FlowerGarten News

6. – 10. 5. 2013 - Weather

Our recent topic was WEATHER. During these days air conditions were changing so much and we could discuss various sorts of weather. We created a lot of pictures of sun and clouds using different techniques and materials. We made sunny, rainy, cloudy or snowy weather pictures. We watched some educational videos and sang a few songs concerning the topic such as 'Rain, Rain Go Away' and 'It´s Raining, It´s Pouring'. From next week we are going to make our school weather chart.

3. 5. 2013 - Recycling

We carried on with the transport theme this week and repeated the grammar and vocabulary of the previous week and also did some general revision of what we have learned the past month. As Wednesday was a public holiday, we had a short week and Thursday we spent some time learning about recycling, how it works, what the different colours represent the difference between plastic, paper and glass. We also celebrated April 30th by dressing up as wizards and witches, made a big witch who we decided not to burn in the end(safety reasons) but we had her wired to the tree and she was watching us roast sausages. We also let our five butterflies go today! It was fun day at FlowerGarten.

22. – 26. 4. 2013 - Transport

We have been concentrating on transport this week. Learning about the different forms of transport and the vocabulary accompanied by it. The children made their own aeroplanes, trucks and cars and we had fun guessing the sounds of various vehicles while learning their names. Monday's cooking club was a tasty success and the children were proud of the quiche they made. We all had a blast at the zoo on Wednesday, the sun was shining and we were able to see many exciting animals.

15. – 19. 4. 2013 - Family

Our last week´s topic was FAMILY. Children brought photos of their parents, grandparents and relatives and we discussed their families during our circle times and lessons. Lilies cut out pieces of construction paper and created their closest family members onto a paper. Next day we drew faces of our family members and glued them onto a family tree we drew before.

8. – 12. 4. 2013 - Touching, tasting and smelling

Our second week of FIVE SENSES topic was focused on touching, tasting and smelling. We played one of the most favourite game among our children - "Tasting Game" where kids are supposed to taste different tastes and guess. We distinguished four basic tastes: sweet, salty, sour and bitter and Lilies had to match sugar, salt, coffee or lemon juice with those four taste categories.

2. – 5. 4. 2013 – Our senses

We started a two-week topic - OUR SENSES. In the first week we concentrated on seeing and hearing. But before that we discussed the meaning of senses. In order to understand, Lilies and Roses made various construction paper faces with a hand and learnt what are eyes, ears, a mouth, a nose and fingers for.

18. -.22. 3. 2013 - Easter

We started celebrating Easter last week. We discussed these holidays in our circle times and lessons, we made beautiful egg crafts, funny bunnies or chicks. Our main project was a huge Easter basket where you can find eggs, Easter animals, flowers or real catkin twigs. Weather was very cold and freezy however this did not prevent us from decorating our playroom with Easter and spring motives. Our Easter celebrations are continuing next week.

11. -. 15. 3. 2013 – Spring

Last week we had SPRING topic and tried to persuade all weather gods to improve the weather outside but in vain. It was very cold and snowy outside so we could only go for a walk and look for snowdrops in gardens. This hunt for spring flowers was successful! Next to it, we made some spring crafts. Children cut out beautiful paper flowers or made a beautiful spring collage. We also started singing a new song: Flowers, Flowers Everywhere. Hopefully the weather will be better during upcoming two weeks of Easter in FlowerGarten.

14. 3. 2013 - Happy birthday party with the Green Eggs & Ham show

Today we are celebrating the birthday of Maru, Kačka, Beatka, Kuba, Andrej, Šíma and also Maty´s name day.

Click to see photos

4. – 8. 3. 2013 – New life

Warm weather and sunny days made us feel more optimistic about coming spring and allowed us to spend more time outside than in previous weeks. That´s why our topic was new life. We talked about baby animals especially the farm animals. We mentioned different phases of frog´s or butterfly´s life cycles. Lilies learnt new vocabulary thanks to our art activities: we made number caterpillars, beautiful butterflies with wings from their palms, cute paper lambs and drew various calves, chicks, piglets or lambs.

