the first day back! Keep activities easy and short and try to make it as fun as possible! Don't forget how much children love nature walks/Art/P.E. and simple games like Simon Says (or Deir Ó Grádaigh) and I Spy, so don't forget to include some of these things in your first day back!

Best of luck!

Tuesday, 9 October 2012

Halloween Havoc!

So it's coming close to that time of year again - personally one of my favourite times of the year - Halloween!   For those of you planning some Halloween based activities in your classroom, here are some ideas to help you along!

Gaeilge: Oíche Shamhna
Our mála draíochta for Halloween presented us with some Halloween costumes to dress up in. Included in this was a ghost mask, a witches hat, a pumpkin mask and a cat mask. The children pulled out an outfit and put it on them as we named the 'character'. They all lined up and I asked the rest of the class things like: Cé hé an chailleach? Cé hé ___? Cad é seo? srl. We also played the usual games of Cluiche Kim, éist agus dáthaigh and the like!
We also sang the song 'Oíche Shamhna' to the tune of Fréres Jacques!


History/English: Halloween Games:
I read them the story with accompanying video, 'Today is Halloween'. (If you had the hard copy or Big Book of this/a similar story you could integrate this with English!)
 We talked about things the children in the story did at Halloween and things the children in the class usually do/games they play at Halloween. The children then went home and talked to their parents about games they played at Halloween when they were young. We discussed these the following day (Apple Bobbing and Snap Apple) and we watched sections of these videos and discussed whether they ever played them/saw them being played and which they think they would prefer to play. (We played versions of these games during our Halloween party on the last day before midterm!) 

We talked about which games they preferred - today's games or games their parents played. They then folded an A4 page in two and on one half drew a picture of games 'Today' and on the other half, games their parents played.

Religion: Light and Darkness
We sang the Alive-O song about Halloween. I then showed them a little teddy and a shoebox with a hole in the top, big enough to fit a torch in. I shone in the flashlight (as the sun in the sky) and asked how they thought Teddy would feel in the box (Happy - he can see, feels warm etc). I then dimmed the flashlight and stuck it in, telling them it was the moon. I asked how Teddy would feel now (maybe cold, but at least he can still see, so he is happy enough). Then I stuck in the torch a final time, but off this time. We talked about how he felt sad as it is dark, he is scared, cold and can't see. We discussed what makes us feel better if we find ourselves in the dark. We talked about the good things about having the sun and electric lights to brighten up the darkness and thanked God in a 'Prayer of Light' for giving us these things. This provided a good introduction to stories and activities on this subject of 'Light' in religion during the week leading up to Halloween.      

                       Music: Halloween's Coming!
We talked about Halloween sounds and what makes them. We used body percussion and our voices to copy these sounds. Each group got a different sound to portray and decide how they were going to do it. I created a Halloween Music Composition chart using symbols for the different sounds (cat, ghost, door creaking, windy cloud etc) and we performed the sequence of sounds with each group waiting until I pointed to their symbol to perform their sound. We created some pretty spooky music!
We also learned the song, Halloween's coming, from the Right Note, Senior Infants which featured some more fun Halloween sound effects! 

Art: Cotton Wool Ghosts
Nothing too strenuous this time on the art front for this theme I'm afraid! One of the Halloween art projects we undertook was making these ghosts with cotton wool. We talked about scary faces and how to make our ghost's face look. We drew a ghost shape onto a sheet of card, drew a scary face on it, cut it out and stuck on little bits of cotton wool, front and back. We then hung them up around the room for a spooooky atmosphere!

Tuesday, 25 September 2012

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!

Monday, 17 September 2012

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:

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:
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: