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Unread Nov 21st, 2011, 05:48 am
arielhud arielhud is offline
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Default Re: "Teaching" 5-6 year olds

Hello!

I actually teach 5-6 year old children for upwards of two hours a class. My suggestions are as follows:

Start the lesson with a simple warm-up- "Hello, how are you?" "I'm fine!" Use hand gestures when teaching new grammar. You won't have to speak in Spanish or any other language if you can mime it well enough. For instance, "I like pink." If your girl knows her colors, make "I" your pointer finger touching your nose, "like" hugging yourself, and then point at the object of the sentence.

Of course for a first lesson, grammar is too advanced. For the first lesson, I suggest a hopscotch made out of tape or chalk (if you have a sidewalk) that goes from 1-10. Kids that age love hopscotch, so they will want to do it several times.

Another activity is "I Spy Something ____". Use the basic colors (large color flashcards of just a block of red, orange, etc work best) and say "I spy something RED! Touch (motion touch by touching something briefly) RED!" Have the kids find something red in the room. During coloring time, you can drill the colors as well.

Good starter songs for 5-6 year old children are "BINGO" and obviously "ABCs". If you have access to a DVD player, you can burn videos off of Youtube for them to watch from users like this: BINGO from Super Simple Songs - YouTube

I don't usually recommend full length DVDs for several reasons. One, the vocabulary inside any given movie is mostly over the child's head, and two, the vocabulary that does stick is rarely educational. Lastly, as the teacher, I think it is important you remain fully engaged in the class, and making sure they get the most out of their lesson. My students only come to my class once a week for two hours- I usually give them only ten minutes of DVD time. Anything in excess of that is only for children who are unruly or on days where my voice is strained and/or I'm not feeling 100%.

An example outline for one of my kinder classes is as follows:

Unit 1 Daily Curriculum

5 min- Circle Time: Hello Song, How are you?
10 min- COLORS: Review and Colors Songs 1 & 2
10 min- SHAPES: Review and Shape Songs 1 & 2
5 min- Tea Time: Introduce A (Letter & Sound)

10 min- Phonics Worksheets (Color OR Write)
15 min- Craft: Butterfly Balloons- have children describe it
5 min- DVD: ABCs or something similar

5 min- Song: B-I-N-G-O
25 min- Games: London Bridges, Simon Says, Red Light-Green Light, etc
10 min- Story Time: Longer Book (There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed…)

10 min- Games: Student or Teacher Choice
10 min- Reinforcement of Target Language: "It is a/an ___" with plastic fruits
5 min- Educational Song
10 min- Phonics Practice or ABC practice with flashcards or ABC Chant Song
5 min- Story Time (simpler book, if there's time)

Unit Objectives

Vocabulary Target Language
red, orange, yellow, green, blue "It is a/an ______"
purple, pink, brown, circle, oval
square, rectangle, star, heart,
diamond, triangle


I've also attached an excel file with the original
Attached Files
File Type: xls Unit01_Kindergarden.xls (17.0 KB, 127 views)
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