25. 2. - 1. 3. 2013 – Big poster map

Last week we continued with PLANET EARTH topic. Our main project was a big poster map of the world. We coloured in continents and oceans and then drew different animals, people or objects typical for all areas of the world. During our work we discussed various nations and their cultures and learnt a lot about our planet. We also mentioned Native Americans-Indians and created totem poles, symbols of the first inhabitants of both Americas. On Wednesday we had Science Day.

18. – 22. 2. 2013 – Planet Earth
Our topic was PLANET EARTH last week. We talked about our planet, continents, oceans and different countries. Now children should distinguish seas, different continents and areas with ice and snow on world maps. We used various techniques to portray the Earth.

18. 2. 2013 - Sunflowers summaries – Winter sports

The past couple weeks the Sunflowers have been learning about Winter Sports, specifically those practiced in the Winter Olympics. We played bingo with pictures of each sport and talked about which was our favourite. We also spoke about Valentine's Day and why we celebrate it in America.

11. – 15. 2. 2013 – Winter sports and valentine's day

This week’s topic was about winter sports and valentine's day. We had fun learning about the various sports and even had our own Flower Garten Winter Olympic Games where the children competed in skiing, ski jumping and ice hockey.

4. – 8. 2. 2013 - Jobs and Professions 2

We have been learning more about professions this week. Through charades, books and exercises we have recapped on vocabulary and been learning about what certain occupations involve.

28. 1. – 1. 2. 2013 – Jobs and Professions

Our last week´s topic was JOBS AND PROFESSIONS. Children love talking about their future jobs. We have a lot of future policemen and policewomen, teachers, fire fighters, ballet dancers or dustmen :-) We learnt People Song, one of the most popular songs among all the kids and practised Jobs vocabulary. Children learnt to describe certain professions. Lilies made toilet paper roll policemen and a big poster with different jobs. We played a game where the players pretended various jobs and the others were supposed to guess what was performed.

31. 1. 2013 - January Sunflowers summaries

The Sunflowers have been practicing how to order in a restaurant and how to read English menus. They learned vocabulary such as Appetizer, Menu, Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Please, Thank you etc. They also practiced grammar such as "Would you like..., "I would like," and "I'll have" as well as how to speak formally when at dinner or speaking to a stranger.

21. – 25. 1. 2013 - Jobs

This week, we were talking about different types of occupation, or as we can say, different jobs. I would like to ask the parents to do a little homework if they have a chance, and explain to the children in simple words what their job is, since some of them don't know.

14. – 18. 1. 2013 - My town, my city

We have carried on our 'my town, my city' theme this week, focusing on houses, rooms and home appliances. Craft activities include blackboard drawing and we created our own home with craft clay. Wednesday we took a snowy walk to a little hill and had great fun sledding down. The next day in cooking club we made tasty vanilla filled pastries and began the start of building a FlowerGarten snowman. We have been recapping on songs learned this term and focusing in particular on baba black sheep.

7. – 11. 1. 2013 – Places in a town

We enjoyed another interesting topic last week - PLACES IN A TOWN. We practiced new vocabulary and tried to describe various places regarding the topic. Children made a small paper city model with roads, railways, green areas and buildings. We also revised basic shapes. Lilies cut out different shapes and created pictures from them. They assembled squares, rectangles, circles or ovals into houses, trees, sun and clouds or cars.

2. – 4. 1. 2013 - Winter

We had only a three-day week and we entered the new year relaxed and with enthusiasm. Our topic was WINTER although the weather looked like in November. We concentrated on winter clothes and discussed what kinds of clothes we know and wear in winter. Lilies designed their own winter collection and decorated big paper gloves with tissue paper and made different patterns on them. We also spent a lot of time playing a changing-clothes-game.

