English 1: Nonsense Book

1. 
   Divide the cards into two sets. On each of the cards in the first set, write a sentence subject like Dad, Justin, The cat, The Hat, and so on. On each card in the other set, write a predicate like has a bath, is tired, has a bib, is in bed, and so on. Write all the subjects in one color, and all the predicates in a different color. This will make the cards easier to use.
2. Now let the fun begin! Allow your child to pick a subject card and a predicate card. Then have them join the two cards to form a sentence, for example: The hat has a bib or The cat is in bed. Your child can read the sentence aloud, or you can read the sentence for him.
3. If you’ve got an emerging writer on your hands, have her practice her printing by writing the sentence at the bottom of one page of the notebook.(If your child can’t write yet, you can write the sentence for her.) Now break out those markers and crayons! Let your child illustrate the sentence. Repeat this process several times until you have at least a half a dozen pages. Now read it aloud. You’ve made a nonsense book!

Discuss: Why did we call this book a nonsense book? What happens in a ‘sense’ible book?

Quiz: Why do we like stories?

English 2: Let Your Kids Campaign!

The next time you’re in the car or sitting at the table with your family, pick a family decision that you would like your first grader to tackle. This can be a simple, everyday decision like what to eat for dinner, to a more special one like where everyone would like to go on your next family vacation.

Turn to your first grader. Tell her that since people in the family have different views, you’re going to work together to make a “fair” choice by voting. Everyone gets one vote, and the “majority” will decide. You can even use the word “democratic” here so your child becomes familiar with voting terminology. Explain that before people vote, they always need to think about their choices. This is why candidates come around and give speeches.

In this decision, every member of the family should start by talking about choices and exploring all points of view. After hearing everyone speak, have your first grader conduct a vote. It’s tempting to have everyone raise hands, but as a lesson in civics, it’s better to go with a “secret ballot” process. Ask each family member to jot their vote on an index card and put it inside the shoes box. Explain that nobody will sign this “ballot,” that it’s intentionally anonymous, just like in “real life” elections in a voting booth. Later, you can also discuss why this “secret” process might be important in a school or community.

Give the box to your first grader to tally. After all votes are counted, ask her what she thinks you all can do with the information. How does a decision get made? (This is a good time to remind everyone about the term majority!) After your family has made a choice, have your first grader document this decision by writing it down and hanging it up in a common area for all to see. “We are going to Disneyland!” or “Macaroni and Cheese on Friday!” Have fun with it. Let your child color it brightly or glue on a decoration.

Sure, it’s one small family decision; but it’s a sign of huge concepts: the importance of being heard, and the privilege of being allowed to vote and help make a group decision in a democratic country.

Discuss: Why do we vote? Why should we keep votes secret? When is a majority opinion not important?

Quiz: Should we vote for the person or the party? Why?

English 3: Play Letter-Sound Hopscotch!

1. “Letter Blend” Hopscotch Game: Find a nice blank section of pavement—on a playground, sidewalk, or driveway—and use your chalk to draw twelve large square boxes with letter sounds in a hopscotch formation (check out this activity for an example). Kids start by hopping on one foot at a time, and say the name of the letter they land on. But when they land on the squares that go two across, one foot on each, they need to say the sound that the two letters make together. So, for example, a kid would start by hopping on one foot on “C,” and saying it out loud. Then she’d hop on one foot to “H,” but then land on the “crossbar,” in which the left foot is on “C” and the right foot is on “H.” Now the letters combine, and your child should shout the sound “CH”! Once she’s got the hang of it, she’s ready to play with the rock; she’ll throw it onto successive boxes, hop around it while saying the letters, and then try to pick it up without losing her balance.
2. “Vowel Sound” Hopscotch: In first grade, kids will learn the difference between vowels—a, e, i, o, and u (and sometimes y)—and consonants. They’ll learn how every word in English has a vowel in it, and they’ll practice finding vowels in words. What’s often tough, however, is that every vowel has not one but two possible sounds! In technical terms, we call these the “long” and “short” sounds. The “a” in “apple,” for example, is the “short” a sound, while the “a” in “cake” is the long one. Want to help your child jump into first grade vowels? Try this: Use your chalk to make simple hopscotch squares, but instead of labeling them with numbers, label them with vowel names. You have ten hopscotch squares to work with, which means you have space for both long and short vowel sounds for a, e, i, o, and u. Either you or your child can write a letter in each box; on top of the letter, though, write the symbol for long or short. So the “a” in “apple” (short sound) should look like a with a u on top, but the “a” in “cake” should have a straight line on top.
3. As your child hops on each box, have her say the letter sound correctly in order to advance. Invite a friend or two, and you’ve got a friendly game going; miss the sound and you go back; say it right and you jump ahead…not just into hopscotch, of course, but into important parts of your first grade curriculum!

Discuss: Redesign the hopscotch board. What is the most frequently occurring alphabets in the reading that you encounter?

Quiz: Name objects with the starting sounds in the game.

English 4: Play Nursery Rhyme Madlibs!

1. Explain to your child that this is a game that uses a “big” idea from first and second grade: the difference between nouns and verbs. In first grade terms: nouns are words that show people, places, and things; and verbs are words that show actions. Brainstorm two sets of cards: one for nouns, and one for verbs. If you’ve got older siblings around, invite them to help, but do make sure that your first grader is familiar with all of the words you’re putting down!
2. If this is the first time you’ve ever discussed nouns and verbs, make sure you do a little “checkup” before you go further. Pull out random cards, and read out the word. What is “run”? A noun or a verb? How about “bicycle”? Make sure your child knows the difference.
3. Now remind your kid about familiar nursery rhymes, such as “Row, Row, Row your boat, gently down the stream…” Start by pointing out one nouns, such as “stream.” Now pull out a noun card, and have your child use it instead of “stream.” If you’ve got friends or siblings on hand, invite them to do the same, and compare answers. Remember: first graders think concretely. So when you end up with “Row, row, row your boat, gently down the garbage can,” you can expect happy, silly guffaws.
4. Now do another rhyme, perhaps “Jack and Jill,” or “London Bridge,” but replace a few verbs instead!

Special Note: Real “Mad Libs” are generally written for third graders and above, and they include not just nouns and verbs but adjectives, adverbs, and so on. Beware: these are usually too complex for first graders. For this age, it’s recommend that you change only one word per line, so that the contrast between the old meaning and the new one is especially clear. “Nursery Rhyme” versions are meant to keep things simple, direct, and above all, really delightful for the whole family.

Discuss: Write 3 nouns and 3 verbs. Demonstrate any one of the verbs.

Quiz: Choose two words that rhyme.

English 5: Play Post-It Bingo!

• Prepare the game. Each player writes the sight words on Post-It notes, one word per note; players check each other’s notes for accurate spelling. Once the prep is done, players arrange their notes in a square on the construction paper or flat surface. If you’re playing with 9 words, you should arrange them in three rows of three. For 16 words, four rows of four. Finally, put the stack of index cards in the center of the playing area, face down.
• Play! The first player turns over the top index card and reads the word aloud. Players mark their matching Post-It note with a bingo marker. Once everyone’s done marking, the player shows the card to all gamers, so they can check their work to be sure they’ve got a visual match. Player puts card in the discard pile. Play continues in this manner until a player has marked an entire row on their Bingo “board”. The winner yells “Post-It Bingo!”, then the oldest player checks the discard pile to be sure all the marked words have been called.

To start a new game, simply pick up the Post-Its and rearrange the playing grid!

For Reference: A “High Frequency” Word List

Pre-primer: a, and, away, big, blue, can, come, down, find, for, funny, go, help, here, I, in, is, it, jump, little, look, make, me, my, not, one, play, red, run, said, see, the, three, to, two, up, we, where, yellow, you

Primer: all, am, are, at, ate, be, black, brown, but, came, did, do, eat, four, get, good, have, he, into, like, must, new, no, now, on, our, out, please, pretty, ran, ride, saw, say, she, so, soon, that, there, they, this, too, under, want, was, well, went, what, white, who, will, with, yes

1st Grade: after, again, an, any, as, ask, by, could, every, fly, from, give, giving, had, has, her, him, his, how, just, know, let, live, may, of, old, once, open, over, put, round, some, stop, take, thank, them, then, think, walk, were, when

2nd Grade: always, around, because, been, before, best, both, buy, call, cold, does, don’t, fast, first, five, found, gave, goes, green, its, made, many, off, or, pull, read, right, sing, sit, sleep, tell, their, these, those, upon, us, use, very, wash, which, why, wish, work, would, write, your

3rd Grade: about, better, bring, carry, clean, cut, done, draw, drink, eight, fall, far, full, got, grow, hold, hot, hurt, if, keep, kind, laugh, light, long, much, myself, never, only, own, pick, seven, shall, show, six, small, start, ten, today, together, try, warm

Common Nouns: apple, baby, back, ball, bear, bed, bell, bird, birthday, boat, box, boy, bread, brother, cake, car, cat, chair, chicken, children, Christmas, coat, corn, cow, day, dog, doll, door, duck, egg, eye, farm, farmer, father, feet, fire, fish, floor, flower, game, garden, girl, good-bye, grass, ground, hand, head, hill, home, horse, house, kitty, leg, letter, man, men, milk, money, morning, mother, name, nest, night, paper, party, picture, pig, rabbit, rain, ring, robin, Santa Claus, school, seed, sheep, shoe, sister, snow, song, squirrel, stick, street, water, way, wind, window, wood

Discuss: How do sight works help in reading? How many of the sight words in the game were nouns? Verbs?

Quiz: Math the sight words with the pictures. Old, Round, Walk

English 6: Father’s Day “How To” Book

1. Help your child create the physical book. Have her stack 5-10 sheets of drawing paper and fold the stack in half.
2. Sandwich the folded sheets between two sheets of construction paper. Either staple them at the spine, or punch a hole in them and connect them with brads.
3. Over the course of a few days, encourage your child to think of things her dad does well. Each page is a different “How To” action that she illustrates. Some examples are, “How To Cook Dinner”, “How to Fix a Car”, or “How to Go Fishing.”
4. Have your child write a title at the top of each page, explaining what her dad is doing in the drawing. She can expand on it with some narration about why or how he does this action so well. Don’t worry about spelling, rather focus on completion. The “creatively spelled” words will be charming in years to come!
5. Write the best ending ever! On the last page, encourage her to draw something the she and her dad do together, along with a short narration of why she likes doing this with her dad.
6. Finish by drawing a book cover, and adding any information to the back of the book. Perhaps your child has their own publishing name she’d like to advertise on the back? Or, how about a barcode?
7. Gift wrap and present it to the best dad ever!

Discuss: How do you think your notebook is made? What are things that mom can do better than dad? What are the things that you can do well?

Quiz: Essay on ‘How to make a book’

English 7: Gold Hunt

1. Hide your treasure. Remember, this is leprechaun work, so have fun. Did the tricksters hide the treasure outside, in a tree? Did they creep inside, perhaps under a pillow or bed? Did they leave sparkles in their wake, or turn the toilet water green? You decide.
2. Make “leprechaun gold” clues. Let’s say that the treasure is “Under the living room couch.” To write this message, mark a 2” circle for each letter in the phrase and add one extra circle for each space between words– 27 circles in all, in this case. Cut them out, and lay them in a long row on a flat surface. Now use your permanent marker to write one letter on each circle, leaving a plain blank circle between each new word. Leave your circles in this order, but turn each one over so that its front is blank. Apply a medallion sticker to each circle, and then number each one from left to right. In this case, you’ll go from 1-27.
3. Hide the clues. Leprechauns are known for leaving clever clues in a rather fun, careless way. So spread the clues all over, making sure that they’re not so carefully hidden that nobody will find them!
4. Send your child hunting! Show your child one example of the leprechaun “gold,” and explain that you’ve heard that there are at least 26 more pieces out there. Tell your child that you have it on good authority (who knows from where?) that if all these pieces can be found, there’s a special message to read.
5. Decode the message. When all the “gold” has been found, take a look with your child at what’s been collected. Letters on one side; numbers on the other! Hmm! Start by having your child line up all the numbers in order, in one long line. Then suggest turning each gold piece over to find the letter underneath. Challenge your child to sound out the message with you, and be prepared to step in and help if a word seems hard.

Make sure you’re prepared for the grand finale: a mad dash to the big treasure and a lot of happy laughs!

Discuss: Where would you have hidden the treasure? Why? Why do children like to play hide and seek?

Quiz: Write about ‘My favourite hiding place at home’.

English 8: Play Syllable I Spy

1. Start the game with a little refresher. Tell your child that just as music can be divided into beats, words can be divided into syllables. Spend a few minutes talking about a few multi-syllable words, clapping at each syllable to show your child where the “breaks” are.
2. Let ‘er rip! With your child’s help, tear a piece of paper into a bunch of small strips. On each piece of paper, write a number from 1-4. When you’re finished, throw them all into the hat.
3. Time to play! The first player picks a slip of paper from the hat. Just like in “I Spy,” he must come up with an object for the other player to guess. But in this version of the game, he must come up with an object with the number of syllables on the slip. For example, if he picked the number 2, he might choose “table” or “teaspoon” or “stapler.” With children this age, the number of syllables itself probably isn’t enough of a hint to keep the game from getting frustrating, so give clues that incorporate other hints as well, for example, “I spy something black with two syllables” or “I spy something you eat on that has two syllables.”

