FlowerGarten News
17. 2. 2012 - St. Valentine´s Day
Last week we had two different topics. On Monday and Tuesday we celebrated St. Valentine´s Day. Children casted plaster hearts and other ornaments for their parents. We painted the hearts red and gold to look even more wonderful.
10. 2. 2012 - From Egypt to China
This week we went on an excursion around the world. We "traveled" to Egypt, where we made little pyramids with sand glued on, then we moved on to China and we made some good-luck dragons with colourful hand-prints of the children. We also discovered Japan, making some traditional Japanese fans. The children really enjoyed the adventure.
3. 2. 2012 - Our World
This week we have been focussing on the topic of 'Our World'. We have been looking at maps of the world, identifying the land and the sea and the different continents. We have focussed on the colours green and blue, and done some crafts using these colours. This week the Tulips have welcomed a new girl to the class, Adelka has joined us and she has been settling in really well.
27. 1. 2012 - People
This week we continued with the same topic, which was Jobs and what they involve. We were introducing the children to common and attractive jobs like a doctor or nurse by role-playing. We had a real stethoscope in the class, and some bandages as well.
20. 1. 2012 - Jobs
This week we started with a new subject - Jobs. We were discussing all kinds of jobs and asking the children what job they would like to do when they grow up. A Firefighter, and a teacher were the most popular jobs among the kids.
13. 1. 2012 - Our little towns
This week we have continued to look at the theme of 'Our Town' and we have been practising the new vocabulary words of shops, buildings and landmarks that we have learnt over the past two weeks. The Tulip's class made a paper collage of a house and garden as part of their art project this week, and we have had lots of fun building little towns with our lego and wooden bricks.
We were happy meeting each other after Christmas again. Everybody had a lot of experiences, wanted to show new toys and told us about their winter holidays. Our week´s topic was PLACES IN A TOWN. We talked about buildings, institutions and objects we can see in a town and we tried to describe them, how they work, what they are good for.
16. 12. 2011
This week we were getting ready for the Christmas party that is taking place in our school on Monday. We have arranged a big, beautiful Christmas tree, which the children decorated themselves.
13. 12. 2011
Christmas carols
5. 12. - 9. 12. 2011
Preparation for Christmas
Roses
This week, we have continued talking about the weather. We explained to the children the difference between mittens and gloves, and we were practicing the new vocabulary that we introduced last week. The children made a little polar bear with winter clothes, and they also made a snowman out of paper. Apart from that we have started talking about upcoming Christmas, which is another big topic we will carry on with for the next two weeks.
On Thursday we took a little walk in the woods by our school, and we came up with a little fantasy Christmas game called "Help Santa and Rudolph find their magical Red Tomato". The children believed to the story we made out for them, and they had a lot of fun seeking for Santa and magical Red Tomato. The lucky child who found the magical Tomato was Marek.
Tulips
This week we have been busy preparing for our Christmas celebrations. The Tulip's have been busy practicing their Christmas songs, and they have been making some lovely presents for their parents, as well as helping the other classes to make tree decorations and paper chains ready to decorate the Christmas tree when it arrives.
We took a trip to the ceramics class this week and Patrik, Ondra and Elizabeth joined us to make very pretty Christmas tree decorations. In Cooking club we continued our Christmas preparations, and Ondra helped us to make several batches of Christmas cookies that we will decorate in next weeks club. Next week we will be putting the finishing touches to all our Christmas crafts and gifts, having a final rehearsals of our songs and getting everything ready for our Christmas party the following Monday.
Lilies
Christmas preparations and atmosphere dominated our programme last week. Children are learning songs for Christmas party, make decorations for our Christmas tree and talk about presents they would like to see under the tree. We painted pinecones green, glued red balls and tinsels to the pinecones and created cute miniatures of real Christmas trees. Paper snowflakes and chains must have been done as well. While we were singing ´Jingle Bells´, we made romantic Christmas bells. And because there is no sign of snow in Prague, we looked at some snowy pictures and created Winter collage from blue paper, cotton wool and twigs so now it is snowing in the Lilies class.
