Falling, falling

I started off today's lesson with an afternoon message.



Each student took turns to tell me about their long weekend. It was tough for them to remain patient and keep themselves from blurting out what they have to say when they have something to say. I have to reinforce that they need to raise their hand first, and wait for me to call their name, because I can't hear everybody at the same time. Sometimes they would raise their hand and start speaking right away. It's difficult, but I think it just needs practice and getting used to!

After I read the afternoon message once, pointing to the words, I asked them to read each sentence after me. Then I pointed at the word "you" and asked them the letters that make up the word. I told them that that's the word "you", and I underlined it. I asked a couple of kids to come up and find another "you" and underline those as well. Then I asked someone to come up and circle the "I". Some of them are more advanced than the others, so I need to make sure that everybody gets a chance to participate and guide them through it if they have trouble doing so.

After the afternoon message exercise, I wrote the words "Summer" and "Fall" on the board. I asked the students about the weather, clothing, and activities for both seasons. A couple of them haven't developed a sense of the different seasons yet. I showed them pictures that I printed out, and called out names to help me decide if the picture should go under "Summer" or "Fall". This kind of interaction keeps their attention, and it gives them a sense of pride, because they feel that they know something!

Comparing Summer and Winter (the headings got erased before I took the picture):


Then I taught them the song "Falling, Falling". After going through the words, I sang it with the tune, then asked them to sing it line by line with me. Afterwards, we did the motions together, pretending that we're falling leaves~

Lyrics of "Falling, Falling":


After singing, I told them that I'll give each of them some blank papers which they have to colour in the following colours -- red, orange, yellow and brown, because those are the colours of falling leaves. I prepared a box in each of those colours. Their task is to colour the paper, rip it into small pieces, and then put them in the corresponding box. Something funny happened when I showed them how to do it~ I put the boxes on my lap, held up pieces of ripped papers and asked, "If these are coloured orange, they will go into......" And Riley said, "The yellow box!" So I said again, pointing to the box on my lap, "If these are coloured orange, they will go into......" And Riley said again, "The yellow box!" Then I realized that I was actually pointing to the yellow box when I asked the question hahaha, no wonder he's confused!!



Everybody had fun colouring and ripping, while some of them had problems sorting. We'll be doing more sorting activities later on, so I'll see how they progress!