As your child gets the hang of it, don’t be afraid to throw a bit more challenge into the hat. Or, hat aside, just ask your child to think of a word with five syllables, or even six! He’ll look at your refrigerator in a whole new light.

Discuss: Write down one word with one syllable. Two syllables. Three syllables. Four syllables. Ensure that these are words which have not been used in the game.

Quiz: Which of the following words have two syllables?

Banana, Cycle, Buffalo, Each, Have, Every, Long, Auto, Much, New

Answer: Auto, Cycle, Every

English 9: The Build-a-Word Card Game: Better than Go Fish!

1. Make a set of “word cards.” Give your child the following list of words: life time can not cross walk moon light any body mean back ground bath room break fast day dream down town up stairs some butter fly fire thing one else where base ball day up side no air plane bed time
2. Set it up. Ask your child to write each word on its own index card. Then have her lay the cards in a pile, word down, and shuffle the deck. Each player gets 5 cards. The rest of the pile goes in the middle.
3. The object of the game: Collect as many compound words as possible, by finding “pairs” of cards that go together to form a word. The player with the most pairs at the end, wins.
4. Starting with the youngest player, each player looks at his hand and asks another player for cards. For example, if a player had the word “any” in his hand, he might ask, “Jason, do you have cards that go with “any?” If the other player has any words that can be attached to “any” (for example, “body”, “day”, “where”, or “time”) to make a compound word, he hands them over.
5. If a player gets the card(s) he asks for, it’s still his turn. He can ask for something else, for example, “Mom, do you have any cards that go with “cross?” But if a player asks for a card that his opponent doesn’t have, he’s told, “Go Build!” He must pick up the top card in the middle pile. If it’s something he can make a compound word with, using one of the cards in his hand, he shows the pair and his turn goes on. Otherwise, his turn ends.
6. Play continues like this. Each time a player find a compound word match, he shows the other players, then lays it beside him in a pile. Whoever had the most compound word pairs in the end, wins.
7. Want to check your work? There are many possible answers, but here are some words that were originally used for the list above: lifetime cannot crosswalk moonlight anybody meantime somebody butterfly firefly something someone elsewhere baseball today upside nowhere background breakfast daybreak daydream downtown upstairs bedtime airplane
8. Of course, there are thousands of compound words in the English language. So don’t limit yourself to this list! Brainstorm as many as you’d like to add to the deck. And let your kid in on the challenge!

Discuss: What is the compound word with the least number of syllables? Write down 3 compound words which haven’t been done in today’s exercise. Make a new compound word and ask the class to guess what it means.

Quiz: Which of the following are compound words?

Carpet, Carrot, Notebook, Kitten, Breakfast, Button, Milkshake, Donkey, Office, Butterfly.

Answer: Notebook, Milkshake, Butterfly, Breakfast English 10: Dictionary Treasure Hunt

Set the stage. The dictionary is a big book and it can be intimidating, especially for little kids. It’s likely that your child has already started using the dictionary in school, but a refresher never hurts! Start by asking your child to come up with a “big” word and ask her what she thinks it means. Then look it up together, showing her how you move through the book alphabetically until you find the first letter of her word, then the second, and so forth. When you find the entry, look over the definition. Talk about the fact that there are sometimes nuances, or slightly different versions of meaning for a word. This is a wonderful way to build up your kid’s vocabulary.

Plan the hunt. Getting kids to look up words in the dictionary isn’t always easy. But when there’s a treasure hunt involved? Much more interesting! A dictionary treasure hunt is just like a backyard one, except instead of hiding clues behind bushes or under trees, you’ll hide them throughout the pages of the dictionary itself. If your child has a vocabulary list from class of words she’s supposed to define, you can use it. Otherwise, choose a set of your own words. Start with the first word you’d like your child to look up and write a clue for it on a sticky note. When she gets to that word in the dictionary, there should be another sticky waiting there, with the next clue written on it. And when she gets to that one, another sticky should await. In this way, your child will move through the dictionary, from definition to definition, until she finds the final clue, which should lead her to a small prize, for example, a gift certificate or homemade coupon for an ice cream, a trip to the movies, or whatever else you dream up.

Get writing! While your clues will depend heavily on the words you choose, and the definitions listed in your dictionary edition, here are some examples of what clues might look like:

• Find the word “arcane”
• Find a word that starts with the letters RIDI and means “something laughable” (Answer: ridiculous)
• Find a verb that starts with the letters INS that means “to make a demand, request urgently” (Answer: insist)
• Find a word that starts with the letters FLIM and ends with the letter Y, that means “not strong or solid” (Answer: flimsy)

Limit your hunt to between 6-10 clues, you don’t want to force a first grader to slog through past her attention span. And if you’re choosing your own words, try to pick terms your child will find interesting, for example, words that are fun to say like “quagmire” or “rickety”, or words that tie in to your child’s favorite hobby, like “benchwarmer.” True, the dictionary may never become your kid’s favorite book, but it’s a valuable tool. So get out those sticky notes and get her comfortable using it. With the right dictionary etiquette, she’ll learn to maneuver her way through that colossal reference tome in no time!

Discuss: Like human beings, do you think words can be born and die? How do you think dictionary writers write meanings for new words?

Quiz: Create a new word. On which page of the dictionary will you write it? English 11: Play Story Ball: A Reading Comprehension Game

1. Using the marker, grab the beach ball and ask your child to write one of the following questions in each of the colored sections of the ball: “Where?” “Who?” “Beginning?” “Middle?” “End?” and “Favorite part?”
2. Once the ball is marked up, take it outside for a game of catch. In the game of Story Ball, each time you toss your child the ball, he must answer the question written on the color which lands under his right hand. Where did the story take place? Who were the main characters? What happened in the beginning, in the middle, in the end? What was his favorite part? Toss the ball back and forth—the quicker, the better, since that makes answering in time more fun and silly. If your child can’t recall an event from the story give him some clues.
3. Play continues until all the questions have been answered. If you’d like to extend the activity, ask your child to write down what he’s said aloud on paper, then illustrate it. This is another great way to help him recall the events of a story and understand what he’s read.

Discuss: How do we start a story? How do we end it? What makes for good stories?

Quiz: Make a story using the following words: school, teacher, friends, ball, fun.

English 12: Paper Plate Phonics

1. Stack the paper plates on top of one another, and poke a small hole straight through the center of both plates. Separate the plates.
2. Use scissors to cut a 2” square in the top plate. The square should be about an inch to the right of the center hole.
3. Use the marker to write a rime (or ending letter pattern) on the right side of the window, such as “at.” (See the list below for some common first grade rimes.) Be sure to write the rime about the same height as the cut-out window, and use lower-case letters.
4. Attach the two plates with a brass fastener at the center. The plate with the rime and window should be on top.
5. Use the marker to write a letter (or a cluster of onsets) on the portion of the bottom plate that appears in the cut-out window, such as “c”.
6. Turn the bottom plate clockwise until the “c” disappears, then write a different letter in the window. Continue in this manner, writing a letter, then turning the plate, until you come back to the letter “c.”
7. Now it’s time to play! Hand your child the plates, and have him turn the wheel until a letter appears in the window. Help him blend the beginnings and endings to make new words!

Some common first grade rimes include:

-ab, -ag, -ack, -at, -ap, -an, -am, -ad, -ake, ate; -ed, -en, -ell, -eck, -eel, -est,; -id, -ill, -ig, -ick, -ip, -ide, -ike; -op, -ot, -ock, -og, -oat; -ug, -uck, -ut.

Discuss: Which of the rimes made the maximum number of words? The minimum?

Quiz: Write down the meaning of a new word that you fancy.

English 13: Sight Word Puzzle

1. Spread out the puzzle pieces on a flat surface, and flip each piece over to the back side.
2. Use the marker to write a sight word on the back of each puzzle piece. (Note: Your child can assist with this step, too. Just be sure that each word is written neatly, clearly and with correct spelling.)
3. Now, have your child put the puzzle together! After he reads a word on a puzzle piece, he may flip it over to look at the image on the other side and add it to the puzzle. If it’s a hard word for him, tell him what it is, but leave it with the word visible so he can come back to it later. Soon, the puzzle will be finished, and so will your child’s sight word practice!

Some common first grade sight words include: the, from, at, him, her, she, that, there, is, it, in, you, your, out, are, give, by, put, what, look, little, let, some, has, going, as, for, had, how, then, my, said.

Quiz: Make your own 3 piece puzzle.

English 14: Paint and Learn

Let your child be the teacher today! Grab your water color paints, brushes, sponge, and a bucket. Fill the bucket about 1/4 full with water. Then go outside to find a clean spot on your sidewalk (or front porch.) Be sure to bring your activity questions list.

Start by warming up those handwriting skills by painting capital letters. Be sure to paint using the same direction you would if you were writing them on paper. Repeat this process for all of the alphabet letters.

• Sidewalk Math Practice math skills by reviewing some basic addition problems. First, choose one person to paint the problems, and the other to paint the answers. Then switch so that each person has a chance to do both jobs. Paint the following math problems on the sidewalk: (Remember, when you’re done with each one you should use the sponge and bucket to wash away the problem before the next one.) Math Problems: 2+4=___ 3+5 = ___ 6+4= ____ 8+1= ____ 9+2= ____ 10 +5= ___ 15 + 3 = ____ 25 + 5 = ____
• Sidewalk Writing Now have some fun playing a guessing game while practicing writing! Take turns having one child use paint to write the sentence clues, and the other child paint the answer pictures. Then switch jobs so each child gets a turn at writing sentences. You can play an animal guessing game by painting the following sentence clues:
  • 1. I have orange and black stripes. (Answer: Tiger)
  • 2. I can swing from trees! (Answer: Monkey)
  • 3. I have 8 legs and live in the ocean. (Answer: Octopus)
  • 4. I have spots & live in a firehouse. (Answer: Dalmation)
  • 5. I can hang upside down! ( Answer: Bat)
  • 6. I can hop fast & like carrots! ( Answer: Rabbit)
  • 7. I can fly & eat worms! ( Answer: Bird)

This is a great way to give your child another tool to use in practicing writing by painting. It’s lots of fun and keeps kids mentally in shape for their hours in the classroom. So grab some paints and go to Sidewalk School!

Quiz: Create your own animal clues. Create your own math addition problems.

English 15: Make a Career Book!

1. Have your child brainstorm a list of jobs and careers that he knows about. Examples might include: doctor, firefighter, actor, veterinarian, chef, artist, construction worker, and pilot.
2. How many jobs made your child’s list? Have him rip out a corresponding number of pieces of paper from the drawing pad.
3. Fold the piece of paper in half to make a crease in the middle. Make sure that the dimensions of the paper are such that each side of the crease is big enough to make a page.
4. Now it’s time to draw! You child should draw a picture of the job on one side of the paper, and write out the name of the job on the opposing side. For instance, he might draw a woman in a lab coat with a dog or cat, then write “Veterinarian” on the opposing side. (You may want to assist with spelling questions).
5. Once your child has finished illustrating all the careers on his list (this may be an ongoing project for a few days), place the pages one inside the other to create a book. On the “spine” of the book, punch a semicircular hole 1/3 of the way from the bottom of the book, and another 1/3 of the way from the top. String a piece of yarn or twine through one hole and back through the other. Tie the ends of the string together. Voila! Your child has built a portfolio of the many jobs that exist in the world, and practice some art and writing skills, too!

Quiz: What job do you like the most? Why? Second-best? Why?

English 16: Verbs Relay Race!

1. This is a version of the classic relay race, just like in the Olympics, where teams of kids will work together. Each child will take a leg of the race and the fastest team wins the round. There’s just one catch: each “leg” will require a different action, and nobody can say it aloud. Racers must use their first grade reading skills in order to know what to do.
2. Make two stacks of index cards, and have the kids help you brainstorm action words that they can do on the move, such as skip, run, jump, hop, flap, tango. This is a great time to introduce some unusual or unexpected verbs to expand their vocabularies. Write each word on two cards and place one of each in a stack for each team.
3. Divide your first graders into two teams, each with at least 2-3 racers. Then mark out a course that’s a reasonable length for your little athletes. They’ll need to be able to go up and back without dropping down exhausted!
4. Now it’s time for action-word reading action. Stand between each team and have the first player draw a card from that team’s stack. On the count of three, start the race, and be ready for hilarity.
5. While the first racer is in motion, the second one can grab a card and get ready for action. As soon as the first racer tags up, the second can go…and on down the line until the cards are used up.