28. 11. - 2. 12. 2011
Winter and Christmas
Roses
The new topic of this week was winter. We talked about the clothes that we wear to stay warm and dry, as well as some activities we do during the winter. We have also learned some new vocabulary related to the winter, such as snow, icicles, ice-skating etc. Because the weather outside was unusually warm, and no snow at all, we couldn't do any winter activities ourselves, but we could do some winter crafts. The children were working on paper mittens decorated with colourful mosaic, and they also made an angel to celebrate the upcoming St. Nicholas Day. St. Nicolas, the Angel and the Devil eventually visited us on Thursday, and gave the children some fruit and chocolates. The children were singing and reciting for St. Nicholas, and they were really adorable and brave.
Tulips
This week the Tulip class has begun to prepare for our Christmas celebrations. We have spent a lot of time practising our Christmas songs, and we have done some winter and Christmas related crafts, such as decorating a pair of mittens and making a paper Christmas tree. On Thursday we had a visit from Mikulas, the Devil and the Angel, Ondra and Patrik were there and they were very brave!
For Cooking Club this week we continued our Mikulas celebrations by making tasty cookies in the shape of Mikulas, Angels and Devils, which we then decorated with icing and chocolate sprinkles. Next week we will continue to look at the theme of winter and Christmas, and start making some lovely Christmas decorations and Christmas gifts ready for our party at the end of term.
Lilies
We started Winter and Christmas topic. Children love the weeks before Christmas because we can make plenty of favourite crafts. You can see snowmen, mittens, snowflakes and Christmas chains decorating our school. On Thursday Mikulas, Devil and Angel visited us. Lilies were brave and got sweet rewards for singing songs for our visitors. Because of the coming of our popular and legendary characters we created lovely models of St Nicholas/Mikulas and paper angels. The more courageous part of the Lilies started making devil´s masks which we are going to finish next week.
21. 11. - 25. 11. 2011
Food and Drink
Tulips
This week our theme has been 'Food and Drink', which has been a very popular topic with all the children! We have revised the words we already know, especially the names of fruits and vegetables, and learnt some new food related vocabulary. We have discussed our favourite foods and things we don't like, and have used our toy kitchen to play restaurants - I've been served some very unusual meals this week! On Thursday we had Cooking Club and this week we made mini pizzas with fresh tomatoes, green peppers, olives and mozzarella.
It has been very quiet in the Tulips this week, as many of our class have been off school ill, we are hoping to see lots of Tulip's back again next week, as we need to begin preparations for our Christmas celebrations and must start to learn some new songs!
Roses
This week was dedicated to fruit and vegetables. As we know, fruit and vegetables have many different colours, which gave us an opportunity to practice our colours in a different manner. We used flash cards, and picture books to introduce the children to the new English vocabulary. The kids were practicing their pronunciation, colours and they learned how to recognize the basic fruit and vegetables. We also made beautiful fruit baskets, with several different fruit, and because it was Thanksgiving week we made a colourful turkey.
Lilies
Our topic was food and drinks. Lilies enjoyed a game where they tasted different delicacies such as sugar, salt, honey, cocoa, flour or instant ice tea. It was so successful that we played it twice. We made a vocabulary book with plenty of fruits, vegetables, dairy and meat products or drinks. Children drew pictures and wrote English meanings of depicted food. Thursday was celebrated as Thanksgiving Day in the USA which made us talk about the American history and focus on turkeys. We used various techniques like painting, cutting paper, gluing or drawing to create lovely turkeys whose bodies were children´s palm prints. This topic is connected with shopping. Lilies talked about their favourite shops and goods they can buy there.
14. 11. - 18. 11. 2011
My Body
Tulips
This week we have been talking about the theme of 'My Body' and we have been learning some new words for body parts as well as remembering words that some of us already know from our Circle Time songs such as heads, shoulders, knees and toes. We have talked about how we grow, and how some of us are still small while others are much bigger.
The weather has been very cold this week, so we have spent a lot of time playing indoors and downstairs in our gym. The Tulips had fun playing on obstacle courses - climbing, jumping, crawling and balancing over various things. They were also able to practise some of their new words as we asked them to move on their hands, knees, backs and so on.
On Wednesday Patrik and Valentyna joined the rest of the school on our trip to the theatre to see Hurvinek and Spejbl. Everybody enjoyed it very much and had a really good time.
We all enjoyed a day off on Thursday for the National Holiday, and are looking forward to next week, when our theme will be Food and Drink.
