Phonic 4 : Blending Phonemes Activity (for 'ph' and 'wh' phonemes)

Lesson : Phonemic Awareness
Year : 2

In this lesson, I prepared five sets of cards consisted of 15 different phonemes (focused on 'wh' and 'ph') that can be blend to form words. 

As you can see, I made these out of mineral water box and write everything on it using two different colours of markers. At first, my students thought that these were cookies.  Haha. But, yeah, none of them ate it. :)

Steps to conduct this activity :

1. Teach them how to say these phonemes first. (/w/ and /f/)
2. Give some examples of words and again drill them on how to sound those words
3. Show these cards and explain the activity.
4. Divide the students into groups of 6 or 7 (depends on number of students). 
5. Each group were given a set of cards and a blank paper.
6. Each group need to try to blend the phonemes correctly and form as many words as they can.
7. Write the words on the paper given.
8. Once finished, they needed to say out the words within their group members (teacher acts as an observer and facilitator).
9. Then, they copied the words formed in their exercise books. 

From feedback, each group did not get the same number of words and same flow of words as in the textbook (page 102). Basically, you will see that they enjoyed this activity with their group members. Photos of the activity are shown below :

Thanks for reading! :)

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Writing 10 : "Who Am I?" Activity

Lesson : Writing (It's Concert Day!)
Year : 3

In this lesson, I've prepared few cards which contains questions about "Who Am I?", related to the type of musicians that the students have learnt initially. The students were given a writing sheet which contains the template to fill in the answers for each questions. 

Before this, I pasted the questions on the wall, but this time, I divided the class into 10 stations and each station contains a question card. So, each student needed to walk around and read the clue given in the card and then write their answer on the sheet given.

The students were introduced with the musical instruments and also types of musicians through videos of orchestra, a concert and acoustic songs. This was done since they did not know what are those musical instruments at all besides only guitars. Through this, they were able to identify few difficult musical instruments such as cello, flute and violins, differentiate between keyboards and piano and also able to see what a concert looks like.

(Before)

(After)

(Writing Sheet)

As usual, the template for the writing sheet and also "Who Am I?" cards are provided below :

Writing Sheet

Who Am I cards

You can use any other templates for the front side of the cards. Thanks for reading! :)

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Reading 8 : Colour Match Search

Lesson : Reading
Year : 1

This activity is a continuation of the reading session conducted in the previous lesson. Since they were introduced with these four words during the listening and speaking lesson, they were able to complete this worksheet well. As usual, the worksheet is uploaded below in PDF and Word format :

Thanks for reading! :)

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Reading 7 : Read, Cut and Paste Activity

Lesson : Reading (I See Colour)
Year : 1

In this lesson, I referred to the text in the Year 1 textbook under the topic of I See Colours (page...). I taught them to read the text and drill them few words. The words are mug, rug, cat, duck and net. These words are introduced with its meanings so that they will be able to do this activity. Then, I distributed the worksheet and demonstrated on how the activity will be conducted. The students needed to refer to the text and identify the associated words to be replaced with the pictures provided. The students enjoyed this activity since it involved colouring, cutting and pasting. They were able to complete this activity successfully.

As usual, I provided the link to download this worksheet :

Worksheet

Thanks for reading! :)

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Phonic 3 : Hit and Say (for 'ue' and 'aw' phonemes)

Lesson : Phonemic Awareness
Year : 2

This time, I've prepared an activity named as Hit and Say! for phonemes 'ue' and 'aw'. At the beginning of the class, I taught the students on how these phonemes sounded like. Then, gave them few words to say it as a class. Thus, individually, I asked them to come in front and throw a crumpled paper ball on one of these bags (Well, some of the balls thrown hit me too! Haha..) Okay, then, they need to draw a card from that bag, blend them with phonemes to form a word. Each student did this activity and say out the words in front of me. While waiting, I gave the other students an exercise related to phonemes based on their activity book. As a result of this activity, I managed to identify two students who quite weak and tend to confuse in blending the words. The others did a very good job!

I did not get a chance to take any photos of the activity as I have 42 students who need to finish this activity in one hour. So, I just explained the steps and I hope you could make this work too! ^^

What do you need?

Paper bags, markers, thick papers (200 gsm) that being cut into 5 cm x 5 cm (sizes of the cards are based on the size of phonemes written on the paper bags), a crumpled paper ball, markers (red and black).

How to do it?

1. Write the syllable on a paper bag (use different colour of markers to differentiate the consonants and phonemes)
2. Cut the thick paper according to the respective sizes.
3. Write the consonants that will be blended with the phonemes.
4. Take two unused A4 paper and crumpled them to become a crumpled paper ball.
5. Done!

