Thematic Unit for Infants: St. Valentine's Day Activities

Children love having 'themed' days in school and Valentine's Day offers a brilliant opportunity to teach a wide range of subjects based on one theme.

This week, I am re-blogging a few lesson ideas I tried out with my Senior Infant class on Valentine's Day a couple of years ago. I hope you find them useful!

English: Creative Writing/Reading

I made out a big card for the class with the word 'love' on the front in a heart. I left it out on the morning of Valentine's Day and told the children that it had arrived in the post for them. First of all, we predicted what might be inside the card. We then opened it up and played a game of I Spy. We spied words with capital letters, words starting with ___, the word love, etc. We then read the card together. Following this, I covered the words on the card with blank sheets of paper. We had to match some words written on flashcards to the card, where they were missing/covered. We wrote a new card as if we were writing it to Mammy and Daddy, as a class (LEA). They children then created their own cards using our class card as an example (To ___, I love you. Love Mary.) 

English: Sight Word: Love

We learned this song during the week leading up to Valentine's day:

                        
We also used the word in our writing and read stories with the word in it (e.g. I Love You as Big as the World).

Maths: Counting to 20 and Estimation
I gave the children little bags of sweets and they had to estimate how many sweets were in the bag. We then counted them all together emphasising moving them to one side as they were counted. When we counted 20 sweets, I asked them to eat one and tell me how many they think they have left and then to check this number. I then got them to make me little groups of sweets: 3, 5, 10, 15, etc.

I handed out a template containing various heart shapes (see below). We looked at each heart on the IWB and talked about how many sweets they thought would fit into each heart size. We noted them beside the hearts on the IWB. They had to test how many sweets would fit into each heart after this and they wrote the number underneath the heart. We compared answers with estimates.

Art: Jim Dine Hearts:

We looked at some examples of Jim Dine's heart art and talked about the colours he used. We discussed words to describe the marks he used and the shapes of the colour blocks. They drew a big heart on a piece of paper. They coloured inside the heart with warm colours (using similar shapes) and outside the heart with cool colours. They then painted the pictures with a little olive oil to create a stained glass effect. I blotted them before leaving them to dry. When they had dried I added black paper borders (using mounting paper that I had measured and cut into a border with a blade). I rolled them up and tied them with a ribbon. I attached a little heart shaped pink notelet to the ribbon on which they wrote a message (to their Mum or Dad). Note: This lesson was completed earlier in the week so they could be brought home for Valentine's Day. 

Religion/History: The Story of St. Valentine
We looked at this video and talked about it afterwards. They each recreated a scene from the story on a piece of paper. I selected some pictures to display alongside sentences I had written about the story, on the wall.

Geography: Italy
While I did not teach a lesson on Italy (I had already covered some aspects of Italian culture under another topic), this would be a nice geography lesson to teach on a Valentine's themed day, especially you try to link it to the story of St. Valentine.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Scratch Computer Programming: Lesson 3

Unfortunately as I have been spending a lot of time preparing for my Parent Teacher Meetings this week, our coding lesson was short and sweet!

So far they have learned all about what coding is and how to create their first short story.

This week we learned how to create a simple music video. We began by discussing what they had learned last week and something that 'stuck with them' from the lesson.

They then went on to complete this week's 'Dancing Character' challenge.

Here is the PowerPoint I used in the lesson:

 

Lesson 3: Dancing Character_PrimarySchoolLessons from SeniorInfants

You can download the PowerPoint here and you can find the dance tutorial here.

This lesson was their first experience of incorporating two 'blocks' of script into their program that would run simultaneously when they clicked the flag. Most of them found this quite simple and needed very little further direction from me during the lesson.

Don't forget to check out Lesson 1 and Lesson 2 if you haven't already, and best of luck with lesson 3!

Scratch Computer Programming: Lesson 2

This week in Scratch, we progressed to creating our first program or 'story'. In order to do this, my class learned how to add a new character, a new background, make their character say something and how to change its colour.

This week's lesson format was a little different than last week's:

1. We began with a quick pair discussion based on what they had learned last week. We then discussed these things as a class.

2. I explained what they were going to learn in the lesson and that they would have to complete a challenge using these skills at the end of the lesson. I told them that I would explain each skill briefly, give them some time to try it out themselves and when I called out 'Heads!' they would have to stop what they were doing and put both their hands on their heads (otherwise I would have definitely struggled for attention!).

3. They opened Scratch and we went through the skills included on the PowerPoint below:

Computer Coding with Scratch: Lesson 2_primaryschoollessons from SeniorInfants

Note: You can download this PowerPoint by following the link and logging into SlideShare as a member. Membership and downloads from this website are free.

4. Once we reached the challenge section of the PowerPoint, I told the children that when they had completed the challenge and saved their story to their USB keys, they could create a new project and continue to explore the program with their partner. This worked well as some children finished very quickly, while others took almost 20 minutes to complete the challenge. The whole lesson lasted 40 minutes in total: 15-20 minutes on the PowerPoint and 20 minutes spent working on the challenge and on free-play.

