The multilingual Children's Association is a web-guide to raising multilingual children. The website is dedicated to kids growing up with multiple languages, you will find expert advice, parent discussions, tips, resource directory, articles and more. http://www.multilingualchildren.org/index.html
*You will find a link to the website on my blog, it is located on the left-hand side*
Biff, Chip and Kipper stories have taught millions of children to read and remain tried and tested, loved and trusted in over 80% of UK primary schools. Aside from the much-loved characters these delightful stories have fun, familiar settings which children can really relate to and are packed full of humour enjoyed by teachers, parents and children alike.
You can now download free APPS to read these great books online!
Alphablocks is a series of adventures that invites you and your
child to play with phonics. It is aimed at three-to six-year-olds and
its simple purpose is to entertain and show that wordplay can be a lot
of fun. It is based on best-practice phonics teaching, helping young
children to develop confidence and encouraging engagement with reading
and making words.
Series three is livelier and more fun than ever, filling Alphaland
with snowmen, funfairs, flying words, a talking book and a frog on a dog
on a hog on a log.
This series consolidates the learning in
series 2 (letters and their sounds) and follows on, showing young
readers how letters combine to make digraphs (such as OO) and clusters
(such as ST).
The Alphablocks and their world behave according to the natural forces of phonics:
Every letter makes a sound
– and so does every Alphablock. A makes a short /a/ sound (as in apple)
when an apple falls on her head. B plays the bass: b-b-b-b-b… and so
on.
When Alphablocks hold hands, they do word magic – if they make a real word, it will come to life in a shower of magic stars.
Just like learner readers, they sound out their letter sounds (c-a-t) then blend them together to say the whole word (CAT!). Sounding out and blending are important natural strategies for reading words.
Alphablocks can split in two to make more of the same letter (which is handy if you want to make a BANANA).
They can also fuse to make brand new sounds, such as OO, SH and AR. Your child’s teacher will call these ‘digraphs’. Alphablocks will sound out MOON as "m-oo-n MOON!"
Some
letters can make more than one sound on their own too - compare A in LA
and PAT, I in PIG and ICE, C in CAT and ICE, and so on.
Your
child can watch the series on the CBeebies channel, and they will also
be able to watch and play with the characters on the CBeebies website… Watching online Every episode is available to watch on the Alphablocks website whenever they want. The
first episode is a great place to start, as the Alphablocks showcase
every letter’s sound and personality. Repeat viewing is encouraged, as
it helps children recognise words and understand how to put them
together and as your child begins to grow confident with building words
through phonics, they can advance to the later episodes.
Any
episode can be selected by using the arrows to scroll through the
pictures and clicking on the one you want to watch. They have been
arranged in order of difficulty, with pink designating the beginner
episodes, and green the more advanced. The early episodes introduce the
letters and their sounds and simple three-letter words. Later episodes
introduce first digraphs (such as OO, SH and AR) and longer words.
Finally, new digraphs and vowel sounds are added to the mix.
A voiceover explains what to do, and clicking on the question mark in the top right corner at any time will provide more help.
Today I took a trip to Göteborgs Konstmuseum with one of my classes at Internationella Engelska Skolan. We went to check out the current Bruce Nauman exhibition. Working primarily with video, sculpture, graphics, performance and installation, Bruce Nauman (b 1941, lives and works in New Mexico, USA) is one of today’s most acclaimed and ground-breaking artists. Last week the students homework was to do some research about Bruce Nauman and his work.
It was a great trip and really nice to listen in on some students discussing Nauman's work and life, they had really done their homework and knew quite a bit about him before coming to the exhibition. After checking out the Nauman exhibition we took the opportunity to also see the current Helene Schjerbeck (1862-1946) exhibition.
The Finland-Swedish painter Helene Schjerfbeck (1862-1946) is regarded
as one of the most important and loved artists of the Nordic countries.
A perfect modersmål trip with the combination of artists from both the US and Scandinavia, topped off with a lovely fika in the spring sunshine.
Next week my class from Lindåsskolan and my second group at IES will also have the opportunity to visit the exhibition.
I decided to start this blog, with the aim of creating a meeting place for my students and their parents. Over the coming weeks I will start blogging and uploading useful information, such as class material, links to English learning websites and much more.
