PARTS OF THE BODY - NATURAL SCIENCE (GRADES 1 AND 2)

MY MONSTER HAS GOT....

PARTS OF THE BODY

HEAD, TORSO, LIMBS

MY BODY PARTS

LADYBUG, LADYBUG

THE TUMMY SONG

JOINTS

THE FIVE SENSES

EYES TO SEE, EARS TO HEAR AND NOSE TO SMELL

FEELINGS

HELLO! Find something blue!

HELLO! How are you?

How's the weather today?

Colour songs.

Routines: Time to make a circle!

Just for fun

Colour games.  Find something BLUE!

Clean up!

Goodbye!

Additional Resources:

Blue, red and yellow stars - worksheet

Primary, Secondary and Complementary colours

SHAPES

We've finished off the school year by reviewing numbers and colours through the introduction of shape names: circle, triangle, square and rectangle.

The following songs were used in class but we also completed some worksheets and created shape collages (the children coloured basic shapes, cut them out and created simple pictures - house with triangular roof and a circle for the sun).  I also allowed them to manipulate wooden shapes and categorise them.  To encourage oral expression, I asked them questions about the shapes: Is it big or small?  What colour is it?  What shape is this?  How many triangles are there?  How many blue squares are there?

The three-year-olds drew flowers using circles.  We practised on the digital board first.  We sang flower songs to review and reinforce the vocabulary item: flower, before drawing the flowers.

Sing a Song of Flowers

Five Little Flowers

The Circle Song

I'm a Circle

The Triangle Song

Triangle Songs for Kids

Square Song

Square Dance Song

Space: star, sun, moon

In class, students learnt about the solar system.  I decided to introduce some songs focusing on some basic vocabulary items: sun, moon, stars.

Below are songs we used in class.  Additionally, I reviewed numbers using worksheets which involved counting stars.

TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR

THE STAR SONG

THE SUN AND THE MOON

On the farm

My students visited a farm and spent time learning about farm animals.  I used this as the basis for the we did related to the farm.

Students learnt basic vocabulary such as: farmer, chick, duck, dog, sheep, hen, cow and goat.

I used the following songs to introduce and reinforce these vocabulary items.

The Animals on the Farm

The Animal Sounds Song

Old McDonald

Bingo (dog)

Peppa Pig Spring Episode (chick)

Hello Summer!

Friday is the last day of school for my students.  To help them remember what they've learnt, the following posts will deal with some of what we worked on in class.

Since my last post on Spring, we've practised Calendar language; we've learnt the names of some farm animals; we've learnt some words related to space and we've learnt the names of some shapes.


I Love Summer

A Very Hot Day

Swimming Pool

AN EASTER EGG HUNT IN SPRING

We've been working on vocabulary related to Spring for the past two weeks.  We've sung songs about the seasons, focusing on Spring.  Initially, I stopped the video to focus on key elements associated with each season: Winter (snow, hat, scarf, coat, boots); Spring (flowers, green leaves, raincoat, umbrella, rain); Summer (sunny, hot, lemonade, swim) and Autumn (red, brown, yellow and orange leaves, Halloween).  I also took the opportunity to reinforce the calendar work that we do on a daily basis (using songs about the days of the week, months and seasons, children learn time/calendar vocabulary).

SEASONS

Using lots of mime and dramatisation, the children have learnt the following words: flowers (we mime picking a flower and smelling it); bees (we make buzzing sounds and pretend to sting each other); butterflies (we join our thumbs and move the rest of our fingers like butterfly wings) and birds (we flap our wings).
The three-year olds have coloured a simple picture of a flower and we reviewed the colours green, yellow and orange.  They've also coloured an Easter Egg using their favourite colours.  We used this opportunity to talk about other colours like pink, brown and purple.
The four-year olds coloured a bee (reviewing the colours black and yellow) with a blue background for the sky which they then cut out.  We're using the bees to decorate the classrooms.  This week, we will trace patterns on an Easter Egg and they can decorate it.
The five-year olds have done a colour-by-numbers picture of Spring, they've drawn a picture of Spring and, after watching an episode of Peppa Pig about Spring (see below), they're colouring a picture of an Easter Egg hunt which includes, a rabbit, a chick (key vocabulary for Spring and Easter and also for farm animals which we will start work on in two weeks) and several Easter or chocolate eggs.  Once they finish colouring the picture, they must count the number of eggs hidden in the picture and write the number below it.  All of this has been explained in English using known vocabulary, mime and repetition of key words.

SPRING

Finally, we've ended each lesson with the following "Goodbye" song which contains the word, "butterfly".

SEE YOU LATER, ALLIGATOR

Revision of what we've done before is always integrated into new lessons.  We also get a glimpse of what we will learn in future lessons (animals, food, etc.) so that students have some prior knowledge when we start working directly on these elements.