Don't forget to leave a comment if you have any questions about this lesson!

If you missed lesson 1 of my Computer Programming Series, you can find it here.

Teaching Scratch Computer Programming: Lesson 1

Over the next few weeks I will be teaching my class (4th and 5th) all about computer programming through the use of the coding program 'Scratch'. Many teachers feel a little nervous when it comes to teaching programming in the classroom due to a lack of knowledge on the topic. For this reason, over the next few weeks, I will be sharing PowerPoints I have created to teach coding to my class (including video links, key questions and coding activities) along with detailed lesson information for each topic. This means that even if you have no idea what programming/coding is, you should still be able to teach the lesson to your class (even if you are learning alongside your children!).

Note: PowerPoints can be downloaded from the SlideShare website for free, once you sign up as a member. These will include all the resources you will need to teach each lesson.

Lesson 1

PowerPoint:

Lesson 1: Scratch Computer Programming from SeniorInfants

Detailed lesson information and activities:

1. Discuss/brainstorm: What is a computer program? Can you name any? What do you know already about coding/computer programming/how computer programs are made? Who does it/needs to use it in their jobs?

2. Watch the ‘Coding for Kids 1: What is Computer Coding?’ video to explain what coding is and what it can create. Discuss new information learned. Offer them the following definition:
‘Coding is where you write/create a list of instructions for a computer to follow. Without having a detailed set of instructions given to it by a human, a computer cannot do anything’.

3. Explain that Scratch is one program (of many) which allows us to make simple computer programs (games/apps/videos/etc). It gives us the tools we need to create a program (just like a carpenter uses a chisel and wood to create a piece of furniture, we use the tools in Scratch to make our own program).

4. Show a example of what ‘professional code’ looks like. Explain how coders use letters and numbers to stand for each instruction they want their computer to follow. Explain how Scratch makes this simpler for children by putting the instructions they are giving to the computer (the numbers and words) into blocks we can snap together. Watch the ‘About Us’ Scratch introductory video. Explain how the video shows them various examples of things other children have made with the program.

5. Open up Scratch on the Interactive Whiteboard or simply use the images featured in my PowerPoint to explain a few basics about the program:

• What a ‘sprite’ is (the character you see on the screen)
• That the green flag means go/start the program
• The red flag means stop/end the program
• What a script is (the instructions or codes that change the program/makes the character change/move). These ‘instructions’ or blocks can be moved by dragging them onto the script canvas with the mouse and deleted by moving them back to the ‘Scripts’ section.
• You must put down the:  block (located under the ‘Events’ script group heading) at the start of each project, before you add any more scripts/instructions.
• Each block/script must be snapped onto the previous block like a jigsaw.

6. Have the children open Scratch and practice: Click the flag, click the stop sign, go into the ‘Looks’ script heading and drag one block onto the canvas. Delete the part again. Go into the ‘Motion’ script heading (What type of instructions are these?), choose a motion block and add it to the canvas. Delete it again, etc. 

7. Explain that the first thing they are going to learn is how to make their sprite move by watching a video tutorial. Have them move the sprite 20 steps forward, 10 backwards, etc. Have a child model how they completed these tasks for the class.

8. As a conclusion to the lesson, give the children 5 minutes to explore the program with a partner and discover something new they can do with it. Have some students teach the class what they discovered if time allows.

This lesson should take roughly 40-60 minutes in total to complete.

Happy coding!

Tin Whistle Series: Christmas Tunes

Often during the run up to Christmas, teachers spend so much time working on Christmas plays that formal music lessons are a rarity! If you ARE interested in teaching some tin whistle this festive season however, here are some ideas for your class.

Beginners
If your class have only begun learning the tin whistle, you might want to stick to something simple and repetitive. When I am teaching tin whistle to a class for the first time, I focus on the BAGFED notes until they know these very well. A tune like Jingle Bells is ideal for a beginner class as it only features the BAGFED notes.

Intermediate
If your class are familiar and comfortable with all of the notes (including C natural), they could play Oh Christmas Tree or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. These tunes are a little more challenging than Jingle Bells, but are still quite repetitive and easy to learn. Away in a Manger is another short, repetitive piece that is quite easy once your class can play every note.

Advanced/Popular Christmas Songs
If your class have been playing the tin whistle for a few years, they may have played a lot of the more common Christmas tin whistle tunes. If this is the case, try teaching them It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire or Oh Come All Ye Faithful. This version of Silent Night features a harmony that can be taught to more able students for a class performance. You could also teach them Do You Want to Build a Snowman or Let it Go  (if you can bear it!) for something a little different!

These are just a few suggestions of Christmas tunes your class could learn on the tin whistle in the run up to Christmas. If you are interested in more, check out Nollaigshona.ie - you can find a huge bank of traditional Christmas Hymns and carols there too.

If you are interested in previous posts from my tin whistle series, you can find them by clicking on the following links:
Teaching Tin Whistle Tunes for a School Mass
Teaching Tin Whistle to Beginners

Merry Christmas!