Why it Works: First graders need endless practice with reading skills in all forms, but often these come on pencil and paper, or inside classrooms. Many kids benefit when they can get their full bodies in on the task. In teacher talk, it’s called “kinesthetic” learning; in kid-world, it’s usually called just plain fun.

Discuss: What did the other team do well on? How can they improve next time?

Quiz: List down verbs that you like.

English 17: Play Beanbag Letter Blend Toss

1. Set it up. Start by drawing eight different letter blends in big, strong block letters on your eight pieces of paper. Choose among first grade “greatest hits” such as: ch, th, sh, wh, oo, ee, ing, tion, and str, among others.
2. Explain to your child that the aim of the game is to hit the sound you hear. Each child gets 3-4 tries (depending on the number of beanbags available).
3. Draw a line for contestants, and place the board on a floor or smooth backyard surface.
4. Now, as referee, say the sound and then invite the child to land the beanbag on it. Each kid gets three throws in one turn. Each beanbag that makes it onto the correct letter sound represents a point, and the child with the most points after 2-4 turns (depends on how many kids you have and how long the attention span of your group) can get to be referee next time.

Note: this activity works especially well when kids are comfortable with tossing beanbags, and they have pretty decent aim. If you’ve got a more scattershot bunch, it works just as well if you put the board against a fence or wall, and have kids run up to it and touch the correct square for a few rounds.

Why this works: In order to master letter blends in first grade reading and spelling, kids need to practice, practice, practice. While flashcards and room decorations help them remember visually, there’s nothing like “kinesthetic” (whole body) learning to help kids integrate their lessons for keeps. Don’t be surprised if you end up with some happy family memories while you’re at it.

Quiz: Make words using these blend sounds.

English 18: Write a Story From an Ant’s Perspective

1. You can begin this activity several ways. You can either talk with your child about what she thinks it would be like to be an ant or you may want to read one of the many classic stories discussing this topic. One suggestion is “Two Bad Ants,” By Chris Van Allsburg.
2. Next, have your child think about what the objects in your home might look like to a tiny little ant. What might the television or the computer look like? What about the refrigerator or the stove? Would an ant be afraid of the vacuum or a broom?
3. Then invite your child to take an “ant’s tour” of your house with a camera. She’ll need to position herself very low and very close to each object she examines…have her photograph some things she sees from this “miniature” perspective.
4. Have her take three pages of the primary writing paper out. The first page is for the “beginning.” Help her paste one or two photographs onto the picture section of the primary writing paper, and then have her write a few sentences or more describing what an ant would see if he entered your home, keeping in mind what she’s been thinking about throughout this activity.
5. Have her repeat this process for the two other pages, explaining that the second page is for the middle of the story, and the third is for the end. What’s most important at this stage in your child’s writing development is that she just write…but if it doesn’t interrupt the flow, it’s OK to remind her that all sentences begin with a capital letter and end with either a period, question mark or exclamation point.

If she enjoyed writing this activity, next time she can write a story from the perspective of a fly or bee. If she has seen and enjoyed Bee Movie then this should prove to be a popular activity. She can also take the adventure outside and photograph some plants, or anything else she might like, from an ant’s or a bee’s perspective. It will be a great project for a warm day. Collect the stories together to create an entire book. Who knows—it’s quite possible she will have created a literary family classic

Quiz: How big would the legs and antenna of an ant be if it were your size?

English 19: Visual Bookmarks

1. Measure out a strip of cardboard to the size 2” x 6”. If you like, this is a great opportunity for your child to practice his measuring skills with a ruler.
2. Cut the cardboard bookmark template strip out.
3. Pick one of your child’s favorite stories and use it as the focus of the artwork for the bookmark. Discuss the book with your child and have him tell you in his own words what the book is about, his favorite scene in the book, and why he likes that scene. Talking about the books you read with your child is valuable and helps improve reading comprehension.
4. After discussing, help him sketch his favorite scene onto the bookmark. It would be good to draw the scene in pencil first to make sure all his ideas are incorporated. Remember to use both sides of the card, and leave room for add-ons like stickers, glitter, or ribbon.
5. Use the various art supplies to draw, color, paint, stick, and help your child re-create the scene from the book.
6. Presto! Once dry, your child has a new bookmark to use for future reading fun. You can laminate the bookmark to make sure it stays intact.

This bookmark is a wonderful reading tool for your child and makes a great gift for cousins, friends, grandparents, teachers, or anyone who likes to read.

Discuss: What would you do if you were reading a book, and did not have a bookmark? What should we do with a bookmark after we have finished reading a book?

Quiz: What are the other uses we can make of a bookmark?

English 20: Play Punctuation Red Light, Green Light

1. Set it up: Explain to your child and her friends that because they are such “old pros” at Red Light, Green Light, you’re going to add a twist. You can briefly review key reading and writing skills in punctuation: periods, commas, question marks, and exclamation points.
2. Line the children up across one side of your big, open space (this activity works best outside in a backyard or a park.) Then you will go to the other end of the space. Make sure to leave enough space between you and those energetic students to give them plenty of room to run around. When you shout “green light, readers!” they can start running forward. But when you shout, “yellow light, readers!” they need to look at you right away to see what sign you will hold up. Hold up a sign, and they must immediately obey it or go back to the beginning. The winner is the first one to make it across the finish line by following all the punctuation mark traffic commands.
   • Comma means: slow down and WALK.
   • Exclamation point means: Hop and wave your hands!
   • Question mark means: Stop, tilt your head, and put your hands on your hips.
   • Period means: STOP right now!

Above all, have fun. They’ll get great practice identifying key punctuation marks and their meaning. This is an extremely important part of learning to read and write.& Moreover, this activity is a great way to demonstrate how punctuation isn’t just a flat, two dimensional part of learning to read and write. We divide sentences as a way to communicate clearly—just as we use red and green lights to communicate clearly, so that we can all go about our world safely, without colliding.

Quiz: Create a sentence using all the punctuation marks.

English 21: Reading Tour

1. Using the marker and the sticky notes, help your child label common objects around the house. For example, your child can label windows, doors, plants, the couch, towels, tables, chairs, clocks, curtains, and so on. As he sticks on each label, be sure to have him read the word back to you.
2. Help your child decorate an assortment of objects to be used as pointers. For example, wrap silver and gold ribbon around a ruler and secure with glue or tape to create a magic wand. Or decorate a wooden spoon with some permanent markers and a little paint to make it look like a favorite storybook character such as a scarecrow or spaceman, or a favorite icon such as a flower or planet.
3. You can also use scissors or a sharp cutting tool to round the edges of and cut a large, round window out of the flat “swatter” portion of a clean, unused fly swatter. Note: make the window opening about the same size as the sticky notes. Decorate the rest of the fly swatter with stickers and other small decorations to create a candy or flower wreath pointer.
4. Store the pointers in a handy, special place such as a tall gift box or an umbrella stand garnished with fancy ribbon.

Now when family comes to visit, have your child select a pointer and take the family on a reading tour!

Discuss: In a grocery shop, what are things that are sold without labels? With Labels?

Quiz: What functions do labels serve?

English 22: Write a Concrete Poem For Mom

A concrete poem is a poem that takes the shape of its subject. For example, a concrete poem about an apple, describes the apple in a poetic way, and the words are written on the paper, in the shape of an apple.

Concrete poems are a fun form of writing that first graders really enjoy because they combine the fun and creativity of both writing and illustrating in one activity. Your youngster will enjoy this activity even more, when she writes a concrete poem and gives it as a gift. This Mother’s Day, help your child to write a concrete poem about one of Mom’s favorite things – it can be anything from her favorite sweater or her cup of morning coffee. When your child gives it to Mom, Mom will surely add it to her list of favorite things!

1. Have your child think of one of Mom’s favorite things.
2. Next, assist your child in using a pencil to lightly draw a simple sketch of the selected favorite thing. Make sure the sketch is simple enough that words can be written along the shape easily. Your child should only draw an outline, if possible.
3. Now, talk to her about words that describe Mom as well as Mom’s favorite thing. This is the perfect time to introduce a few new words and stretch your first grader’s vocabulary. Is Mom easy-going? A cinephile? A fashionista? A gourmet? Does she have a green thumb? Using the pencil outline as a guide, have your child use colored pencils to write words that describe Mom and her favorite thing in the shape of the sketch. Turn the paper as she writes so that your child is always writing from left to right along the outline of the shape, and help her in choosing colors that will bring the picture to life.
4. Continue writing words until the poem is complete and the outline is full. Cut out the concrete poem. Fold a piece of construction paper in half to form a card, and glue the poem to the inside.
5. Have your child use markers to decorate the card however she thinks Mom would like it best.

Discuss: How is poetry different compared to prose?

Quiz: Write a poem about your dad.

English 23: Blanket Fort

1. Supply your child with all the materials for building a pillow fort and let his imagination take the lead!
2. A good place to start is with a couch or dining room chairs. He may need a parent’s help to move heavier pieces of furniture. Tell him to use chairs, sofas, and table tops as places from which to hang blankets or on which to balance pillows. A heavy book can be placed on top of a blanket or pillow end to hold it in place if needed.
3. The legs of furniture can supply bases for the fort. He can build partially under a dining room table for example, and/or use the legs of the table to hold ends of a blanket.
4. Clothespins, binder clips, and chip clips can come in handy for clipping blankets together or hanging a blanket from somewhere high, like from a window shade or sofa top.
5. Some pillows or blankets can be the “floor base” if the fort is not built over a soft rug area.
6. The finished fort makes a nice hideout for sleepover friends or for rainy days. If your child is alone, the fort becomes a great place to read books, draw pictures, and eat snacks.
7. If you have pillows and blankets usable for outdoors, he could build a fort in a yard using trees, bush limbs, and patio furniture as scaffolds for the soft materials.
8. Encourage your child to make other fort designs in the future. The pillow fort possibilities are endless!

Discuss: What are the different kinds of homes people have?

Quiz: Why do homes differ so much?

English 24: Write Pen Pal Postcards

1. Find a pen pal. This activity works with any child or adult that your kid really loves. This could be a cousin far away, a dear summer friend, or even an aunt or grandparent. All it requires is someone willing to be a correspondent. Your child’s pen pal services can even make for a marvelous, low-budget holiday gift as well!
2. Take the strips of colored paper and divide them into two stacks of roughly ten strips each. On each one, write a different “sentence starter.” All you need is a few words, such as “I like/I went/My favorite book is…” Give one set to your pen pal, and keep one at home.
3. Start the chain: Lay out the strips on a table, and have your child read them and select one. Have her glue it to the top of the page, complete the sentence, and then follow up with one more sentence all of her own.
4. Your child may want to add a picture to the page, too—kindergarteners do this all the time when they write in school, while first graders do it some of the time. Either way, encourage her to use her “best kid writing” and “best kid drawing.” This doesn’t mean perfect spelling or penmanship; but it does mean that your child works with effort and care.
5. Now send the letter! Civic activities, like fire, police, and postal services, are an important part of kindergarten and first grade social studies curriculum, and they are fascinating for kids. Since addresses may be tough to write, we recommend that you write them on a set of pre-addressed labels, and let your child practice sticking them onto an envelope correctly.
6. Correspond! Can your child and her pen pal go through a whole pile of “sentence starter” letters? Give it a try—you’ll be cementing a friendship while building literacy skills day by day.

Discuss: How about WhatsApp pals? We can try this between our Jammu and Pune students of the same class.

Quiz: What are the questions you would like to ask a penpal?

English 25: Sight Word Island Hopping!

1. On one end of a paved surface, use your chalk to draw a circle big enough for a few kids to stand comfortably inside. For fun, invite your child to decorate it a bit, perhaps with drawings of palm trees or shells. This is “Shelter Island,” and it’s your home base. The object of the game is for each child to hop across a stretch of pavement to land safely on the island. Here’s the catch: the area all around may look like plain concrete, but today, it’s “Crocodile Sea,” and there are going to be the fearsome snapping of toothy jaws all around!
2. Now draw a series of roughly circular 12-inch blobs between you and the island, leaving about a foot between each one. Each blob is an “island hop” that can guide a lively first grader to safety. On each “island hop,” have your child help you write a word that he’s studying. (Your teacher may have given you a list; if not, see below for common first grade words.) Draw enough blobs so that there can be several routes to the island, but try not to make any route longer than about four hops (at least at first).
3. While the kids finish decorating the island and practice some hopping, take a minute to scope out some routes. On your index cards, write out five or more different routes of about four words each that a child can hop continuously before getting to the island.
4. Time to get to the island! How fast can your child make it? Can all his friends make it, too? Pull out a card, call out a route, and let the leaping begin! If your child needs coaching on words, that’s fine: the whole idea is to practice those words…and get home safe for dinner too!

Common First Grade Sight Words:

The, you, she, said, that, do, for, they, be, boy, go, little, was, by, into, his, had, like, him, her, as, this, with, what, out, then, came, come, when, some, girl, have, there, about, from, who, work, make, them, children, an, around, long, once, saw, eat, away, how, name, new, over

Discuss: What are the different creatures you can find in the sea? Are all of them fishes?