17. -21. 12. 2012 - Our Christmas party was a big success

Last week of school in 2012 was full of Christmas activities and preparations for our Christmas party. On Monday we decorated our big and beautiful tree. All the children helped and were happy when lights on the tree were on. We finished all the presents for parents and learnt songs and rhymes for our Wednesday party. Before the party Baby Jesus visited our school and children were delighted to open and unwrap their presents. Our Christmas party was a big success, everybody tried to sing and please their mums, dads, grandparents and relatives.

10. - 14. 12. 2012 - Christmas time

Last week we continued preparing for Christmas party and created more decorations for our school. We also made something surprising for parents and this secret will be revealed next Wednesday. We talked about snow and activities we can do during winter. Thanks to snow outside we could practice a lot of these activities and we enjoyed great fun on snow.

3. – 7. 12. 2012 – Mikulas, the Devil and the Angel visited our school

Lilies started Christmas party preparations and cold weather with frequent snowing allowed us to enjoy genuine winter atmosphere last week. We made a big snowman, colourful Christmas trees and golden bells - stage props for our theatre performance. Mikulas, the Devil and the Angel visited our school like every year, and the children were reciting and singing and all of them got some yummy fruits and candy. Although The Devil's bag remained empty this year, we noticed that some of the kids improved their behavior on the following day.

26. – 30. 11. 2012 – Food and drinks

Our topic was Food and drinks this week. We focused on fruit and vegetable recognition. Lilies cut out various kinds of yummy, juicy and healthy fruits from construction paper and then we glued them together onto a big paper bowl. We also practiced conversation about the topic while we were playing a role game "At the Greengrocer´s". Next to it, we started preparing for our Christmas party and we are learning a lot of Christmas songs, carols and rhymes nowadays.

19. – 23. 11. 2012 – Body parts

Our last week´s topic was BODY PARTS. We practiced through exercises, circle times, songs (Head and Shoulders) or arts. Lilies learnt to point at various parts of their bodies and made a decent progress during the week. Children had to put together a human body from a few items (a head, a body, legs and arms) or cut out a face, eyes, a nose, a mouth, ears and hair from construction paper and create a head.

12. – 16. 11. 2012 – Exotic animals

This week we continued with animals, but we were focusing more on exotic animals - jungle and savanna animals. There are some pretty popular animals among those - like a lion, a tiger, a monkey, a hippo, an elephant, a giraffe etc. We were discussing the differences between wild cats and how they look. Every big, wild cat seems to be a lion to the children, and so we were trying to explain the differences, and show some examples in picture books. We also were playing some type of charades where we were behaving like a certain animal, and the audience were supposed to guess what animal it was. We were all taking turns to do this. The children loved this game so much that we played it a few times this week.

5. – 9. 11. 2012 - Domestic animals

This week's topic was about common animals - basically domestic animals we can see at houses, on farms and in woods. We went through the names of the most common animals and their babies. In English language most of the animals have special names for their babies, like goat kid, bear cub, kittens, puppies and so on. We also built a big community farm model, where all the children took part using little building blocks and toy animals.

29. 10. – 2. 11. 2012 – Halloween party

This week was a Halloween week. We accomplished making our school look spooky - with all the jack-o-lanterns, bats, ghosts and other Halloween related decorations our school turned into one big haunted castle. All the children came in costumes on the Halloween day - we had princesses, fairies, pirates, skeletons and even a lion, a rabbit and an elephant. We started off with a catwalk. The kids were showing off their costumes and dancing with the Monster Mash song playing in the background.

22. – 26. 10. 2012 - Prepare for Halloween

This week we were preparing our school for Halloween. We introduced Halloween to the children, as this tradition has not yet grown its roots in the Czech Republic, and it simply needs some explanation. We were talking about having fun while Trick-and treating, dressing up in costumes, as well as some new vocabulary connected to this tradition like Jack-o-lantern, cauldron, etc.

15. – 19. 10. 2012 – Prague ZOO

This week we took a little adventure to the kingdom of wild animals - we visited the Prague Zoo. We were exploring and meeting different animals. We were also learning their names, where they live, and what they like to eat. The children had many questions about their favourite animals like elephants, tigers, crocodiles and penguins.

