escolinha-feb 26, 2010

I think this week I left my head at home. I know I left it right next to the computer. God only knows how I did my errands, and then went (late) to the Escolinha. So, I was tired, grouchy and airheaded when Monica did her teaching. I know the theme was "a summary of the month" but I cannot tell what she did... except for the songs and activities that always happen. So, I have asked Suzanna to write as a guest here. I will come back and post when she gives me her text.Okay? So sorry, I swear I will put my head on, for next class.
                  Here is what wonderful Suzanna wrote. Thank you Suzanna!
Ultimamente quando temos chegado na aulinha, a Monica ja esta na garagem dancando com a galera toda.  Enquanto esperamos todas as criancas chegarem, Monica aproveita e faz suggestoes simples: "Bota a mao na cabeca!", "Agacha!" "Pula!".  As criancas adoraram, e e uma maneira de envolver os que nao falam, mas que ja entendem. 

Muitas maes participam tambem, e eu acho que nao so e uma manifestacao de solidariedade com a Monica, mas ajuda as criancas, ja que nem todos estao olhando para a professora constantemente para seguir as instrucoes.  No mundo ESOL chamamos isto de TPR, ou Total Physical Response.  Nem sempre e feita com musica.  O jogo Chefinho Mandou (Simon Says) e outro exemplo de TPR. 

Outra vantagem, claro, e que todo esse movimento cedinho cansa os meninos e ajuda eles a manterem mais concentracao durante as outras atividades.  Bem, normalmente funciona assim!  Tem dias que mare nao esta pra peixe...

Na sexta passada, Monica preparou uma especie de "best hits" de 2010!  Cantamos a musica da formiga (Fui ao mercado, comprar batata roxa...) fazendo todos os movimentos.  Lemos o livro Meus Amigos do Taro Gomi.  Cada crianca ganhou uma plaquinha  que Monica imprimiu com um dos personagens do livro.  Tinham que manter atencao para colocar sua plaquinha no quadro na sua vez.  Espero que Monica tente de novo na sexta que vem, ja que a atencao da turma nao estava 100%, e a atividade foi super valida. 

Para acabar, queria mencionar que a atividade do trem, em que as criancas tem que achar suas "passagems" usando so os seus nomes, sem se referenciar as fotos esta ficando cada vez mais facil.  Tem uns pequenininhos que ja estao achando os seus nomes.  Um garotinho de 2 anos identificou logo o "W" do seu nome.  A felicidade dos meninos quando colocam os crachazinhos no trem alegra qualquer coracao!

Escolinha- tema Carnaval

This past week was Carnival in Brazil. So, in our preeschool we did a Carnival theme.
Very wisely, Monica started the teaching by writing our schedule in the board. Therefore, counting to seven in Portuguese, writing, and drawing was presented to the children.

From escolinha

We also sang our regular songs (more on this at a later post). Then we danced to some carnival/samba songs. The children had a blast dancing!

A puppet show was next. We watched as the puppets talked about carnival and their costumes. Look at how creative the puppets were!

From escolinha

Then the puppets dressed as a pirate and a princess. Isn't that what every little boy and girl want to be? I still think I want to be a princess some day (don't tell anyone!).

From escolinha

After fun with puppets it was craft time. They got to color a princess and a pirate. Play time and yummy food followed that. Boy, are we tired....

Trabalho de turma

A Monica (ela devia ser guest blogger here) comecou um trabalho legal para as nossas criancas. Como sempre ela fez uma coisinha linda. Vou mostrar a foto.

escolinha

A capa do livrinho tem uma foto de cada crianca. Quantas criancas nos temos! Nao tem como nao ter orgulho vendo tantas criancinhas bonitas e seus sorrisos! Bom, dentro do livro cada crianca tem sua pagina com frases sobre a crianca.  Cada semana uma crianca decora a sua pagina. Ficou muito lindo. Todos amaram. Esta semana e a vez da "Daughter" decorar!!! Fotos da decoracao dela coloco depois. Fui!

Today Daughter and I did two activities.
The first was inspired by one of my favorite blogs of all time "Confessions of a Homeschooler". She got paint chips colors and did an activity for her preschooler to categorize colors (with different shades). I got her idea and changed up a little. You can read about what she did here

http://confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com/2009/10/paint-chip-phonics.html

For us I wrote the colors in Portuguese. I let her try doing the lines to separate the colors.

From Oops they forgot to give me a Manual

Then talked to my daughter about all the colors. We worked on our pronunciation.  It was so funny because when I was a kid I could not say "amarelo" (yellow) well..my daughter has the same issue. Everytime she would try saying "amarelo" it sounded like "amalelo" which sounds much like "yellow"... LOL! In this activity my goal was for her to learn/practice the colors in Portuguse.

From Oops they forgot to give me a Manual

We were having so much fun that we decided to count all the colors (as a total) and then each color and write down the number. So in the end we worked on gluing, counting, color, pronunciation, and line drawing. But more importantly we had fun! Motherhood instructions definitely would have a chapter on fun.

From Oops they forgot to give me a Manual

Another activity we did today, was to learn the location of Brasil and USA. Then we glued hearts in both places. So cute! So reflective of how I feel...hearts in both places.

From Oops they forgot to give me a Manual