Quiz: How do fish breathe?

English 26: Practice Reading with Newspaper “Highlights”

1. Introduce the newspaper and a highlighter to your first grader and you’ve got daily literacy practice at your fingertips! First show your child how to use a highlighter. Explain that you need to swipe, rather than color, with this special tool, and it makes words appear brighter than the other words around them.
2. Now explain that even though the newspaper is full of teeny print, a first grader has still learned words that are all over the page. Pretty grownup stuff, if you think about it!
3. Next, pick a literacy skill of focus for the day. Perhaps your child is working on a sight word this week, such as “they.” Have him search through the newspaper and highlight the word “they” as often as he can find it.
4. The next day, choose a different skill or focus. Maybe today he’ll look for all the words he can find that start with the same letter as “Wednesday.” You could also have your kid highlight a few of the words he doesn’t recognize, and then look up the definitions as a way to improve his vocabulary.
5. You’ll want to set a weekly goal for your child and write it on the calendar beside the week. At the end of the week, if he has reached his goal, reward him for his efforts. Take him out for ice cream or a movie. It will be the “highlight” of his day!

Quiz: Make a story based on a photograph that you saw in the paper.

English 27: Practice Reading with a Word Hunt

1. On each of the 10 index cards, write a different word. Then make a second set of cards using the same words. Words like “the,” “was,” “have,” “all,” and “some” are all great examples of words you might want to put on the cards.
2. Have your child close her eyes or go into another room while you place the cards from one set around a room. Put them in easy-to-find places, like on the floor, on the coffee table, or on the arm of the couch. If your child is an expert at finding things, feel free to make it a bit more difficult by hiding the cards in less obvious places, like sticking out of a book or leaving them half-hidden under a coffee cup–just be sure you don’t forget where you hid them!
3. Hand the other set of cards to your child and ask her to read the word on the first card. If she struggles, help her sound it out.
4. Tell her she is a detective and needs to find the matching word for the card. Maybe even create a story to make it more fun; say the two cards are friends but one got lost and it’s up to your child to reunite the two.
5. The object of the game is to have her hunt for the match to each card. She might come across a card that doesn’t match the one she’s looking for. If this happens, she’ll have to recognize that it isn’t the same word and keep searching.
6. When she finds the match to the first card, instruct her to put the pair of words into the basket.
7. Have her continue until all of the cards have been found and paired up with their matching cards.
8. Once she can easily find the matches to the words, try a new variation of the game. Instead of giving her a second set of cards, this time you can read off the word that she needs to find and she’ll have to hunt for the card with the word on it.
9. Once she’s mastered these words, make another set of words and keep on playing! She’ll be a great reader in no time.

Quiz: Why do you like some friends more than others?

English 28: Consonant Blend Scavenger Hunt

1. Write one consonant blend per card: tr, sw, st, sp, sn, sm, sl, sc, pl, gr, fl, dr, cr, cl, br, and bl.
2. Give your child one card and have him make the sound the blend makes. Inform him that blends are two letters that make one sound, such as the “cr” in cry. Sound out the blend with your child.
3. It’s scavenger hunt time! Hand your child a bag, and give him 5 minutes to find objects that start with the blend that you just gave him. Offer him suggestions of words if he needs help.
4. After 5 minutes, go through the objects. Help your child find the remaining blend objects throughout your house, including the objects that were too big to put in the bag. Give him a point for each item he names!
5. Play another round! For a beginner, just play a few rounds. For a challenge, have your child take two cards at a time per round, or have him compete with a friend.

Discuss: Would you call ph a blend sound? Are there any other two letter blends with a single sound like ph?

Quiz: Fill in the blanks to make as many words as possible:

_ _ ain

English 29: Compound Word Art

1. Fold the paper horizontally and cut the paper on the fold. You should now have two long strips of paper.
2. Place the paper horizontally in front of you. Fold each end of the paper inward so that the two ends touch and create two folded sides, giving you two doors that open.
3. Tell your child that a compound word is a word made up by two different words. Talk about how the words mean something different when they are separate words. Explain that when the two words are put together that they make a new word that means something different.
4. Have your child pick a compound word. Sample compound words include: sunflower, earring, seahorse, pancake, toothbrush, eyeball, keyhole, fireman, ponytail, teapot, jellyfish, toolbox, eggshell. Would you like to introduce any new words?
5. On the left door of the paper, have your child draw a picture of the first word in the compound word and write the word underneath the picture. For example, if she picked the word seahorse, she will draw a picture of the sea and then write the word “sea” underneath it.
6. On the right door, have your child draw a picture of the second word in the compound word. Using seahorses as an example, she would draw a picture of a horse on the second door.
7. Have your child open both doors and draw a picture of what the compound word means together. For example, she would draw a picture of a seahorse and write the word “seahorse” underneath it.
8. After your child has finished, have her tell you about the compound word. If she’s up for it, encourage her to pick another word and draw another picture.
9. Hang the pictures on the refrigerator. Throughout the day, point out when you encounter other compound words, and try to think of even more compound words that we use every day!

Quiz: Make some new compound words.

English 30: Pin the Tail on the Silent E Word!

1. Pull out your posterboard, and choose 20 three letter combinations from the list above to write in large block letters, in neat columns (words should be at least 1’1/2”-2” high). Make sure you leave a generous space after each word (you’ll be adding “silent e”), and between words vertically. Invite your first grader to look over your shoulder, or even to write some of these letter combinations if she likes.
2. Fasten the paper to a wall, and make sure that all the words are at a good height for your first grader to reach. At the end of each word combination, stick on a strip of Velcro.
3. Cut 20 squares of card stock, each 2” square, and on each one, help your child write a clear “e” in large, black print. Stick a strip of Velcro on the back of each card.
4. Now you’re ready to play! Give each team 10 “e” cards, and line the kids up behind a starting line. Kids will take turns running up to the poster, one team at a time. They must say the three letter word correctly, and then add the “e” and say the new word. They’re encouraged to “cheat”—team members can help them—they just have to say it out loud and proud.
5. Although you can play this game as a pure team-on-team competition, another favorite way to play is “beat the clock.” How fast can this whole bunch of kids fill in that silent “e” and say it correctly for all 20 words? Try it a few times, learn it backward and forward, and see if you can set a “personal best” for the day.

Discuss: Tell the meaning of the words in Hindi / Marathi.

Quiz: Write a four letter word ending in e, which makes sense even when the e is removed.

English 31: It’s All Natural! A Materials Scavenger Hunt

1. Show her several manufactured items you have collected from around your home. These could include such items as a paper bag, a metal toy car, a wool mitten or hat, a cotton sock, a wood ruler, a glass jar, or a book.
2. As you show her each object, ask her what she thinks the object is made from. Ask if she knows where the material they named comes from. Many children will know that wooden items come from trees and woolen clothing comes from sheep. Explain to her that paper comes from trees, cotton fabric comes from plants, metal comes from mineral in the ground and glass comes from sand.
3. As you identify the source material for each object, write a “master color code” card, and make a different color label for each kind of source material: plant, trees, animal, metal, or sand. Emphasize that all the source material comes from our environment.
4. Now it’s time to introduce some new vocabulary! Go on a tour of the house with your child, and identify at least 25 different source materials you can see. Place a color dot on each one as identification (for example, you might use green for trees and red for animals). Tell her she may use her own clothing to label as well, and it’s also okay to raid the kitchen! As you go, bring a clipboard. After your child has picked each object, list its name on your paper, and leave some room between each item.
5. Once you’ve labeled the house, you’re ready for a fun scavenger hunt that also supports first grade reading skills. Invite your child (and a friend, too, if she likes), to go find every object on your word list, and then put the appropriate sticker or stickers next to the object name. Milk and cookies for the scavenger who can read each word and recapture every sticker around the house!

This activity can also be joined with many books that discuss how things are made from objects found in nature. The Ox-Cart Man by Donald Hall and Kids’ Clothes From Start to Finish by Samuel G. Woods & Peter Casolino are just two examples of many.

Discuss: How do you think the above materials get recycled?

Quiz: Which stuff in your house gets recycled?

English 32: Questions, Anyone? Ask Your Way to Reading Comprehension

1. Prepare by making the spinner. Draw a circle on a piece of cardstock and divide it into four sections. Label one section, “Who?”, another “What?”, another “When?”, and the last one “Where?”
2. Unfold the paper clip and poke it through the center of the cardstock. Bend the end that’s sticking out of the bottom so it doesn’t fall out.
3. Then invite your child to select his favorite book of the moment, and read the story together. Ask him questions such as, Who are the characters in the story? Where did the story take place? What happened in the story? Then select a different book and read it together.
4. Now break out the spinner and explain the rules. He takes a spin and whichever section it lands on, he answers a question about it.
5. Invite him to spin it, and ask away! See how well he pays attention and for each correct answer, give him a point or a sticker. When he’s received a certain amount of points, give him a special prize like a new set of markers or a trip to the movies.
6. To make this activity a little more challenging, use the spinner as a story-writing tool. Let him spin the spinner and write, illustrate, or dictate to you a detail for his story. He’ll get to decide the who, what, when and where and will surely come up with some crazy ideas!

Discuss: The 5 Why technique for problem solving.

Quiz: What is the biggest problem that you are facing today? Apply the 5 why technique to solve it.

English 33: Create a Classroom Pop-Up Book

1. Help your child to create a very brief narrative. It should follow a sequence such as “first you take the school bus to school, then you sit down for story time, next you have lunch,” etc.
2. Decide on a desired book size. Fold the card stock to the size and cut if needed. The books may have as many or as few pages as your child would like.
3. Staple (only adults should do this step) the book together on the crease. Add a piece of tape over the staples to prevent injuries from sharp edges.
4. Ask your child to create a cover by drawing with marker or crayon. If your child is struggling to draw the images that she wants, try breaking down objects into shapes. For example, a school bus may look like a long rectangle, with a smaller square in front, and circles for wheels. Help your child to write her name on the front.
5. Using the construction paper, have your child draw small versions of classroom or school objects and people. This may include desks, chairs, a teacher, friends, or any other school related item.
6. Cut out each school object or person. Leave a small rectangle shaped tab (in proportion to the size of the object) at the bottom.
7. Fold the tabs so that they are under the objects and people, creating a pop up stand.
8. Open the book to the first page (both sides of the folded paper will count as one page). Ask your child to draw the first selected school scene with markers or crayons.
9. Add in the pop ups by gluing the tab to the pages. Once dry, fold the objects and people pop ups back to a flat position before turning the page.
10. Repeat for the next pages.

Discuss: The action of springs. How do they work?

Quiz: Which of these is not a spring?

1. 2.

3. 4.

English 34: Make a Double “ee” Eel to Practice Phonics!

In first grade phonics, that double “ee” is a big project. It’s pretty strange, if you think about it: double a “t” or an “l” and the sound doesn’t change … but double an “e” and, well, eek!

1. Start by painting the toilet paper tubes and egg cups with the glitter paint. If you want to go with a “realistic” look, you might try black, brown, or green paint, but feel free to branch out, perhaps even to hot pink, or purple, or both. While you’re at it, your child might even choose a name for this eel creature.
2. While the toilet paper tubes are drying, cut a “tongue” from red felt, about ½” x 2” long. If the felt seems thin, go ahead and make two layers, and glue them securely onto the end of the elastic.
3. Put a small hole in the bottom of each egg cup, large enough so that the elastic can fit through it.
4. Once the tubes are dry, cut each one in half, leaving 8-10 tubes, each about 3” long. Explain that these are your “ee” tubes, and brainstorm these words with your child. Help him write a different “ee” word on each tube, making sure that one of the tubes, which will go in the front, says “eel.” (Hint: try green, keep, deep, seep, creep, feel, reel, heel, wheel, tree…) If you also want to add stickers, now is a good time, too.
5. Now it’s time to string your eel together. Start by running the elastic through the bottom of one egg cup until it hits the edge of the red tongue, facing out. This will be the eel’s head; glue on two googly eyes to complete the effect.
6. Then string the tubes, starting with the one that says “eel.” Go all the way to the end of the tubes, and then poke the elastic through the other egg cup. Keep it straight but not taut, and knot it off or staple it securely.
7. Want to make the eel “slither”? Grab the tongue, pull the elastic to tighten the eel, and then let go!

Quiz: Which of the below is an eel? Why?

English 35: Story Sequencing Activity

Start by choosing no more than six pages from whatever book you and your child have chosen: you will need the first page, the last page, and four pages in between on which you can see key pictures and text that show the plot advancing.