P/S : The students were very excited with this activity and I asked them to draw few more cards once they passed the first ones to make sure they know the exact sound of these phonemes. I even tested them with the 'oy' and 'ir' phonemes, and they managed to say out the words correctly too!

Thanks for reading! :)

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LA 10 : Waving Hand

Lesson : Language Arts
Year : 4

For this activity, I randomly named it as Waving Hand because I don't know what kind of art is this. Haha. But still, my students did way better than mine, as always. This lesson is also for an adapted poem into a song using the Are You Sleeping tune. Check out the details below.

My simple sample of Waving Hand

Make a simple curve with hole to put your hand in, so that you can wave it!

Just like this! ^^

What do you need?

Drawing block papers (A4 sizes), scissors, colour pencils

How to Do it?

1. Put your hand on the paper and trace the shape of your entire palm.
2. Cut the traced drawing and decorate them using your own creativity.
3. Draw a curve at the end of your traced palm and cut it properly. Fyi, I cut all curves of my students' works for safety purposes.
4. Ask them to colour and decorate it using their own creativity. 

Like previously, this text can be found in the Anthology of Poems for Year 4, 5 and 6 book

I used the above text and adapted it into a song using Are You Sleeping song. Just repeat the verses to fit the tune properly, or you can also use other tune to fit with the lyric. I provided you with some photos of my students while doing this activity. :)

This kid (above) came up with a Naruto design Waving Hand. Way too cool!

Thanks for reading! :)

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LA 9 : DIY Woodpecker Mask

Lesson : Language Arts
Year : 4

This lesson was conducted during my second phase of practicum. Instead of teaching my students on how to recite the poem given, I adapted it to become a song. So, the students could practice and performed with the woodpecker masks they have created.

Sample of Woodpecker Mask

The above text can be found from the Anthology of Poems for Year 4, 5 and 6 book (below)

How to Make A Woodpecker Mask?

What do you need?

Thick paper (I used black paper for the eye mask and yellow paper for the beak), cellophane tape, string.

How to Do it?

1. Print the template given above on a white paper..
2. Trace the template on black paper (if you use black paper). If you used other colours, you may just print it out. Do the same thing for the beak.
3. Fold the dashed line on the beak, and make sure it turned out to fit the eye mask.
4. Place the beak in the middle of the eye mask and tape it.
5. Punch holes on the left and the right side of the mask, then tie strings into both of the holes.
6. Tadaa! Done! You can just do it in your own way if you think my way is way to hard to be followed. :D

Using this poem, I adapted it into a song based on the Baa Baa Black Sheep tune. Just simply find the instrumental on YouTube to conduct this lesson in your class. 

Thanks for reading! :)

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L & S 10 : Welcome to the Concert!

Lesson : Listening and Speaking / Language Arts / Reading
Year : 3

This activity requires the teacher to practice the conversation with the students first through demonstration. The content in the ticket concert provided need to be explained and the teacher need to model on how to conduct this simple role-play. 

Simply divide the students according to the pairs of tickets that they got (either pairs A and B, pairs C and D or pairs E, F and G). You can refer to the photo of the tickets below to see clearly on what I said.

Back side of the tickets :

Then, ask the students to practice saying out the words properly. This lesson could be integrated as a reading lesson too which also included listening and speaking. After few tries, the students could play their roles as those who performed and those who congratulate. 

I made this concert tickets just to attract the students' attention to focus on the activity and give them the opportunity to learn to praise people on their success. Plus, I believed that they never got a chance to hold a real concert ticket yet (so do I), so, why not I make one?

Front side of the tickets :

The above template was designed by me during our class' English Carnival Month on 2014. So, basically, I just edited and reused their concert poster for the concert tickets for this lesson. :)

The concert tickets! *Not for sale

As usual, I provided for all of you, the templates of these concert tickets in the folder below :

Materials

If you have difficulties in editing the templates using Adobe Photoshop, just use Microsoft Word and edit text box in it. Thanks for reading! :)

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L & S 9 : Colour Song!

Lesson : Listening and Speaking / Language Arts

Year : 1

For this lesson, I conducted a singing lesson (based on the textbook, page 57). So, basically, I prepared simple props to let the students respond with the song that they sing. I use the I Love You Barney song since I found that the tune given in the textbook (This Old Man song) is a little bit fast for the students to catch up. The lyric of the song is as follows :

Title : Colour Song (use the tune of I Love You Barney Song)

I like red,

I like red,

I like a red bow on my suit,

I like a red bug, red mug, red bed too,

I like red and what about you?

