Over a week or so ago I was asked if we are doing 'Jolly Phonics'. The short answer to that is, yes and no.
As a grade level, we have been introducing the chunks of letters as suggested by the Jolly Phonics programme to the students. Activities offered to the children will then usually highlight the sound, form, use, and purpose of the letters. The teachers are tuned into hearing and seeing the letters we have worked on and make them more visible to the children. You will also notice lots of crafts made by the children in the classroom. These are related to the sounds that we have been exploring. We sing songs from the Alphabet Zoo and think of how we want the sound represented. As the children make their craft in small groups, the teachers use that time to facilitate conversations with the children about the letters and their sounds. For example, play mind games like 'I Spy' or make up a story with as many of the sounds as possible. So the purpose of the learning center is to create a space to talk about language, sounds, and letters. However, the craft also serves as a support the children's developing fine muscles and hand-eye coordination. They are learning how to use the learning tools in the classroom, staplers, scissors, stick glue, liquid glue, and paint; all these serve as learning tools needed for us to expand our ideas and develop different ways of making our thinking and learning visible.
Additional learning engagements are made available to the children to encourage play with letters and sounds and/or number concepts every morning.
Speaking of numbers and mathematics, we continually re-visit the concepts of numbers and counting each day. For example, during our morning circle time the children are engaged in a variety of ways to show their thinking and knowledge. Ways such as, showing numbers with their fingers in different ways, taking turns to add numbers to the calendar, counting how many days to a holiday or a birthday, thinking about 'before' and 'after', and exploring the patterns we can see among numbers or the days of the week.
Equal to learning language and literacy, including letters and phonics, we continually explore mathematical concepts and numbers through play.
Library
Each week the children go to the library and after listening to a story read by our lovely librarian, Ms. Anne, they are encouraged to choose a book that interests them. Please do take the time at home to read the book with your child. As a way to engage your child in the reading process, try doing a picture walk through the pages and make up the story together. Later read the words and talk about how the two stories differ.
Water Festival
Just before the break our wonderful Teaching Assistants took the chance to share with us all the stories connected to the Pchum Ben holiday. We then ate bananas and tasted the crispy pounded rice as a treat.
Boat and Buddies
To round off the experience in learning about the Pchum Ben holiday, we were excited to make paper boats with our Buddies.
