CLASSROOM RESOURCES Early Years: Prep to Year 2

MATHS: Counting on Frank by Rod Clements Activities (numeracy activity) Read the book to the class as a prompt and get them to work out the number or lollies in a jar you have organised in the class. Measure the height of every student in the class and get them to calculate the number of your classes it would take to go around the world if you put the students head to toe. Numeracy – Counting Rhymes 1 Little, 2 Little, 3 Little Voices 4 Little, 5 Little, 6 Little Voices 7 Little, 8 Little, 9 Little Voices, 10 Little Voices, One Spirit. (tune is attached in this link … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0SkWCCWrF8 ) Math Facts Race Divide students into teams at the back of the class, posting a grid sheet at the front for each group. One student from each team will run to the sheet, writing an answer in the appropriate grid. To practice multiplication, for example, a student would have to write 12 in the grid where the third row and fourth column meet. The student returns to his or her team after answering, allowing a group member to run to the sheet. The group member can fill another grid or, if needed, correct a previous answer. This process repeats itself until a team wins by correctly filling its sheet. Age Range: 2nd – 5th Grades

ENGLISH:

Link to Spirit This activity lets students reflect on the ways that they can recognize the spirit in their daily lives while review what they have been learning. Level: Any Time: 5–10 minutes Focus: Review of recently encountered vocabulary Function: Warm-up, break, closer Procedure: 1. Begin the lesson by asking students to close their eyes and, without looking, to draw what the spirit looks like. 2. Write the alphabet on the board in a circle, in a ‘V’ pattern or in some other shape (e.g. in a spiral or the shape of a fish). Circle J, K, Q, X, Y, Z. Point to A and ask if anyone can remember a word or very short phrase beginning with that letter – for example, something they learned in the lesson before or (if you are doing this activity as a closer) the lesson you are about to finish. 3. As soon as someone calls out an appropriate word, cross out the letter A and point to B. Ask for a recently learned vocabulary item that begins with that letter. Move briskly through the alphabet in this way. At each letter, allow a maximum of about seven seconds. Whenever no one calls out anything suitable within this time, move on to the next letter. As you continue through the alphabet in this way, periodically point to a letter you have already crossed out and ask ‘What was that word again?’ When you come to the circled letters, ask just for a word – recently learned or not – which contains the letter somewhere. 4. When you reach the end of the alphabet, go back to any letters not crossed out and give students a bit more time to call out a word for each. 5. On the board, write any of the vocabulary that you think some of the class perhaps did not hear or might have forgotten and clarify meaning and usage as necessary.

Variations: • Specify the vocabulary to be reviewed in different ways. For example, ask students to call out vocabulary from a recently read short story, or ask them only for words with two or more syllables. • Choose a student who has not yet mastered the names of the letters of the alphabet and give him or her the job of calling out each letter as you point to it. Tell this student to give a hand signal if he or she wants any whispered help from students sitting nearby. • For a longer review activity (about 15 minutes), ask students to work in pairs or threes. They arrange the alphabet any way they like and then use their notebooks to find the vocabulary that they need and include it on their sheets. Encourage them to be artistic (but remind them not to be too slow). As students finish their lists, they stick them up on the wall. As more and more lists go up, students mill around looking at what others have done. Encourage questions about meaning. Ask everyone to sit down. Ask which lists are the fullest and which are the most artistic. • For the difficult letters, ask students to think of a word which includes (rather than begins with) these letters. Or ask students to do this for all letters. (A disadvantage of this latter procedure, however, is that the

Creating a word wall using the words which fit into the Catholic Education week theme. (These words can be differentiated according to grades, ability levels, learning intentions.) Use these words in the following activities:

● Word searches ● Acrostic Poems ● Creating a class word wall ● Creating class buntings – collaborative work ● Friendship chains (paper dolls holding hands) using words from the word wall.

Class books – individual writing/pictures, combined together to make a class book. This activity helps build relationships, unity and a feeling of belonging while being a learning activity that enhances writing and creative skills.