Knitting, cooking and other such like things (like learning to read...)

Last half term there was the dreaded virus and the entire school was hit bad. However it was a good opportunity to teach the two children in my class to knit. The girl now is knitting her own scarf at home with one knitting needle and a pencil. "Cos i don't have another knitting needle, Stephanie". The scarf is now around 15 cm. Here they are at the very very start. Luciano was able to knit instantly. It was very impressive.

Here is the poem the kids have been learning

We get them to memorise a poem and then we write the words on the board to give them an understanding of reading. Of course they can't read as such (although i have been told by parents that some children - the older ones - are reading and writing already. The vowels are in different colours as they are the angel letters and have a different quality about them. The picture refers to the Russian fairytale, The Stolen Turnips, the Magic Table Cloth, the Sneezing Goat and the Wooden Whistle. After this they copy the verse into their books.

Close up of the house

Making biscuits!!! Of birds for Valentine's Day

Creaming the butter

Buttering the baking tray

The old lady in the Stolen Turnips

This was from last term when we only did the Englihs Main Lesson block as there were so many absences. This half term we are going to be doing only Maths.

Angel letters and birthdays

We celebrate no less than three birthdays in January 

Oisin was birthday number 1

How delighted is he?

In the first week back we did the vowels

Aka Angel letters

Vowels give life to a word, where the consonants are
the bones, the whispering sounds, the vowels are the feeling sounds

Here is U as in Jupiter...

All the drawings of Jupiter and Saturn were so gorgeous

Here are the Magi, doing the I sound, or pointing to the stars

From last term, X

Here is the final blackboard drawing for the vowels

A for Angel and Star, E for Eagle, U for Saturn and Jupiter, I for Magi and O for Gold

Some other vowel drawings...E, Balthazaar's Eagle

I love this one too

Magi here have earrings!

Elves and shoemakers before Christmas taught us about counting in 2s

12 dancing princesses taught us to count in threes

More eagles
My favourite eagle story was i said, eagles are 2.2m in wingspan and i showed them what 2.2m
looked like. And the child who drew this said, that can't be true. And i smiled and said, of course it is!!!

More Eleves and Shoemakers

This week we learnt how to play the recorder, now everyone can play the top two notes and sound like cuckoos and we also are starting to knit. We also did reading from the verses of the RL Stevenson poem we have been learning and putting vowels and consonants together. It is a very educational process, even for me!!! Photos from that process next week!

Maths main lesson... and Christmas!

Here's stuff that I've done.. but today when i go back to settle the classroom, i'll take photos of what the kids have done in the ML books. They are stunning!

Baba Yaga

The kids loved the Baba Yaga stories, which then led on to the Baba Yaga games. We used these to do multiplication, division, addition and subtraction. Basically they had to escape from Baba Yaga by doing chores for her. Like sorting the gifts collected along the road and counting in threes and eventually sevens. There was a lot of screaming and yelling... as usual. I think the kids actually prefer the maths main lessons to the English ones!!

Gingerbread house

 It was universally declared that the Christmas party we had in our classroom was the best Christmas party ever on account of the gingerbread house. It lived for less than 24 hours!

The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship

Getting ready for Advent!

Getting ready for Advent...stars start to emerge

More beeswax...

New nature table

12 dancing princesses underground world -
diresctly inspired by trip to Venice

New Advent song

Mary and Joseph make their way to Bethlehem

Spinning!!!

Drop spindles

Spinning wheel

Used to teach maths - can u spot the 12th princess and the soldier?

Diorama to teach multiples of 2, 3 and 4

It is now the Maths main lesson. Now that we have learnt the four operations etc, it is about having fun with numbers! So most recently we made twelve pairs of shoes per pair - like the Elves and the Shoemaker - a story i recently told - and then did division - but of course i didn't call it division. Next week we will do multiplication - but it is all about getting the ol mental maths working in their heads by getting the body to do the work.

In the unabridged Brothers' Grimm version of the Elves and Shoemaker the elves are two naked little men - and i left this detail in - usually they are clothed in rags, and of course the children found this incredibly funny. I thought it was a harmless funny, but i do apologise if the children keep talking about naked elves.

We also finished off our wildlife garden. We weeded, raked, put in a bird table, made birdfood and THEN we sowed some garden wildflower mix, some countryside wildflower mix (like redshank and quinoa), and then LOTS and LOTS of flax. I can't wait to harvest some of the flax to show where linen comes from!

Today is the Advent festival - our classroom has been turned into the Crystal Forest. Come along to experience some wonderful Advent spirit!