I like yellow,

I like yellow,

I like a yellow bow on my suit,

I like a yellow bug, yellow mug, yellow bed too,

I like yellow and what about you?

*since its the colour song, simply change the colour of the items to red, yellow, green and blue. I use these colours because I prepared the props in these colours. So, be flexible to make your props even better!

For that, the photo of the props is as follows :

I simply printed these photos on colour papers (save ink, save budget) and then laminated them to ensure the durability. The size of the photos are basically big enough for the students to see it (around A5 size).

As usual, I provided the materials to be downloaded for this activity :

Materials

By the way, you can adapt this activity to be used in Language Arts too! 

Thanks for reading! :)

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LA 8 : DIY Finger Puppets

Lesson : Language Arts

Year : All levels

These teaching aids are called as DIY Finger Puppets because I bought it at DIY store. I accidentally found these finger puppets which are very durable and easy to make. One set of it consists of four finger puppets. So far, I only managed to found this set, there could be more sets in other stores which I have not discover yet. 

These finger puppets are sold at DIY store (if you are a fan of this kind of store, then you'll know it), just walked around the stationary areas and you might found other types of finger puppets instead of the animal ones.

I don't remember how much it costs, but it could be less than rm10 (around rm5 if I'm not mistaken). Tried to make it and I love to use it for my lessons someday! :)

Thanks for reading! :)

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L & S 8 : Find Your Partner!

Lesson : Listening and Speaking

Year : 1

This activity is one of the simplest ones to make sure that your students speak. I conducted this activity with my Year 1 students (30 students) and they managed to find their partners within 2 minutes. 

I asked the students to draw lots from a given box, and hide the words (months of the year) from their friends. After everyone got one month each, they will started to call the names of their months to find their partner. I did not be able to ask them to directly find a partner who was born in the same month as theirs because they did not know that. Thus, this activity is a good one to replace the activity mentioned earlier.

All you need are a box and strips of cards (contains months of the year).

From feedback, the students enjoyed this activity and they know to differentiate the months that I told them, for them to move around whenever needed.

Thanks for reading! :)

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LA 7 : Animal Masks

Lesson : Language Arts

Year : 3

As a continuation to the topic of Four Friends, I prepared the students with animal masks which needed to be coloured in their own creativity based on my samples (below).

For this activity, I did not provide the materials because the masks are available on the internet. Just google and you'll find it. After they done with these masks, they will acted out the scenes as being provided in the textbook.

Thanks for reading! :)

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LA 6 : Poem Book (Kitchen Appliances)

Lesson : Language Arts
Year : 3

A poem book is a simple thing to be made for our students. I provided them a sample of my own poem book and the students need to create one based on the materials given. I provided the students (each group) a sheet of kitchen appliances to be pasted on the drawing block. The students have the authority to decorate it in their own way.

A sample of my poem book :

I only asked the students to write the correct kitchen appliances based on the riddles given (check textbook KSSR Year 3). After I taught the content, they were able to write the correct answers in their poem books.

Thanks for reading! :)

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Writing 9 : My Diary

Lesson : Writing / Language Arts
Year : 1

This activity is a very simple one. I made a sample of my own diary with the content from the Year 1 textbook. Then, I prepared for each student a diary for them to copy the same content but decorate it in their own creativity.

What do you need?
A thick paper (the back sheet of drawing block), colour papers, foolscap papers, punch, remaining laminated plastic (to tie the diary together), markers, good handwriting.

How to make it?

1. Wrap the thick paper as the cover of the diary (the size of the diary is up to you).
2. Cut the foolscap papers according to the size of your diary (slightly smaller).
3. Make a hole at the right of it and tie them with any string (I used the remaining of laminated plastic since I don't have any string).
4. Write the content based on the textbook neatly.
5. Done!
6. Prepare the remaining diaries for your students! :)

Thanks for reading! :)

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Writing 8 : Write A Postcard

Lesson : Writing

Year : 5

Basically, in this lesson, I showed the students a sample of a postcard (as they might not know what a postcard is). I printed it in poster size and showed them the format of writing it. After further explanation, I gave them blank postcards for them to write based on the script that I have given (which they have to copy the content only). Then, the students showed to me what they did.

A sample of my poster postcard is as follows :

I also provided the students with blank postcard templates for them to write based on a passage that I have given.

As usual, the materials for this activity are provided in the link below :

Materials

Thanks for reading! :)

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