Roses
We have started a new topic - our body. Every morning we played a little game "Monkey do, monkey see". We were pointing at different parts of our body and pronouncing their names. We were also singing simple songs that put our body parts in rhymes like "Belly, bottom, back, and neck". This week's craft activities were focused on our face. Each kid was working on their own original project, they created all on their own, without help of any template. It was a blank paper face the children filled with the features. They drew eyes, ears, mouth and nose, cut it out and pasted on the face.
Lilies
Body parts were the main topic our previous week. We learnt a new version of ´Head and Shoulders´ song, played Simon Says, practiced and stretched body parts in Yoga lesson and made some crafts. Children cut out eyes, ears, a nose, a mouth and hair to create a funny face on Monday. Because most of our Lilies are proud they are going to a big school and want to do big school activities, we practiced writing English words for body parts and together with drawings we created educative books. Our short week was concluded on Wednesday when we visited Hurvinek and Spejbl´s performance in the theatre and after we came back to school, we discussed our experiences from our trip to Dejvice.
7. 11. - 11. 11. 2011
Roses
On Monday we went to collect leaves for our project. The project was a lion, whose mane was basically made out of the autumn leaves the children collected and pasted around the lion's face. They drew the face themselves. One of the lions had pink eyelashes and pink hair - it was a girly lion.
Our topic for this week was wild African animals. We were talking just about the most significant species - just those the children know from picture books or a zoo park. To help the children with the English vocabulary, we played a guessing game. "What is orange and has black stripes?". "A tiger". We also made a paper rhinos, which we hung around the class room.
Tulips
This week the Tulip's have continued to look at the theme of animals, and have been looking at exotic and wild animals. We made some lovely lion masks in bright oranges and yellows and have been colouring in pictures of jungle animals.
On Thursday Ondra and Elizabeth joined in with cooking club – this week we made pretty chocolate and vanilla pinwheel biscuits, which took a lot of care to prepare but ended up looking very nice indeed.
We have enjoyed the last few days of mild weather by spending lots of time in the garden, with some of the Tulips helping to rake up the leaves from the grass. On Wednesday our planned trip to the library was cancelled, so instead we took a walk through the village to the park, and had fun looking out for lots of signs of autumn such as the leaves and berries on the trees. Next week we will be looking at the theme 'My Body'.
Lilies
We continued in Animals topic last week. Our ZOO grew bigger as we made polar bears, lemurs and flamingos. Lilies drew pictures of animals outside on a path in the garden and helped to rake leaves under the trees. On Friday we made a huge ZOO in our playroom. Children constructed pavilions for many exotic animals and laid a railway for the visitors. All we needed were blocks, plastic animals and Ikea-train construction set.
31. 10. - 4. 11. 2011
Animals and their different names
Tulips
This week the Tulips have had a week of celebrations and parties. On Monday we started off by celebrating Jachyms 3rd birthday with a cake and a birthday song. We then spent the rest of the day celebrating Halloween, with lots of spooky crafts, games, stories and trick or treating. Patrik, Ondra, Jachym and Elizabeth then joined the rest of the school on a trip to the botanical gardens to take part in the pumpkin carving. Tuesday brought us another birthday celebration as we celebrated Elizabeth's 3rd birthday with another delicious cake and a birthday song.
This week our topic has been animals, and we have been learning the names of many different animals, such as the pets we have at home and the farm animals that we have all seen. Next week we will continue to work on the theme of animals, this time focusing at wild and exotic animals.
Roses
After a week dedicated to our Halloween celebrations, we moved on to a new subject - animals. This week we started with farm animals. The children are usually pretty familiar with animals like a cow, a horse, a pig, or a goat. We were taking them one by one, talking about how big they are, what sounds they make, and what products we can get from them. The children have been also working on a farm model. They have had so much fun pretending they were farmers, and they were feeding the animals, milking the cows etc. This project was great, because the children were also learning how to work as a team.
Lilies
Last week we prepared for Halloween. We learnt a rhyme (Flutter, Flutter Little Bat), played Halloween games and decorated our classroom with paper Frankensteins, spider webs, funny witches and magic lanterns. We stuck tiny pieces of orange and black paper to create Jack O´Lantern pumpkins. On Monday we celebrated Halloween in Prague Botanical Garden. We scooped out real pumpkins which we lit in the evening before the bravest Lilies went to sleep over at school from Monday to Tuesday.