1. Make copies of each of these pages, and then cut them in between the picture and the text. Put the pictures in one pile, and texts in the other, and scramble each pile.
2. Now it’s time for some sequencing. Lay six blank pieces of paper on a table in a row. Have your child lay out the jumbled illustrations in the order that she thinks is the correct sequence. Which one comes first in the book? Second? Third? And so on.
3. Now the more challenging part: have your child match the texts to the proper illustration. The text should match the right picture and the whole thing should tell the story clearly. As she is doing this, have her explain to you what is happening in each scene and why she thinks she has matched the right text with the right illustration. Ask her if there are any words she does know. Have her use a dictionary to look them up.
4. Have your child glue each correct set to a piece of blank paper, and then staple the bundle in the correct order. She’s just “made” a mini-book…and advanced her reading comprehension at the same time.

You can repeat this activity with several different stories to really give your child a chance to practice. Keep encouraging her to match those pictures and make movies in her head as he moves forward. This will carry her through chapter books, nonfiction books, and all sorts of literary glories in the years ahead!

Quiz: How did you decide which part of the story was the beginning and which part was the end?

English 36: Basic Reading Comprehension

1. Find a book you think is really terrific, and can’t wait to read to your child. Give yourself a treat, and read it front to back, just by yourself…no kid yet! What do you like about it? What does it teach?
2. Now go back, looking at each “spread” (the two pages you see when you hold the book open). Ask yourself a question: what’s the most important thing happening in these two pages? This will vary, of course: it may be a change in the action; it may be a new character; it may be the way a main character is feeling.
3. For at least five spreads, jot an open ended question that you can ask your child to get at this main idea. Let’s say, for example, that you’re reading “Curious George.” You’ll want to avoid closed ended questions such as “what color is George’s fur”—this will feel too simple to your first grader, and too much like a quiz. Instead, ask questions about George himself: “How does George feel about his broken bicycle?” Narrow your focus on predictions: “Do you think he can get it fixed?” Put your sticky note on that page.
4. Now read the book with your child, and savor it together. Each time you get to a sticky note question, pause and talk it over.
5. As you approach the end of the story, you will have had a rich conversation. Now, bring it to a close by holding the book shut for the very last page or two. Ask: “Okay, after all this, what do you think will happen?” Join your child in making predictions, and then read together. How do you feel at the end? Did the author surprise you? What do you think?
6. Note: If you’re making a star chart, this is a great time to stick your evaluation on the wall. Moving forward, encourage your first grader to try writing some of his own sticky notes on a favorite, familiar book and then reading it to a smaller child, perhaps a sibling.

Quiz: How many of your predictions came true? Could we have turned the story another way? Where?

English 37: Gotcha! A Punctuation Read-aloud Game

1. First, get familiar with “highlighting tape.” This is a great resource for anyone, not just teachers, but you’ll probably need to find it at a teacher supply store. Available in yellow, green, and sometimes other colors like orange and pink, the tape fits over letters and words in a text, and allows you to see through to them. When you’re done, the tape pulls off like an ordinary post-it.
2. Take out a book that you and your child enjoy, and invite her to be a “punctuation spy.” Together, go sentence by sentence to highlight how it ends. If you’ve got an eager reader, go ahead and highlight commas, too. Finally, if you’ve been able to find different colors of tape, it’s wonderful to color code them.
3. Before you read the book, review the rules with your child: when you read aloud, you drop your voice to note a period at the end of a sentence; raise it for a question; emphasize for an exclamation, and pause for a comma.
4. Now it’s time for some fun. Have your second grader watch the page carefully as you read, and don’t hesitate to move your finger on the page as you go if it helps. You read aloud…but make some deliberate mistakes! For a sentence that ends in a period, try making it sound like a question…and let your second grader pounce. In fact, try putting a scorecard in his hand. Every time he corrects you, give him a point. Score of seven wins the round!
5. This game should bring lots of laughter, and some good learning, too. To finish it off, though, do go back and read the whole book through correctly, so that the last memory of its punctuation is accurate. You can still involve your punctuation detective: as you reach each one, you can have him peel off the highlighter tape. He’ll have a fat handful at the end of the book—a satisfying reminder of how much he really does know.

Discuss: Copy a paragraph of text without punctuation marks and ask your friend to read it.

Quiz: How was the experience?

English 38: Bowling for Phonics

1. Make sure that the soda bottles are empty and dry. Start by spray painting them with nontoxic paint, either in black or in a bright color. (Be sure to leave the caps on as you spray paint.) These will become your “bowling pins.” If you plan to play indoors with a light “bowling” ball, you can leave the pins empty. Otherwise, use a heavier ball and add about 2 inches of sand to each bottle to keep it balanced and to make it a little harder to capsize instantly.
2. Cut up the plastic acetate sheet into six 4″ wide by 1-1/2″ high pieces. Horizontally place one plastic acetate sheet on the side of each bottle, and tape the bottom and sides of the sheet to create a “pouch.”
3. Cut index cards in half, so that each one is 2 1/2″ x 3″, and divide them into “packs” of six. The word cards will be placed in the “pouch” on the soda bottles, and each “pack” will include a group of words using the “two vowels” rule.

• Pack 1: ea: leaf, bean, lead, treat, peak, seal, real, deal, leap, cheap (pick any six)
• Pack 2: ai: rain, pain, stain, gain, main, drain, train, main (pick any six)
• Pack 3: ie: field, thief, chief, yield, grief, belief
• Pack 4: oo: soon, moon, balloon, noon, raccoon, loon
• Pack 5: ee: see, bee, tree, deep, peep, creep, need, keep, green, peel, reel, sleep (pick any six)
• Pack 6: oa: boat, foam, goat, roam, float, throat, coat, moat (pick any six)

How to play!

1. Start with the first pack, and place one index card inside each clear pouch so that the word shows clearly. Then line up the “bowling pin” soda bottles in a triangular formation with three in the back row, two in the middle row, and one in front. Give your child a ball (anything from a lightweight Nerf ball to a soccer ball, depending on whether you’re indoors or outdoors and whether you’ve weighted your pins). Depending on the skill of your bowlers, you may also want to make an alleyway with spare boards or children’s blocks.
2. Have kids take turns “bowling” to knock down the pins. Once they’ve knocked some pins down, have them read each word in the pouch of the knocked over bottle. They will get one point for each word, so make sure to tell your kids they won’t get a point unless they successfully read the word. Teammates can coach and provide support, but remember to hold the rule: no word, no point!

Quiz: What is the best place to hit for the pins to fall? Why?

English 39: Homonym Adventures

By the middle of first grade, your child will probably have encountered her first few homonyms…those words that sound the same but are spelled differently, and mean different things, too.

There will be many years ahead for your child to develop this knowledge, but now’s a great time to start exploring some basics. In particular, it’s important for your budding reader to be able to tell the difference between “to,” “two,” and “too,” as well as “here” and “hear,” and “there” and “their.” Your child may have problems spelling these words for the next year or two, but she can still learn to distinguish between them in a written text!

Kids often learn homonyms through flashcards, but here’s an “organic” approach—using real storybooks—that should prove to be much more fun. Try it and see!

1. Take out a book that you have read to your child before, one that you know she enjoys. Go through the book and find every “to,” “two,” “and “too.” Cover each one with a small sticky note. Tell her you’ll read it to her—but first, you and she will play a game together.
2. Take out the index cards and write one of each version of “to” on each one. Review with your child: what’s the difference between these three? What does each one mean?
3. Now tell your child that you want her to read the book along with you and play a little game with words called homonyms. Snuggle up with your child and start reading together. Each time you get to a sticky note covering a “to,” have your child hold up the index card with the word that she thinks belongs in that spot. Make sure she’s prepared to explain why she thinks her guess is correct! Then let her lift off the sticky note and see if she’s right. Try playing for a score to make it even more exciting!

Quiz: Is it a good idea to pronounce homonyms differently? Why?

English 40: 100 Words: Word Building

1. To make the first “word slider,” have your child pull out one piece of card stock and place it horizontally on a table. Cut it in half, lengthwise.
2. Put one of your cut pieces aside, and start working with the other. Use your ruler to mark a square one inch wide by one inch tall. Next to it, have her use a black marker to write one word ending (for example, we recommend an old classic: -at). Make each letter about 3/4 inches high.
3. Cut out the 1-inch square you have penciled in to make a window next to it, like this:

1. Now, pull out your second piece of cut card stock of the same color, and help your child use the ruler and pencil to mark a line 1-1/4 inch from the long edge. Have him cut along this line to make a 1-1/4” x 11” strip. (Note: Don’t throw away the remaining piece—you’ll need it soon!)
2. Using the ruler and sharpie, make nine lines, each 1 inch apart, so that your strip ends up with eleven 1-inch boxes marked, like this:

1. Remember that remaining piece of cardstock, the one that now measures 3” x 11”? Take it out and cut it into a rectangle, 1-1/2” x 4”, center it behind your cut-out window, and tape it down, like this:
   
2. Now it’s time for some reading fun! Feed your long, marked strip through the tunnel you have just made. In each of 10 boxes, have your child write one or two letters that can be used to start a word with that ending. “At” words are usually a great place to start—remember Dr. Seuss? If you start running out of ideas, here’s our crib sheet: cat, bat, hat, mat, vat, sat, rat, fat, pat, that.
   
3. Slide the letter strip back and forth, and you’ve created TEN words to practice and enjoy.
4. Have your child repeat this process to make nine other sliders, picking from nine of the following word endings, and you’ll have ONE HUNDRED words. (psst: parents, to make things easier, we’ve also included the words we think a second grader, or an advanced first grader, will know!)

• Et: let, get, bet, met, net, jet, pet, set, vet, wet, yet
• An: can, fan, man, pan, tan, van, than, ran, clan, ban
• In: thin, fin, bin, tin, shin, kin, pin, grin, chin, din, win
• Ip: clip, drip, hip, grip, sip, tip, nip, quip, whip, chip
• Ink: think, link, pink, sink, wink, drink, rink, clink, slink, blink
• Ank: Drank, clank, sank, tank, blank, thank, rank, prank, stank, bank
• Ing: ding, ping, sing, thing, wing, cling, fling, king, ring, sling
• Ack: back, quack, track, whack, knack, hack, lack, sack, stack, clack
• Ick: sick, thick, stick, wick tick, slick, quick, trick, brick, click, chick

Special note: parents, you may notice that another common ending, -it, is not on our primary list. “It” does work—you can make bit, fit, hit, pit, wit, flit, grit, slit, quit, and sit. Unfortunately, you can also make at least three off-color words. So we left this off—but parents, the final decision is up to you!

As we noted above, these word sliders can be clipped together as a set and pulled out again many times. In addition to being a boost to a kids’ reading self-esteem, they are great practice for young spellers. We recommend clipping the cards together and sticking them in the car. Add a stopwatch to the mix when you’re on a long trip, and you can have hours of fun as your child learns to move from sounding out each word to recognizing it on sight. In the process, we suspect your teacher will be pretty grateful for your teaching support, too.

Quiz: Make sentences of the words which you saw for the first time..

English 41: Play Straight Face

1. Choose one player to be “it”. We’ll call him Player A. The other player will be Player B.
2. In the game, Player B will ask Player A a set of questions. Player A has to answer each question with the same phrase. Before you begin playing, have Player B choose the phrase Player A has to repeat. For maximum fun, choose a silly phrase such as:
   • The dog’s tail
   • Peanut butter and pickles
   • A bird’s feather
   • Little Bo Peep’s sheep
3. Once Player B has selected a funny phrase, start the game. Have Player B ask Player A questions such as:
   • What do you comb your hair with?
   • What is your favorite lunch food?
   • What do you like to draw with?
   • Who’s your favorite person to play with?
4. Player A must answer each question with the chosen phrase while keeping a straight face. Player B keeps asking questions until Player A laughs.
5. Once Player A laughs, his turn is over and Player B gets to be “it”. Start over from step 2, having Player A pick a silly phrase and pose questions to Player B.

Keep going back and forth until neither player can keep a straight face anymore. This game is guaranteed to turn bored frowns into happy grins and giggles!

Quiz: What makes us laugh?

English 42: Learning Opposites

By giving your child a camera, you give him the power to discover his own world. This photography activity will make opposites come to life for your child as he searches in and around your home for items that represent opposites. He will also be able to use what he creates to make his own game of concentration!

1. Before you begin, discuss “opposites” with your child. Have your child help you think of some pairs of opposites that he might see around the house (most will by adjectives, like “young” and “old.”). Try to come up with at least 12.
2. Get your camera and begin the search for opposites. For example, if he is looking for something to represent the pair “young/old,” he could take a picture of a bud and a flower or a baby and a grandparent. Make sure he takes one picture for each item rather than one picture for each pair of opposites!
3. Print or develop his photos.
4. Help your child glue the photos to the thick paper and trim the edges with scissors.
5. Now, mix them up and have your child try to match up all the pairs of opposites once again.

You can also flip the photos face down and let your child have fun playing an educational game of concentration that he created!

Quiz: For any of the opposites pair, write down the similarities between the two objects.