ALSO CHECK OUT MY OTHER BLOG FOR OLDER STUDENTS: The English Teacher

FRUIT

In February, to celebrate Fruit Week, we started working on fruit related vocabulary.  We've started with basic fruits such as, orange, apple, banana, pear and their colours.  This can be extended to include basic shapes too (circle, triangle, square).

Also check out The English Teacher

TIME: Calendar songs

I've started introducing the days of the week and the months of the year into the classroom routines for my five year olds. I usually make reference to the calendar they use with their class teachers to orientate them.

We sing the hello, weather and days of the week songs.  The children sit down and each day, one child looks out the window to tell us about the weather.  I then ask him or her some basic questions about the clothes they're wearing.
- "What colour are your shoes?"
- "Are your shoes brown?"
- "What colour is your jacket?"

We then focus on the theme for the day.

Below are some of the songs that I use.  I've found that only playing the audio versions of the DAYS OF THE WEEK and MONTHS songs helps students to focus more on the pronunciation.  As they're learning to read in Spanish, they try to read the words and inevitably end up pronouncing them wrong.  I've also started introducing seasons and have found a really good song that helps them to understand the language without explanations in the Mother Tongue.  We now include this at the beginning of the class when talking about the weather, the day of the week, month and now, seasons. I usually follow up with worksheets to consolidate what we've done at an oral level.

DAYS OF THE WEEK

MONTHS OF THE YEAR

DAYS AND MONTHS

SEASONS

PARTS OF THE BODY AND CLOTHES

PARTS OF THE BODY AND CLOTHES

We've started the new term reviewing vocabulary related to TOYS and PARTS OF THE BODY and introducing CLOTHES vocabulary.

TOYS

We've played games with flashcards using the melody of Walking in the Green Grass.

What's your favourite toy, toy, toy?

What's your favourite toy?

Your favourite, favourite toy.

My favourite toy's a train, train, train

My favourite toy's a train

A train, train, train.

(pointing to a train) Train!

(cupping my ear towards the students to indicate that they must repeat) Train!

x2

We then continue with other toys.

PARTS OF THE BODY AND CLOTHES

To review parts of the body, I've used the song, This is the way we wash our face focusing on the parts of the body taught in class according to each level.  

From there, we moved to clothes, changing the lyrics in the following way:

This is the way we put on our hat, put on our hat, put on our hat

This is the way we put on our hat so early in the morning.

Miming the different actions being sung about is very important as it teaches children to interpret non-verbal language which is a very important part of Foreign Language learning.

Below are videos that can be used to develop the above vocabulary with young students.

When I have a class at the end of the day, I use this song as a way of signalling that they should put on their hats, scarves, gloves and coats.

Using the melodies of traditional children's songs is a good way of teaching new vocabulary as children respond very positively to music and remember new words better than if they are simply taught via flashcards or repetition.

CHRISTMAS SONGS FOR KIDS

Below are videos of some of the songs we've been singing in class to learn Christmas vocabulary.

The Body

I've started introducing students to vocabulary for different parts of the body.  We start by singing a song (usually songs that the students know) and I emphasise the actions related to the parts of the body that I want them to learn.  After singing a song and doing the actions, I ask students to identify different parts of the body (head, arm, eyes, etc.) depending on the songs we've used.  Below are some of the songs we've been using in class (I usually don't show them the images as I want to develop their listening skills as much as possible).

ONE LITTLE FINGER

MY EYES, NOSE, MOUTH, EARS

HOKEY POKEY

THIS IS THE WAY....

HEAD, SHOULDERS, KNEES AND TOES

THE BODY

 

The following video can be used to introduce a number of activities.

- MY MONSTER

Students invent a monster and describe the body parts or simply answer questions (What colour is your monster?  How many arms has it got?  Has the monster got three eyes?)

- MONSTER DICTATION

Students are given a blank sheet of paper and have to draw the monster you describe (The monster has got one green eye.  The monster has got three noses.  The monster has got two heads.)

- MONSTER COLOURING ACTIVITY

Students are given a picture of a monster and  told how to colour it (The eyes are red.  The arms are blue.)

BODY PARTS: MONSTERS UNIVERSITY

I hope you find this useful.

Until next time.

Janine

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Halloween is a fun way of broadening students' general vocabulary and reviewing specific categories like, numbers and colours.  Below are some videos we've been using in class to do just this.

Reviewing numbers: How many fingers?

Five Little Pumpkins

I've been using the following video to introduce the following vocabulary items: green monster, scary witch, black cat, white ghost.
We've reviewed colours, done some classroom theatre (students wear symbolic costumes - witch's hat, my sons old sheet ghost costume, etc. - that I've been taking to class and have taken turns playing the above halloween characters while the rest shout, "go away").  This is also good input for introducing students to ADJECTIVE+NOUN word order.

Developing students' cultural knowledge of the target language (in this case, English) is vital as it helps them to contextualise language.  The following videos introduce Halloween as a cultural event.

These videos can be used as a way of extending vocabulary.

I hope you have fun with these.

Until next time,

Janine