Since Tuesday we have been dealing with Animals. Our aim is to make a marvellous ZOO project. Children drew a layout with roads, paths, rocks, ponds and grass and made different animals for our animal park. We had fun making crocodiles, hippos, zebras, giraffes, camels, lemurs or skunks.
Text of the rhyme:
Flutter, flutter little bat,
how I wonder where you´re at.
Swooping through the darkest night,
you find your way without a light.
Flutter, flutter little bat
how I wonder where you´re at.
24. 10. – 27. 10. 2011
Make witches fingers
Tulips
We have had a short week this week, and have all been looking forward to our holiday on Friday!
We have been getting in the autumnal mood this week with a series of seasonal crafts and activities all focusing on Halloween. The Tulips have made some pumpkin pictures and spooky foot-print ghosts, and we have been continuing to practice our autumn songs and practice our skeleton dance which is a big favourite amongst our class!
On Wednesday Ondra, Valentyna and Patrik all joined us on our trip to the Lego museum, and they had a very nice time looking at all the wonderful models, especially enjoying the trains! On Thursday Elizabeth and Ondra took part in Cooking Club, this week making some very gruesome witches fingers complete with blood! Very spooky, but also very delicious!
Next week we will be finishing our Halloween celebrations on Monday with a trip to the Botanical gardens to take part in their pumpkin carving and other spooky activities!
Roses
We have completed making our school look spooky for our Halloween celebration on Monday. Our final touch was making paper witches with hair made out of wool, and also making ghosts. The kids were giggling and laughing while we were making the ghosts, because we were panting the soles of their foots white, and it was quite ticklish. We stamped their soles on a black construction paper, and the children added eyes, nose and mouth to it. Very ghostly style indeed.
17. 10. - 21. 10. 2011
Preparing for Halloween
This week's topic was Halloween. For now, it doesn't belong to the most celebrated Czech holidays, but unlike the other foreign traditions, Halloween is slowly making its way to the Czech Republic - mainly because it is fun for kids.
First of all, we explained to the children how this holiday is celebrated in the US - how we decorate our houses, how the children put on fun costumes and go trick-or-treating, etc. After that, we have started working on Halloween decorations like smiling bats, Jack O'Lanterns, happy ghosts and such, and we put some of them around the school. Apart from that, we were also memorizing a cute rhyme about bats.
10. 10. - 14. 10. 2011
Roses
This week we have continued talking about Autumn, and how Autumn is different from the other seasons. We were explaining to the children the changes in the weather, how the leaves change their colour, and eventually fall off. We were also talking about clothes we were in Autumn to keep us warm and dry. Apart form this talk, we were also making paper trees, which the kids decorated by finger painting so it looked as good as the trees in the garden outside the school. Another craft we were working on, was a funny looking and cute scarecrow figure. Everybody is doing great with their English.
Tulips
We have continued looking at the theme of Autumn this week, and have learnt a new Autumn song, which Patrik and Jachim in particular enjoy singing and do so with lots of volume and enthusiasm! The cold and rainy weather in the early part of the week meant that we have had to spend a lot of times indoors, and sadly we had to postpone our trip to the mini zoo on Wednesday as it rained all day. However, we found plenty of activities to do inside, and have made good use of our gym.
The newest member of our class Elizabeth joined us this week and is getting to know all of us! Ondrej and Valentyna are becoming very independent and not so reliant on their older siblings. Elena and Karina are both very happy and starting to join in with activities and games with the older children during playtimes.
Lilies
Lilies finished Autumn topic and started making decorations for Halloween which will be celebrated on October 31. We tried to use all the autumn products we found outside such as leaves, conkers or walnuts. From leaves we made funny collages. We combined drawing and sticking leaves together to create bodies and heads of people and animals. We tried to create more animals from the conkers we brought from Zbraslav Chateau Park and to enjoy the autumn atmosphere we tasted walnuts from our school garden. We also made hedgehogs from egg cartons.
Our school has been decorated with many Halloween symbols. You can see pumpkins, spiders and ghosts hanging all around. We started to learn some Halloween rhymes. Elin, Ella and Kaja are able to say the rhymes after only a few repetitions which is amazing. Sam and Rastik has accommodated themselves in the Lilies and together with Filip they created a respectable opposition to the Hello Kitty Gang.
