Context:  ¦Private classes of English;  ¦A group of 6 children aged 5,  ¦Children attend the lessons once a week for 1h

1. Lesson / task description - before

TA aims :

1. To let the SS name the features of a tower
2. To let the ss name same features of clothes  
3. To identify the shown colour
4. To find food according to a given feature
5. To practice asking strong questions in order to narrow the searching field
6. To practice searching for animals according to a given feature
7. To practice searching for shapes according to a given feature
8. To practice searching for more common features within the given pictures

In terms of subject matter:

1. To repeat the clothes, colour vocabulary
2. To repeat food vocabulary, to introduce the parameter of taste (sweet)
3. To repeat and learn animal habitats and the names of animals
4. To introduce, repeat and teach shapes
5. To learn new rhyming words
6. To recall the characters of the tale “Little Red Riding Hood”. First rehearsal.

Materials I am going to use:

1. Prepared sets of mixed vegetables and fruits.
2. Prepared plastic animals and cards with animals
3. Prepared cards with colours, clothes
4. Worksheets with animal habitats and rhyming words

Tasks I am going to use:

1. Warm-up activity: Build a tower of a certain colour. Then we compare the towers. Which tower is the best? Why is it a bad tower? How does it look like? Why do we call them towers?
2. Form pairs according to the same features in clothes.
3. Identify the shown colour with the one on your clothes.
4. Birdie wants something sweet, but the doctor does not allow him to eat candies, because they will spoil his teeth. What can he eat (sweet and useful)? The Teacher shows the fruit and vegetable cards and the SS say, can Birdie eat it or not.
5. One boy thinks of an object from the food cards lying on the floor. The Teacher shows how to ask strong questions to narrow the searching field.
6. Our Birdie is captured by an Evil Witch and put into a tower on a remote island. SS have to save him. So they set off, but the Witch follows them everywhere. The SS go under the water and there transform into sea animals. The Witch comes to each of them and asks: “Are you Anna (name of a student)?” “No, I am a shark!” and frustrated the Witch comes to another child with the same question. Then the ss run through the forest and followed by the Witch transform into forest animals. The same dialogue occurs. Then ss happily rescue Birdie.
7. The Teacher shows a circle to ss and they find circles in the room. Then they find something round to trace the shape of a circle. The same continues with a square and rectangle. Then we cut the forms out and make a collage.
8. Rhyme time. SS have to connect words which rhyme. Then SS search for pairs in the pictures (that do not rhyme, but have something else in common).
9. SS recall the characters from the tale “Little Red Riding Hood”, practice pronouncing the name of the main character. Name the features of character of each of them.
10. Homework is to finish the collage and name it. Make sentences of where do animals live. Learn the rhymes.

2. Lesson / task description

Procedures:

When entering a classroom each child gets a task to build a tower of a certain colour and while the rest of the children appear they are busy with their tasks. When there is time to start, we compare the towers built and see, which is the best, worst and why. Among the expected features (tall and narrow), the SS named only tall.

Then we formed pairs, looking at each other’s clothes. Such pairs were formed – long sleeves, those, wearing shoes, tights, sweaters. As there were 6 people present I tried to extend their sorting, suggesting to add someone to their groups. For example, for those who made a pair, using the same feature – shoes, I suggested to find a new person, wearing shoes and divided the ss into two groups – barefoot and with shoes. When the ss found out that they were wearing tights, I suggested to find a new person with tights and the others were wearing socks. So the groups tights – socks were formed. It was difficult for me with the feature “long sleeves”, because all the ss were wearing long sleeves and no extended grouping occurred.

After that, to repeat colours and clothes, I showed the colour cards and those having this colour on their clothes made a step forward.

Then the sorting continued with the food items. And here the ss had to sort the food and vegetables according to the sweet taste. Here was the first task in a context. I told the ss that our Birdie wants something sweet, but cannot eat candies (limitation), because they spoil his teeth. SS easily chose fruits from the given cards and named a carrot, because it is also sweet. Here I had a difficulty, because I wanted them to say, that fruits are sweet, but because of the carrot, which is a vegetable and a kiwi, that one boy told was sour, I couldn’t say so. I felt confused.

Then I wanted to show the ss how to ask the strong questions. I asked a boy to think of a fruit or a vegetable on the cards. While he was choosing the fruit, I started thinking what kind of question I could ask. Of course, first question should be “Is it a fruit?” and with the answer “Yes”  we could exclude the vegetables. But I somehow missed it at the lesson. I asked about colour. But the fruits were of 3 colours and I didn’t know how to exclude half of them, so I boldly asked: “ Is it red?”, because there were more red items, than any other else.  Luckily, it was red. So, we had a red apple, red tomato and a red pepper. I wanted to ask about the taste, because I was sure, that tomato has a sour taste. I consulted with my ss, but some of them told that tomato is sweet. I was confused again. So we had three sweet items. I switched to the evident features, luckily, a tomato and an apple had leaves. I asked about that. With the answer “ Yes” we had a tomato and an apple left. I asked about the place of growth: “Does it grow on trees?” – “Yes!”. It was an apple.

Then we went to another room. There were two tables with three chairs and ss had to group themselves to sit at these two tables. The shoes – barefoot division won. We started our shapes activity. I demonstrated the shape, named it and asked the ss to find it in the room and touch it. Then they searched for a wooden object in a special box that had this shape and traced the shape of it on a colourful paper.  The same continued with a square and a rectangle. The first ss to finish got the scissors and managed to cut their shapes, while the rest of ss were finishing their tracing task.

Then we switched to the rhyming words. SS had to listen carefully and say “Yes”, when the words, that I pronounced rhymed. Then the ss matched the pictures of rhyming words on their worksheets.

The TA task there was to find new connections between words. Some noticed, that the scales and a train had round details, both trains and plain had wheels and windows, a snail and a cat had a twisting element. I was drawing their attention to the plain and a train, thinking that they are vehicles. But the ss said that they are both fast.

We ended our lesson with repeating the characters from “Little Red Riding Hood” and drilling the name of the main character. I wanted them to name me the traits of character of each of them and to say, which character we can exclude, but we didn’t have time for this activity.

The SS had to tell any phrase in English to get to their parents.

3. Overall reflection on the lesson / task

Aim aspect: I think, that context of freeing the Birdie helped the children to fulfil the sorting tasks more enthusiastically. I didn’t accept all the answers (chosen animals), doubting, if a tiger could live under water and so on. I was happy to see that our little collage workshop went well ( our first trial). I was confused, when the ss gave me answers I didn’t expect (like sour kiwi and sweet tomato) and had to switch to a different feature to feel safe. I was surprised to see, that children notice what I do not put attention to – a twisting element in a cat’s tai and in a snail.