English 43: Lace a Face

1. Ask your child to draw the basic outline of a face, neck, and shoulders on the card stock. Once the outline is drawn, have him add eyes, nose, mouth, and any other features except hair to the face. Make sure there’s enough space around the head for the hair.
2. Punch holes along the edge of the head and above it, spacing them about 1/2″ apart. Since the placement of the holes will determine the character’s hairstyle, let your child decide where to put them.
3. Invite him to pick up one of the shoelaces or lengths of yarn and tie a knot in one end.
4. Help him thread it through the far left hole, threading from the back of the card to the front so the knot lies on the back side.
5. Encourage him to continue lacing the card, stitching the shoelace or yarn through each hole to create the character’s hair.
6. Once he stitches the last hole, have him tie a knot in the end of the shoelace or yarn to keep it in place.

Try making a whole family of laced faces with your child. Vary the hairstyles by punching holes in different places and using different colored yarn or shoelaces.

Quiz: Why do older people have hair which becomes white?

English 44: Guessing Game: Good and Bad

Whether you need a game for a road trip, a quick party activity, or a fun way to pass the time on a rainy day, this entertaining game is easy to pull together on short notice. It promotes critical thinking and sharpens listening skills, and kids use deductive reasoning to determine the secret activity or object that you give clues about. It also encourages them to think about fact versus opinion about what is good and bad.

1. Explain to your child that you are thinking of something good. Try to pick something she thinks positively about, such as swimming, ice cream, slumber parties, or movies.
2. Tell her that you’re going to give hints to help her figure out what the mystery “good” thing is. However, you are not going to describe what is good about the mystery thing, but instead what is bad about it.
3. Begin with one statement of something bad about something good. For example, if you picked swimming, you could say, “You usually get cold.”
4. Encourage her or another child to guess the mystery good thing. Then, give another clue, saying another statement that’s bad about something good.
5. Keep providing clues and allowing children to guess until a child guesses the mystery good thing correctly.
6. Then, the child can have a turn coming up with a mystery good thing of her own. Note that, for some children, coming up with a succession of clues poses a challenge that might be overwhelming. Encourage her to take a moment to jot down notes to keep track of clues, or invite a couple of children to work together as a team (depending on the size of the group).
7. Once kids get the hang of the game, you can also play the reverse version, Something Good About Something Bad.

Quiz: Is there a good in every bad? A bad in every good?

English 45: Make a Swahili (Tamil) Counting Book

Friends and family will be so impressed when your youngster shows off her knowledge of Swahili in this book filled with pictures of animals found throughout Africa.

Swahili, or “Kiswahili,” is the national language of Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and is commonly spoken throughout East Africa. About one third of Swahili vocabulary comes from various languages including Arabic, Farsi, German, Portuguese, English and French. In this activity, your child will learn how to count from 1 to 10 in Swahili, learn about African wildlife, and apply those tiny hand muscles.

1. Help your child research what types of animals live in Africa. She needs to find 10 different ones. Younger children can use computer or magazine resources to locate pictures of each animal, and older children can draw them by hand.
2. Help your child pronounce each number in Swahili and ask her to write them at the top of each page:
   • moja = 1
   • mbili = 2
   • tatu = 3
   • nne = 4
   • tano = 5
   • sita = 6
   • saba = 7
   • nane = 8
   • tisa = 9
   • kumi = 10
3. For “moja,” or “one,” she only needs a single image of that animal. For “mbili” or “two,” she will need to draw the animal twice or print two copies of it, and so on.
4. Ask your child to create a cover page for her book, including her name and a title.
5. Once all the pages are complete, help your child punch two holes at the left side of the book and tie a ribbon through them.

Quiz: How did separate languages evolve? What language do people speak at the boundaries of Maharashtra and Karnataka? Maharashtra and Gujarat?

English 46: Paper Chain American Flag

1. Have your child create a loop with one strip of red paper and staple it in place. Link another red loop through the first loop and staple it in place. Now, he knows how to make linked loops!
2. Encourage him to create the following: Red: 2 rows of 10 loops, Red: 2 rows of 7 loops, White: 1 row of 10 loops, White: 2 rows of 7 loops, Blue: 4 rows of 4 loops.
3. Help him lay out the loops so the four blue rows are at the top left. Place them so the first loop lays on its side with the thinnest edges up.
4. Under the blue loops, lay out one row of red loops, then below that row is one row of white loops, followed by a final row of red loops.
5. Now, he can finish looping the short red and white loops to the blue loops. Since the colors alternate and the top color on a flag is red, ask him to figure out the striped pattern of the remaining loops.
6. Help him connect the shorter loops to the short blue loops.
7. Staple the flat edges of the loops to their neighboring loops to finish assembling the flag.
8. Encourage him to write the names of the people in his family or family friends who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces. You may have to look back at your family tree to remember all of them. Have him write their names on the front facing loops.
9. Hang the flag on a door so that friends, family, and neighbors can see the finished flag on Veterans Day.

Discuss: Research the story of how the British came to colonize India.

Quiz: What is the purpose of a flag?

English 47: Job Hats

1. Ask your child to make a list of all the people working hard who she encounters on a daily basis. Ask her what their job titles are and if she knows what they do while they work. Do any of them wear uniforms? Do any of them wear hats? Are the hats tall, short, wide or floppy?
2. Help her draw the various hats of each worker that she recalls seeing during a typical day. Sometimes, workers may not wear their hat depending on the task their doing, but she should know them as part of their uniform.
3. Have her cut out at least 6 different hats and mix them up for a quick pop quiz!
4. Ask her to name the job that matches the hat and to write who would wear the hat on the back of each paper hat.

Quiz: Why do people wear hats?

English 48: I Love Syllables

1. Before you get your young reader involved, cut out three hearts. Number them 1, 2 and 3.
2. Use the marker to write one, two and three syllable words on craft sticks. Be sure to include several words of each syllable count. Below are some suggestions.

One Syllable:

• From
• New
• One
• Some
• There
• Three
• Time
• Two
• Words
• Work

Two Syllable:

• After
• Before
• Follow
• Little
• Mother
• Number
• People
• Picture
• Sentence
• Water

Three Syllable:

• Another
• Carefully
• Different
• Family
• However
• Important
• Remember
• Together
• Understand

1. Now help her count the beats in the different words written on the craft sticks. Try out several two and three syllable words. Remember to clap as you read each syllable. Match the word to the correct heart.
2. Now it’s your child’s turn to show what she can do. Have her read each word aloud, clapping out the syllables as she reads. She may have troubles counting her own claps. If this is the case, when she seems uncertain, you can read and clap and while she counts.
3. As your child’s skills improve, you can create hearts for four and five syllable words and add to your word bank.

Quiz: How do you think we use syllables knowledge in poetry?

English 49: Reading Chart

Inspiring kids to read can be tough because it’s so hard for them to see their progress. Even if they spend 20 minutes reading on a given day, it doesn’t mean they can just take the next day off. Help keep track of your young reader’s progress with a train reading chart. By using one train car per book, his progress will be more tangible and he’ll be more likely to stay motivated

Before we get started, it’s worth mentioning that, although we made a train, there are lots of other possibilities for keeping track of reading progress. Get creative and be sure to settle on a theme that your kid is enthused about.

1. First, cut out two train engines. The classic steam engine with its smoke stack is easiest to recognize in profile. Then add wheels of another color. Write your child’s name on one engine and your name on the other.
2. Now make a series of train cars. A box car is basically a rectangle (the orange car in the photo). A hopper is a rectangle with a triangle cut from each bottom corner (the blue car in the photo). Be sure to make a whole stack of train cars so that your child has plenty to choose from when he completes a book.
3. Explain to your child that for each book you read, each of you get to add a car to your designated train. Of course, given that you’ll probably be reading longer books, you most likely won’t get to add as many cars as he does.
4. Hang your engines in a public place with plenty of room to add cars as you read. Place the train cars and a pen, marker or crayon nearby. Encourage him to immediately sit down and read to see if he can add a car today. It’s important to model reading for our children, so you should also read.
5. As he finishes a book, help him write the titles on the train cars and add them to his train.
6. You can also have a family reading challenge with one locomotive and different colored cars for each family member.

Quiz: Why is it cheaper to travel by train than by bus?

English 50: Planning a Vacation

Ideally this activity needs to be done just before the vacation starts.

We can start by asking about places that students have visited, what transport did they used to get there. We can then introduce them to the geographical concepts of distances and maps.

The project can be planning a journey – an educational trip or a family trip:

• Expenses involved in the journey,
• What is the weather of the place that we are visiting etc.
• When do we start?
• How do we go there?
• What places should we be visiting?

Discuss: Why do we like vacations? Are there other ways in which you can go out of your routine?

Quiz: Name hill stations near Pune which you would like to visit / have visited.

English 51: Visit to a Farm and River

There are farms near the river bank at Pimple Nilakh.

Around river, observe birds and insects.

Where does this river start from? How does it continue to be have water even in the summer?

We need to go there when the vegetables are about to be harvested.

We should arrange for the farmer to talk to children about farming:

• What care should be taken of the plants?
• What fertilizer is used?
• What is the frequency of watering?
• How is the soil prepared before planting?
• Where is the produce sold?

Students should be made to do some manual work at the farm. It could be weeding, watering or harvesting.

Discuss: Why are so many people leaving the village and coming to cities?

Quiz: Identify the vegetables below.

English 51: Visit to a Fire Station / Police Station

One is in Sangvi. If possible, get one of the officers to visit the school.

The closest Fire Station is in Aundh.

Before they go to visit, students should be ready with questions that they want to ask during the visit.

Get the Fire Station Officer to talk about:

• Are night time fires more serious than day time fires?
• What is the biggest cause of fires?
• What can we do to prevent fires?
• Can we alert for fire using 100?
• What was the most challenging fire assignment you have faced?

Get the Police Station Officer to talk about:

• What do you do on a typical beat?
• What is the biggest cause of accidents?
• What can we do to prevent accidents?
• How do you take care of your health, especially traffic policeman who have to stand in the sun in the middle of vehicle fumes?
• What was the most challenging assignment you have faced?

Discuss: Why are we afraid of policemen? Should we hand over policing to private security agencies?

Quiz: Why are fire brigade vehicles painted red?

English 52: Visit to Garbage Dump / Sewage Treatment Plant

There is a sewage treatment plant in Pimple Nilakh itself.

We need to find the area where most of the garbage dumping happens in Pimple Nilakh.

Also spend some time to see the waste people throw into the river.

Sewage plant visit will require permission from PCMC. But it would be a good idea for us to visit the head and find out if it can be arranged at local level with a letter from the corporator.

There is a PCMC Ghanta Gaadi that visits the chawl everyday. We should invite the team to come and talk to students. Students to be ready with questions before they come.

Discuss: What is happening to our garbage? What should we be doing with our garbage?

Quiz: Why are we being asked to segregate garbage nowadays?

English 53: Visit by Vegetable Vendor

We have a vegetable vendor who stays in the chawl behind the school.

We will ensure that we buy some cucumber for all the kids as part of the talk.

We are going to invite her to talk to the kids. Kids to be ready with questions before she comes.

Suggested questions:

• Where do you buy your vegetables from?
• How much is waste that you cannot sell?
• What do you do with the waste?
• How do we know whether a vegetable is fresh?
• If we don’t have space in the fridge, how can we keep vegetables fresh outside, especially in summer?
• How important is knowledge of math for your business?
• How often do households buy their vegetables?

Discuss: Why do we cook our vegetables?

Quiz: If potatoes cost Rs. 20 a kg, how many kg can we buy for Rs. 100?

English 54: Visit by Mechanic

Invite a local mechanic to a visit.

Students to be ready with questions before the mechanic comes.

Mechanic should show basic simple operations – taking out the tyres, Replacing a spark plug, showing a magneto.

Show kids a film about how an IC engine works. Here’s a film that will help.

Discuss: How do you think a battery operated vehicle works?

Quiz: Why do scooters have small tyres and motorcycle big?

English 54: Visit to Museum and Zoo

Katraj Zoo requires a half day visit.

As preparation, individual students need to study living habitats and eating habits of a particular animal. When they reach the enclosure of the animal, they need to talk to the other students about this.

This trip can be combined with a trip to Kelkar Museum.

As a museum is focused on the past, students again should be asked to be ready with their research about life of Pune 200 years ago. A good skit taken from the Peshwa’s time would be appreciated. Maybe even a short screening from Bajirao Mastani.

Discuss: Do you think animals like staying in a zoo? What is the most humane way to keep animals in a zoo?

Quiz: Why are old cities so congested?

English 55: Visit to Construction site

They definitely should be able to get some hands on experience over here.

We should invite the contractor to interact with students.

They need to be ready with questions.

Some of the ones that come to my mind:

• What is the use of cement in construction?
• Why not a building entirely made of steel?
• What are things that keep a building cool?
• How many days does it take to complete a building?
• What is the most challenging assignment picked up by you so far?

Discuss: How many rooms should a house have? How big should it be?

Quiz: In the brick structure above, if the height of the column is 20 bricks, how many bricks would be required to build the column?