3. 10. - 7. 10. 2011
Talking about the seasons
Roses
This week we have started talking about the seasons. We were trying to introduce the children in the differences between the four seasons. Season by season we were talking about weather changes, activities, animal life and other important points that are significant for the particular time of year. Since this topic brings many new English words, we eventually focused on autumn. We also made some autumn related crafts like a paper acorn - cut, painted, and decorated by cinnamon. The nice scent of cinnamon was in the air all around the classroom and the children were enjoying its aroma a lot. We also made a paper hedgehogs.
Lilies
We have started Autumn topic with a plenty of activities for our project – Autumn Farm. Children cut small pieces of yellow, orange, red, green and brown papers to make fields. They stuck them on a cardboard paper. Then, we painted a few boxes and thus created a farmhouse and barns. Leaves are falling from the trees nowadays and we made toilet paper trees with leaves of all colours on and under them. On Friday girls made lovely leaf prints.
Elin and Ella enjoyed a game with different autumn picture cards. They practiced exchanging them for money ( = other set of pexeso cards). Girls proved to be great economists. Filip and Rastik made most of buildings for our farm. We are looking forward to seeing Kaya next week after she recovers from her illness.
Tulips
We have started to discuss autumn and the changing of the weather. We have learnt a new autumn song in circle time, which Patrik in particular enjoys very much. We have been on walks through the woods behind the school collecting autumn leaves, and Karina has spent lots of time helping me gather the walnuts from the tree in the garden. We have made autumn crafts, including hedgehogs with paper mosaics and autumn trees with real leaves. This week Patrik and Ondra joined us for the first time on our trip to ceramics, they had lots of fun and made lovely colourful paper birds.
We have made the most of the last few warm days by spending lots of time in the garden and Jachym has had lots of fun cutting the grass with the toy lawnmower. Both Tobi and Valentyna are settling in well and starting to make friends, Valentyna is happy to join in with her class now, as long as she knows that big brother Filip is not far away!
27.9.2011
We pretend to be at school and learn to count
Roses
This week's topic were Numbers. We were teaching the children how to count up to ten, and afterward we were focusing on particular digits. The numbers itself is a bit dry topic, and that's why we made it as much fun as possible. The children were singing rhymes about numbers like "five, six, pick up sticks" that help them to memorize the right order, as well as correct pronunciation. We were also making colourful caterpillars which had big numbers on every piece, and a chocolate boxes shaped like a heart, which had numbers pasted all around.
Lilies
Lilies have successfully started their new one-year mission with enthusiasm. We dealt with colours, numbers and letters in previous weeks. We mixed colours, counted simple additions and coloured letters of the alphabet and thus made a bit wall poster for our classroom.
Kaya, Ella and Elin were eager to work very hard and get homework. They are learning a big school routine and their abilities to count, write and read single letters are gradually improving. Sam is getting used to new friends and likes playing with small children and Filip who is the boss of boys in the Lilies. Lilies have started a project of a Conker ZOO with animals made from conkers and wooden sticks.
Tulips
The Tulips have been busy settling into their new school routine and getting to know their classmates and the other children in the school. Patrik has been very brave in the last few weeks as his sister Neli has gone to big school and he is now here by himself. Ondrej, Jachym and Valentyna still have their big sisters and brothers here, but they are all learning to spend time away from them, and join in with their class during our lessons and activities.
Karina is very happy and enjoys playing with the older children during playtimes. Elenka continues to grow in confidence, she is getting used to all the other children and starting to feel more comfortable around them. The Tulips have been familiarising themselves with colours in the last two weeks, and we are now starting to work on numbers. Daisies spend time with Tulips and they are doing the same activities.
18.6.2010
September 2010 we are opening a special program called "Toddler Time" for children from 12 months.
At Toddler Time we mainly focus on language skills (speach, voice, hearing), skills closely connected with learning (attention, memory) and physical ability (movement coordination, soft motorics, hard motorics).
Children will be accompanied by Czech- English speaking teacher and throughout games will gradually addopt to using English in regular daily activities.
Every Wednesday from 8:00 to 12:00.
2200 Czk / month
