Spanish Lesson for Pre-schoolers

We run a variety of extra-curricular classes for our pre-schoolers, including short, simple Spanish lessons.

Would you like your little one to speak another language? For young children learning language is part of their natural development – and research shows that children’s brains soak up information like a sponge.

To help take advantage of this wonderful learning window, our pre-schoolers (three-year-olds to five-year-olds) can take part in a fun, interactive weekly Spanish class.

The lessons currently run every Tuesday morning and are taught by Nardeth Farhall, a native Spanish speaker and language tutor. As many of our pre-schoolers take part in the lesson, the children are divided into three groups.

Nardeth says:

[pb_blockquote>]The lessons are delivered in short bursts of 20-minutes. This is because children have an amazing ability to absorb information but also short attention spans. Keeping the lessons brief allows them to digest the words and then it’s back to playing and running around!”

Alongside learning basic Spanish words and phrases, the classes help develop children’s social skills and concentration. The children also sit in a group at a table, helping prepare them for primary school teaching.”[/pb_blockquote]


Spanish Lessons – What’s Involved?

A typical lesson comprises:

Introduction – The children learn how to say hello, their name and how old they are in Spanish.

Core – Learning the Spanish alphabet, sounds and key word groups, such as, numbers, colours and shapes.

The children play games, such as, spotting and naming shapes around the nursery in Spanish. They may also learn the names of animals and words and customs associated with seasonal events like Easter and Christmas.

End – To close the lesson the group sing Spanish children’s songs, such as, ‘Los Pollitos’ (‘Chicks’) and ‘Mariana’, a catchy counting song.

The extra-curricular lesson is available for our funded pre-schoolers who receive free early education funding. We’ll let you know when your child is eligible, which is usually the first term after your child turns three.

In the meantime, if you’d like any further information, please do come and talk to us.

Pre-schoolers Discover North America

Our intrepid pre-schoolers have been busy exploring North America – the third largest continent following Asia and Africa.

Our exploration has involved looking at the history of Native Americans, the people from the pre-Colombian indigenous population and how they lived. We’ve also looked at some of the amazing animals that live there, including, Jaguars, Moose, Bison, Wolves and Bears.

To bring the theme to life, the children painted a lovely colourful tepee for our display board and decorated a big sheet of paper with traditional tepee designs. We also set up a tepee in home corner for the children to play in.

Craft

During our craft sessions, the children made some beautiful dreamcatchers – which Native Americans believed would give the creator good dreams – feather headbands, and a host of American Indian people crafted from cardboard and hand-prints.

Cooking

All this learning is hungry work. Our pre-schoolers have been busy cooking up some yummy North American themed treats, including tepee ice-cream cones, cheesy lassos and bear face pizzas.

Sensory Play

Nothing beats a bit of messy play and our pre-schoolers have had their hands in all kinds of wonderful gunk and gloop. There’s been water play and sand, shaving foam and glitter – the children had fun fishing out some familiar North American animals – dried lentils, shredded paper and dinosaurs.

Literacy and Maths

To develop the children’s reading and writing skills, we’ve been practising the letters A, B, C, D, E and playing phonics games to help them sound out words beginning with these letters.

To help raise awareness of certain sounds of words, we’ve used words associated with our North American theme to talk about how Native American Indians lived, kept warm and cooked.

We’ve also carried the theme into maths activities, for example, using feather beading to count how many and how long they are. The children have also been matching and pairing common shapes and learning addition and subtraction by using objects.

Our homemade dreamcatchers

Our homemade dreamcatchers

Our colourful tepee

Our colourful teepee

Our Pre-schoolers learn about The Orient

Our pre-schoolers are learning about the eastern part of Asia, which includes countries and regions Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

The children have been busy making Koi carp – using glitter and paint – and a big colourful dragon for the display board. They’ve also made tiger masks, which inspired lots of impressive prowling and growling!

To celebrate the Chinese New Year on January 28th, the children had a special Chinese lunch of sweet and sour chicken and teriyaki beef.

As well as art and craft activities we’ve been learning about the countries that make up the Orient, such as, where they are in the world, the people, native animals and crops.

The children also cooked up some delicious food – cheesy chopsticks and bread koi carp. What a talented bunch!

Literacy and Maths

To develop our pre-schoolers’ literacy skills, we’ve been focusing on the letters of the alphabet A, B and C. While in maths, the children have been making dragons using different shapes, helping them to identify basic shapes such as, rectangles, triangles and squares.

Our big art dragon

Our big art dragon

Our glittery Koi Carp

Our glittery Koi Carp

A brilliant panda

A brilliant panda

Our bread Koi carp

Our bread Koi carp

Our shape dragons

Our shape dragons

Our Pre-schoolers learn about Australia

Our busy pre-schoolers have been ‘down under’ during the past few weeks.

To help bring the experience to life, our pre-school room was transformed into the Australian outback, complete with Ayers Rock (a rather handy pop-up tent) and native animals, crocodiles, kangaroos, koalas, snakes and spiders. Needless to say, our fearless pre-schoolers took outback camping all in their stride!

The children have also been learning about Australian objects, such as boomerangs and didgeridoos. They also spent time crafting some famous Australian landmarks, including Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House made from paper plates and cups.

Halloween Fun

To celebrate Halloween, our pre-schoolers got to grips with an array of spooky activities. There was pumpkin carving, apple bobbing, spooky dressing-up (even a ghoulish “Woody” from Toy Story put an appearance!) and a potion station, where they could enjoy concocting ghoulish coloured potions.

The children also made sweet treats, such as witches hats (ice cream cones and biscuits) and chocolate covered apples complete with sprinkles. It was a particularly delicious Halloween this year!

Our sparkly boomerangs

Our sparkly boomerangs

One of our cuddly koalas

One of our cuddly koalas

Boomerangs and a Digeryrdoo

Boomerangs and a Digeridoo

Ayres Rock and The Outback

Ayres Rock and The Outback

African Adventures for our Pre-schoolers

Our pre-schoolers have been learning all about Africa.

Our pre-schoolers have helped transform the pre-school room into an African village.

Nestled in one corner is a vibrantly coloured African hut, whilst outside African animals, such as lions, cheetahs, giraffes and elephants roam the savannah – ok, the reading corner!

The children have created wonderful artwork of African scenes for the art board. In the last few days, they’ve been busy making coloured African pots out of papier-mâché.

The children have really enjoyed hearing imaginative stories about native creatures such as ’Milly the Meerkat’, however, one book that has had them all absolutely hooked is a large encyclopaedia all about African animals – bursting with images and animal facts.

As well as playing adding and subtraction games to help the children develop early maths skills, Mary has been working closely with the children on literacy and language.

Alongside matching sounds to words, they’ve been practising writing words beginning with the letter ‘N’.

Next stop on our pre-schoolers’ world tour is Australia, which will start at the end of October.

Our African scenes artwork

Our African scenes artwork

Layla and Hendrix hard at work

Layla and Hendrix hard at work

Drying out time - Our colourful African pots

Drying out time – Our colourful African pots