English 56: Visit by Shopkeeper

We should invite a parent who runs a shop to come and talk to students.

Make him focus on the business aspect.

Students need to be ready with questions.

Here are suggested questions:

• How do you manage relationships with customers?
• How do you decide when to order?
• What do you do in the shop, when there are no customers?
• How do you manage to take holidays?
• Are businesses like Big Basket affecting you?

Discuss: Why do we see so many jewelers all together on Laxmi Road? Or cycle shops in Kasba Peth?

Quiz: A shop keeper earns Rs. 1 for every Rs. 10 of goods that he sells. If he sells Rs. 10.000 worth of goods everyday, how much does he earn in one month?

English 57: Flash Cards

Flash cards: These can be for numbers, alphabets or words. Best is if students themselves prepare the flash cards. Raw material for flash cards should be the reverse of cardboard cartons that we discard at home. These flash cards are a great reminder tool for kids. When we label objects with these cards, students tend to remember the words better. (Should we say, that they become sight words?)

You can also have flash cards mounted on ice cream sticks.

Word tags to be put up in classroom. Same to be done at home.

Discuss: What are other material for making flash cards?

Quiz: For what kind of stuff is packaging material cardboard? Why is it less popular than plastic?

English 58: Body Language

Break your students up into partnerships for this activity, and give each partnership a picture book to work with. Ask them to read their picture books together, paying attention to how the characters use their bodies and gestures to express their ideas and opinions. Have them talk with their partners about what they notice. Then, bring students together to share what they have found. Facilitate a conversation about how characters and real people communicate thoughts and feelings with their bodies.

Discuss: What happens when we have conversations where we don’t move any body part? Keep a body language diary where they record how their family members and friends use body language.

Quiz: What is the role of eye contact in a conversation?

English 59: Doodling

Discuss: What is a doodle? How does it help our thinking? Get students to make 50 doodles each.

Quiz: Create a doodle which signifies happiness.

English 60: Headline Sentences

.

Take old newspapers and ask them to cut individual words / alphabets from the headlines.

Use these to make new sentences.

Discuss: Are headlines mostly in upper case or lower case? What do you like reading? Where should we use upper case?

Quiz: Why should we read a newspaper?

English 61: Cartoon Rearrangement

Have students cut parts of this cartoon strip – and then ask them to rearrange

Discuss: How did we come to know which came first and which later?

Quiz: Rearrange this:

Answer:

English 61: Picture Description

Choose a small number of pictures of interesting people and get your students to work together to describe the appearance of the person in the picture but also to build a profile of that person using the following headings: Name, Age, Profession, Likes/Dislikes, Life Goals and Ambitions and 3 words to describe the person’s character.

Here is an example.

Discuss: When finished, groups can share their profiles and discuss their choices; a great way to practise present simple, present simple continuous and adjectives for description and character at the lower levels.

How do we go about creating stereotypes?

Quiz: Write a profile for the school principal.

English 62: Cartoon Caption Filling

Students have to find out what the story is. They have then to create dialogues and fill in the caption bubbles.

Discuss: What is the importance of pictures in a story?

Quiz: Fill in the worksheet on the next page.

English 63: Crossword

Crossword sheet to be given to student groups.

They have to decide how to solve it.

After they are done with it, they have to create their own crossword – and hints for it.

Discuss: What is the difference between farm animals and pet animals?

Quiz:

Teacher hint: Btw, 2 down is little

English 64: Scrabble Crossword

Students create their own scrabble set by cutting and pasting these alphabets from newspaper headlines. Or they can even print it from this printout on card paper. Or they can simply write on cardsheets.

Now they can create their own crosswords. They have to set constraints by drawing a boundary in which this crossword has to be created.

English 65: Reading Stories

Teacher reads out stories.

Students to come up with their learnings from each of the stories.

1. “The Bogey Beast” by Flora Annie Steel

Reading Level: Very Easy

https://americanliterature.com/childrens-stories/the-bogey-beast

A woman finds a pot of treasure on the road while she is returning from work. Delighted with her luck, she decides to keep it. As she is taking it home, it keeps changing. However, her enthusiasm refuses to fade away.

What Is Great About It: The old lady in this story is one of the most cheerful characters anyone can encounter in English fiction. Her positive disposition (personality) tries to make every negative transformation seem like a gift, and she helps us look at luck as a matter of perspective rather than events.

6. “Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu

Reading Level: Fairly Easy

Jack’s mother can make paper animals come to life. In the beginning, Jack loves them and spends hours with his mom. But as soon as he grows up he stops talking to her since she is unable to converse in English.

When his mother tries to talk to him through her creations, he kills them and collects them in a box. After a tragic loss, he finally gets to know her story through a hidden message which he should have read a long time ago.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/5958919/read-ken-lius-amazing-story-that-swept-the-hugo-nebula-and-world-fantasy-awards

What Is Great About It: The story is a simple narration that touches on complex issues. It is about leaving your own country with the promise of a better life.

It is also about the conflicts that can occur between families when different cultures and languages collide. In this case, the tension is so high that it destroys the bond between a mother and her son. It also has a moving message about never taking your loved ones for granted.

7. “The Missing Mail” by R.K. Narayan

Reading Level: Fairly Easy

Thanappa is the village mailman who is good friends with Ramanujam and his family. He gets to know about a failed marriage and helps Ramanujam’s daughter get engaged with a suitable match. Just before the wedding, Thanappa receives a tragic letter about Ramanujam’s brother. He decides not to deliver it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zopJRxcDMr0

https://pgpeople.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/ect-02-r-k-narayan-short-storiessem-ii.pdf

What Is Great About It: Despite the best of intentions, our actions can cause more harm to our loved ones than we ever intended. The story is about the complex play of relationships and feelings which are always present in our social circles, but we are often ignorant of it.

Quiz: What do you find interesting about this?

English 66: Creating Scripts out of Moral stories

Printout of these stories are given.

Students are asked to create a drama script out of this.

Stories are only given to individual groups, so there is suspense about what happens.

Discussion after the story is on the moral of the story.

Props will be whatever is available in the school premises or whatever can be borrowed from home.

The Woodcutter and the Axe

https://www.moralstories.org/the-woodcutter-and-the-axe/

The Giving Tree

https://www.moralstories.org/the-giving-tree/

The Four Smart Students

https://www.moralstories.org/four-smart-students/

Eklayva’s Loyalty

https://www.moralstories.org/eklavyas-loyalty/

Quiz:

What is the Moral of this story?

The Monkey and the Cats

https://www.moralstories.org/the-monkey-and-cats/

English 67: Punctuation Drops

Grammar: Punctuation Marks: Make sentences without the ending punctuation. Ask students to drop the sentences into one of the 3 boxes marked: . ? !

Discuss: What is the use of a colon? A semi-colon? How do they differ from a full stop.

Quiz:

Add punctuation marks to these sentences:

My birthday is in August

My favourite colours are blue red and pink

Do not throw the ball

Answers:

My birthday is in August.

My favourite colours are blue, red and pink.

Do not throw the ball!

Note: For question 2, I am not sure if there is a comma after red…

English 68: Transformations

Students have to get four photographs from home. Two of their parents when they were children. Two of their parents as they are now. All the ‘child’ stage photos are mixed in one box. And the ‘adult’ photos in the other. Two piles are made by separating the class into two groups. Kids have to then match the child photos with the adult.

Discuss: How do facial features change with age? When do we stop growing? Physically? Mentally?

Quiz:

Identify who these children grew up to become.

,

Key:

Salman Khan, Narendra Modi, Amitabh Bachchan

Deepika Padukone, Alia Bhatt, Kareena Kapoor

English 69: Presentations

A presentation to be made for a story.

If possible, photographs to be downloaded from the internet

Students can speak in Hindi, as long as there is at least one English word in every sentence.

Don’t worry too much about grammar errors that students make – give them the confidence to speak.

Discuss: Why are students afraid to go to the front of the class to speak? What should we do about eye contact when we speak? Should we talk at our normal pace even in presentations? Should we read out our talk or should we be spontaneous?

Quiz: Analyze your own presentation. What did you do well? What can be done to improve next time?

English 70: Goal Setting

All students write an essay on ‘What I want to do when I grow big.’

Each student makes a presentation.

Students ask questions related to the presentation

Discuss: Is it important to have a goal? What if we are not clear about our goal?

Quiz: Students reflect on what inputs they got from their friends.

English 71: Estimation

Top of Form

For this experiment you will need a bag of beads of various colors – red, blue, green, yellow etc. The total number of beads is not really important, but you will find it easier to work with a number like 50. What is important is that you do not know how many of each color there are. So you will have to ask a friend or relative to choose the marbles for you.

You will estimate how many red marbles there are in the bag. You will do this by choosing 10 marbles from the bag.

Discuss: Sampling and its importance. Exit polls.

Quiz: How do you use knowledge of sampling in the vegetable market?

English 72: Distance and Direction

• Up: Make them fly a paper kite, or a plastic or newspaper bag on a windy day
• Up: Fly paper aeroplanes
• Top: Place balls into two baskets, one kept on top of the table, another below it.
• Top: Place objects on top of the slide, and enjoy watching them slither down
• Near: See how far can your friend go and you can still hear her.

Go on to the main road. Ensure that you are standing some distance away – and you can see the traffic between two streetlight poles. You have to find out which is the fastest vehicle – by measuring the time taken to travel between the two poles.

Discuss: Which vehicle will be faster?

Quiz: If you had to walk between the two poles, estimate the time that you would take.

English 73: Big, Bigger, Biggest

Students of various heights could be made to stand together.

We can measure their heights and weights – in order to see who is bigger.

Discuss: Are heavier students always taller? Discuss obesity.

Quiz: Which of the following digits is bigger???

English 74: Empty, Full

Concept of full and empty. We can modify this further to explore the concept of half.

Measure the amount of water a leaking tap leaks in a week. A leaking tap has a bucket below it. Students to guess how much time it will take for the bucket to fill up. Follow it up with a discussion on turning off taps and not wasting water.

Discuss: We can ask the students, how many of them take bath with a bucket full of water; and then we can ask them to use half a bucket only.

Quiz: Your mom prepares 3 cups of tea by taking 2 cups of milk and 1 cup of water. If today there are 6 guests expected for tea, how many cups of milk will be required?

English 75: Birthday Calendar

Make a calendar for every month showing birthdays of every child and display it.

Discuss: How many days has September? Does February have 30 days in the month? How many months have thirty days? How many months have thirty-one days? When is your birthday? How many children in the class have a birthday in each month?

Quiz: Morarji Desai, who used to be prime minister of India, used to celebrate his birthday once in 4 years. Why?English 76: Body Rate Measurements

Measuring your heart beat / pulse rate / breathing rate. Counting the heart beat of their friends.

For this you can ask students to make a stethoscope, by joining straws, or small flexible pipe.

You can also take an empty plastic bag and blow in to find the volume of air that your lungs contain.

Discuss: Make a histogram of pulse rates.

Quiz: Does your breathing rate change while sleeping? While running? Why?

English 77: Measuring Time

• Making a sand timer.
• Making a sun dial

Take a stick. Draw a circle with it as the radius. Fix the stick at the centre in a vertical position. REMEMBER, you have to do it outdoors.

Take a paper bag (conservation). Make a small hole. Fill it with fine clay or sand. Keep this over a empty pet jar without a lid.

Discuss: Will the sun dial be affected by seasons? Can we measure time without movement?

Quiz: List down major activities that you do during the day – and the time spent for each.

English 78: Measuring Body

• Trace out your foot
• Trace out your hand

Observe. Is the one of the hands or feet bigger than the other?

English 79: Making Bubbles

What happens if we blow air into a soap solution. How do we create spherical bubbles? Can we join two bubbles? How long can we make a bubble stay afloat in the air?

In a bucket filled with water, dip an empty mug upside down. Once it is in, slightly tilt the mug. What happens?

Quiz: Have you eaten a Papad? Do you see small bubble like things on it? Why?

English 80: Friction

A test is done on which objects slide and which roll.

Followed by a discussion on why this happens.

Sliding – rolling test of disc on inclined surfaces.

Discuss: Teacher can light a match stick and ask why it burns when rubbed.

Rubbing two stones in the dark.

Why rubbing hands together in winter makes them warm?

Quiz: What do you think will happen to a nail when it is hammered in?

English 81: Android Speech Detection

• Using an Android mobile phone, we can ask Google Assistant to understand the directions of students.
• In phase 2, we can have word dictation happening through Google Docs..
• Using a computer – laptop, desktop or phone, we can make students practice typing.
• The spell check and auto-correct function in Microsoft Word is also a great teacher.

Discuss: Do you think computers can become good teachers? Why? What is it that they cannot do what a real teacher can do?

Quiz: You want to see a movie. What will you type into Google Search bar?

