Introducing Challenge to Pre-School Children (I)

(Reflection on the attended lesson)

Feb 17, 2013

Background Information

I was invited to attend a lesson of one of the teachers working with a group of pre-school children (aged 4-6) who has just started working with the Thinking Task Framework for introducing thinking into her lessons. This is a reflection on one of the first of her lessons.

Context:

• Private classes of English;
• A group of 5 children aged 4-6;
• Children attend the lessons once a week for 1h

 

Lesson Description ‘Before’

Language aims:

• revision of the numbers (1-20), colours and some ‘mixed’ vocabulary;
• introducing new vocabulary on clothes;
• giving characteristics of the characters from the Little Red Riding Hood 

Thinking aim:

• Finding similar and different features (introducing challenge to practice the ENV model via games Odd-one-out, Finding similarities)

Materials:

• Cards with numbers, colours
• Printed outlines if some cloth items

 

Lesson Description and Comments

Activity 1: Thinking and Numbers
Activity 2: Thinking and Clothes
Activity 3: Thinking and Odd-one-out
Activity 4: Thinking and the Characters of the “Little Red Riding Hood”
General conclusions