8. – 12. 10. 2012 - Autumn

We have entered a new topic - Autumn / Fall. Rainy and cold weather together with moments of modest sunshine helped us enjoy autumn atmosphere. Our school has a pleasant autumn scent after we picked up fallen leaves and conkers on our Wednesday trip.

1. – 5. 10. 2012 – Shapes 2

We were busy again thanks to the Shapes topic. We practiced describing various shapes (circle, square, rectangle, oval, triangle, diamond, star or heart) and drawing them.

24. – 27. 9. 2012 - Shapes

This week was full of shapes. We were learning about basic and irregular shapes, and differences between them. The children would repeat the name of a shape we would show them on our shape chart.

17. - 21. 9. 2012 - Number and colour

This week, we continued practicing numbers. We prepared variety of paper numbers of different colours and sizes, and we made it fun for the children to recognize them. The kids were helping each other out, totally enjoying the team work. Also, we were working on a mosaic that was shaped as a number.  After that, we made colourful caterpillars, and let them "crawl" around the classroom.

10. - 14. 9. 2012 - Numbers

This week the children were real mathicians. We were practicing numbers by singing songs like "The fish song", where the kids use their fingers to count. We also have a large number display, which we use to help them recognize numbers - the children took turns to count the numbers on it. As for crafts, we made a colorful banner with numbers on it, and we decorated our play-room with it. Apart from the banner, we made also plenty of magical number-fish. The kids then used the fish to sing "The fish song" and count together.

3. - 7. 9. 2012 - New semester

This was the first week of our new semester, and as such, we devoted it to introducing ourselves to our new classmates, and  getting comfortable in our class. We also started off with colors, working on little rhymes that include names of colors. We were also sorting different objects by their color. In the end, we made a beautiful rainbow image, composed of all kids' hand-prints - it was a great symbol of the upcoming teamwork. This week was a lovely start of the new semester, all the children seemed to be happy in their new class.

24. 8. 2012 - Camp week

We had a quiet week seeing as most of our little flowers are off on holiday and enjoying the last week before the start of the new school year. We started off the week with a trip to the yellow spa where the kids enjoyed a day of swimming, sliding, paddling and having fun in the sun. During the week we went to the playground, showed off our talent in a talent show competition, picked apples, took full advantage of the slipping slide and pool and had a lot of fun outdoors.

17. 8. 2012 - What a delicious week we have had

The kids have become real professionals in the kitchen and have been cooking up a storm. To begin our week we made tasty Pasta with a tomato sauce followed by delicious plum cake. Tuesday we cooked roasted chicken with mashed potatoes and cucumber salad, needless to say, the children ate everything.

And Wednesday we made a Czech meal called Zemlovka using our very own hand picked Flowergarten apples. Patato bake was our Thursday dish and we also chopped up tomatoes, garlic and basil to make a yummy bruschetta toppings. And Friday we decided to spoil our taste buds with something sweet - apple tart. We hope the parents enjoyed the take aways just as much as we did!

8. 8. 2012 - Golf week

This last week has been golf week. And while some of our students improved their golf skills, others had fun creating name tags, bug jars and Indian hats. We also spent time practicing our talent at out Flower Garten talent show, which showcased some great hoolahoop dancing, freestyle and comedy amongst others. We had a great time in the park on Thursday and picked ripe apples from our trees which the kids all loved to munch on. We look forward to a week of cooking and fun.

25. – 29. 6. – Graduation Day

This week has been a lot of fun, we each made an octopus, created speckled frog masks, continued our summer crafts with paper suns and learned some summer vocabulary while enjoying the sun.

Monday was special as we all took the bus to the zoo! The kids laughed, stared and gasped at the various animals and really enjoyed the seal performance towards the end of our trip. We practiced songs all week for Graduation Day and had fun posing for the camera crew taking pics of our little students.