English 82: Teeth count

• Make a model of the inside of a mouth – with no tongue inside.. (An old denture would be a good idea for modeling)
• Count each other’s teeth. Get old fallen milk teeth to class
• Count teeth of your younger siblings.
• Make chart of teeth Vs Years
• Get old fallen milk teeth to class
• See if you can get a dentist to visit to talk to children

Discuss: The construction of a tooth. Different type of teeth and their role.

Quiz: How should we take good care of our teeth?

English 83: Invisible Ink

Background

Lemon juice—and the juice of most fruits, for that matter—contains carbon compounds. These compounds are pretty much colorless at room temperature. But heat can break down these compounds, releasing the carbon. If the carbon comes in contact with the air, a process called oxidation occurs, and the substance turns light or dark brown.

Preparation

•    Squeeze the juice of your lemon half into the bowl.

•    Add the water and mix with a spoon.

•    Think of a secret message you would like to write—and to whom you’re going to deliver it!

Procedure

•    Soak the Q-tip in the lemon juice-and-water solution.

•    Use the damp Q-tip to write your top-secret message on the piece of paper.

•    Wait a few minutes for the paper to dry. While you’re waiting, you can switch on your lamp to give the lightbulb time to heat up (being careful not to touch the hot bulb itself).

•    When the paper is dry, hold it up to the hot lamp for a few minutes (but don’t let the paper get so hot that it burns). What happened to your invisible ink? How long did it take for the change to occur?

Discuss: What happened to your invisible message? What other liquids work well to make invisible ink that develops under heat?

When you painted the lemon juice solution onto the paper, the carbon-based compounds were absorbed into the paper’s fibers. When you heated the paper, the heat caused some of the chemical bonds to break down, freeing the carbon. Once the carbon came into contact with the air, it went through a process called oxidation, one effect of which is to turn a darker color. Oxidation doesn’t always need heat to occur. Some fruits themselves can turn brown from oxidation. Think of an apple or pear slice that is left out on the counter for too long.

Quiz : With what other liquids will this activity work?

Ans: Try this activity with other acidic liquids, such as apple juice or vinegar. Which ones work best?

English 84: Think you can lift your leg?

Because the wall is in the way you can’t move your upper body to counterbalance your leg. Your body knows it will fall over if you do lift the leg so it is very hard to convince yourself to do it. It feels a bit like your leg is stuck or frozen! The same thing happens if you try and touch your toes with your heels against the floor.

Discuss: Why could you not do it?

Human beings have a centre of balance around the belly button. You can usually stay balanced as long as the imaginary vertical line down from your belly button falls between the area that you are balancing on – usually your feet!

When you lift your leg, the top half of your body needs to lean slightly the other way so that this line falls onto the one foot that is balancing you.

Quiz: Where would be the center of gravity of the chair that you are sitting on?

English 85: Why do we Sleep?

Worksheet

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/Sleep%20student%20worksheet_0.pdf

Manual

https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/Sleep%20lesson%20plan.pdf

Discussion and Quiz are part of the manual.

English 86: Density

Density: Sink or float. Say which one will float and which one will sink: ribbon feather marble leaf stone stick paper straw shoes spoon. Test it out by actually putting them into a tub of water. Discuss the concept of density and sinking.

Pour some water carefully into a glass or jar.

Very carefully add about the same volume of cooking oil on top.

Then drop a couple of small objects into the mixture and observe what happens. Can you find something to float on each layer?

What happens if you shake it?

You are given some materials and a weighing scale. Arrange the objects in ascending order of density.

English 87: Staircase Lighting

First get students to make a simple circuit for lighting up an LED lamp.

Then get them to make a circuit used for staircase lighting. This is important as it can make students understand the concept of truth tables which are going to be useful for logic gates and computers.

Discuss:

How do you think a switch is made?

Quiz:

What is electricity?

English 88: Safe in Traffic

Ask:

What is a traffic jam?

Have you ever experienced anything a dangerous while riding in a car, walking or riding a bike?

What did you do?

What is a pedestrian?

Why should you always cross at a crosswalk?

Why do you think you should wear bright clothes when riding your bike?

Which senses do you use most to keep you safe on the roads? How?

Do you ever need other senses besides sight and hearing to be safe while walking or riding?

Quiz: Why do you think you should wear bright clothes when riding your bike?

English 89: Ice Melting

Before beginning the experiment, have students talk about what they expect the results to be. Ask them what variable will melt the ice fastest. Why?

Fill 6 small cups half with water. Freeze overnight. Pour hot water in one, cold water in another, salt on another, and sugar on another. Leave one alone so that it can act as the control.

Students can document the progress through taking pictures or journalling observations at one minute, five minutes, half an hour, and one hour after adding the variables.

Quiz: What would you do in order to keep the ice from melting for the longest time?

Melting Ice Experiment

English 90: Problem Solving

• Make them discuss real life problem solving. Make them solve some issues in school. For example:
• The school has got rain water accumulating near one of the classrooms.
• Students are not able to get help from parents with their homework.
• There is a lot of dust that rises up in the ground during play hours.

Discuss – and come up with solutions.

During the discussion, see if they are coming up with alternatives – and evaluating them.

They should definitely have implementation plans in place before the class gets over.

This can become a project after that.

Quiz – What are the things that will go wrong during the implementation of your solution?

English 91: Dissolving

Put the students in small groups and ask them to make and draw their predictions first before mixing.

Remind the students to take turns putting in the solids and to not taste the solids.

Hand out the To Dissolve or Not Dissolve worksheet and containers of solids to each group. Cups with water can be filled before class and set aside for the experiment.

Tell the students to begin the experiment.

Material used: Salt, Sugar, Pepper, milk powder, tea, atta, rice powder, sand

Discuss: What is common to stuff that dissolved? What happens when we shake the mixture?

Quiz: Does the dissolving power depend on the size of the powder?

English 92: Star Gazing Night

This will probably be a field trip – as night sky is too brilliant in Pimple Nilakh

This is best done in winter.

Star-gazing night. We need an expert to help out there – I know of my old teacher, Mujtaba Lokhandwala who can help in Pune.

Discuss: Mark movement of stars over the night – relate it to earth movement. Are there any stars that are not moving. Make them identify groups of stars.

Quiz: Why are we not able to see so many stars from our house in Pimple Nilakh as we are able to see in our village?

English 93: Arvind Gupta Science Experiments

Amazing book of experiments, It has 61 experiments. All of them have to be done by us..

Here is the link:

http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/physicsexperiments.pdf

English 94: Personal Histories

Personal Histories: The method that we standardized on was Interviews: with parents, grandparents, great grandparents, People of that generation. The format could be: Autobiography, Biographical writing, Timelines, Family Trees, Short stories on characters in their family.

Discuss: Draw a family tree. (if possible, with photographs) So what has changed since your grandparent’s time? What has been the role of technology in this change? What has remained constant?

Quiz: How do you think your children’s life will be different compared to yours?

English 95: Creating Timetables

Timetable creation. Students to create a timetable for themselves for use at home. Have a discussion on the importance of days of the week for a religion. Why Sundays are important for Christians, Fridays for Muslims, (Saturdays for Jews)

Discuss: What are the reasons for grouping subjects? For the length of the period? How much of play time is required?

Quiz: Create a weekly timetable for home

English 96: Righties turn Lefties

Enact a situation when your writing hand is hurt and you have to write with the other hand.

Get the right handed students to do all daily tasks using their normal equipment, but with their left hand e.g.:

Stir food in pans

Fill & pour kettle

Pour from milk/measuring jugs

Peel vegetables/fruit

Cutting bread (wonky slices using right handed knife in left hand)

Eating & drinking – reverse cutlery and have drink in left hand

Cutting – using right-handed scissors in left hand is an excellent example of totally right-biased design that doesn’t work well.

Drawing a measured line with a ruler

Using fountain/ink pen or just felts and colour in with left hand – smudged work and ink on side of hand as it follows the work

Discuss: Why do you think we favour one hand over the other?

Quiz: What re-design is required to make life easy for left handed people?

English 97: Becoming Teachers

Students get a chance to become teachers

They have a plan ready for what they want to do.

Teacher reviews that plan the previous week.

If this exercise goes well, we can have one student lecture every week.

One variation of this exercise is to get students to teach junior classes.

We can even have assistant teachers in class on rotation

Every student is given one responsibility every week.

A glass jar is kept in class. Marbles are put in by the teacher for any good deeds done by the class. They are taken out when bad stuff is done. The day the jar gets full, the class gets a treat from the teacher.

However, learning from past experience, student teachers should not be allowed to punish any of their fellow students.

Discuss: How does it feel like to be a teacher? How was the experience of learning from a peer?

Quiz: How would you go about designing a session as a teacher?

English 98: Team Building

There’s the classic saying, “there’s no ‘I’ in ‘Team’” and for teams that want to be successful, that should be true. At work, everyone has different personalities and work styles, so it’s inevitable that people will clash at some point. When we spend eight or nine hours around the same individuals each day, we’re bound to annoy one another at least once or twice. We’ve all been there.

Everyone wants their team to be a well-oiled machine, but creating a good environment where an entire team can feel unified is hard to do. Here are seven of the best, tried-and-true team-building activities that are sure to bring your team members closer—and ultimately improve your team’s performance with these leadership training activities.

Two Truths and a Lie. This is another great activity for team development. Have every member of your team disclose two things about them that are true and one thing that’s a lie. The rest of the group discusses and decides together which one is the lie.

Egg Drop. This activity is messy, but it gets results. Split your team into two groups. Each group must design and create protective packaging that will prevent an egg from cracking when dropped from 8 feet up. Have each group drop the package with the egg in it to see if it works.

Discuss: What did you learn from the egg drop activity? From the Truths and Lie activity?

First activity helps improve communication; it also lets everybody get to know each other a little better.

The second teaches group members to work together by giving them a common goal and target for the team’s success.

Quiz: Sometimes you find this picture on packaging material? What do you think it means?

English 99: Senses

Sensitization of senses. Students are blindfolded for one class – and they have to carry on activities with the blindfold. A good one is for them to build a tower with all of them being blindfolded – or as a variation, only one being blindfolded – and the other members of the team giving instructions.

Discuss: What is the most important sense when we blindfold you? Why?

Quiz: Students learn sign language. One of them has to come tell a short story in sign language. The others have to write down the story.

English 100: Fallen Food

You are eating a fruit and it falls down. Ask the children what they would do. Act out a situation when (i) you are hungry (ii) you are full (iii) you overeat.

Students to research and discuss based on articles like these.

http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/it-really-ok-eat-food-s-fallen-floor/

Quiz: Where is the most likely place for food to fall? What can you do based on this information?

English 101: Tidying Up

Ask students to clean the ground and class.

A collective analysis of the waste should be done.

Have a discussion on the importance of tidiness and orderliness.

Quiz: Talk of something that you or a family member always end up misplacing or have to hunt a lot for tracing it. What can be done about this?

English 102: Diwali Mela

Celebrations and Festivals: Explore – Similarities between festivals and celebrations, reasons for festivals and celebrations

Linking day of rest to religion.

The school will host a mela in that week.

There will be a lot of DIY stalls for other kids and parents to visit.

Tips to be taken from Bhavna and Peepal Tree Jammu teachers for the same.

English 103: Dumb Charades

First students make the rules for the game and document the same.

They then play dumb charades

Here is an illustrative set:

• Every team will have 3 members
• The event will be organized in various rounds which are :
• Movie Titles (Time limit : 2 minutes)
• Mukhra of movie songs (Time limit : 3 minutes)
• Personality Round (Time limit : 1½ minutes)
• Each member of the team has to come at least once for gesticulation
• Lip movement or any kind of sound is unacceptable
• Any word to be guessed should not be directly pointed out to other team members.
• Any word can be broken into maximum of two parts.

Discuss: Why are rules important?

Quiz: After having seen the game, if there was one rule you would want to change, which would it be? Why?

English 104: Morning Routine

We can ask them to write an essay on what they do between getting up in the morning and coming to school

• Cleaning Up
• Use of washrooms
• Dressing Up
• Comb hair
• Wearing socks and lacing the shoes

Discuss reason for doing each of these routine activities. What happens if you don’t do them?

Discussion of brushing technique. Bathing technique. Cutting Nails. Putting on buttons on a shirt.

Quiz: We sometimes get bored doing routine activities like eating. What should we do?

English 105: Circle walk

Games like Walking on circles, Hop / Skip / Jump

We can have six circles drawn on the floor, just touching each other. You have to start from any point and return back to the same point, covering all the circles on the way.

An interesting exercise on circle walking here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdoLKvgRrOY

Draw a circle on the floor with a piece of chalk. Let the children walk along the drawn line. Ask them to hold a book/any object in one hand and walk along the line. Talk to them about balancing things. Ask them if they feel giddy as on a merry-go-round.

Quiz: Why do we feel giddy when we are doing circle walking?

English 106: Matchstick Models

Here is the Matchstick Bible.

http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/Matchstick.pdf

English 107: Toy Day

Getting their favorite toys to school and explain why it is their favorite

They can try to dismantle a broken toy and put it back together.

Quiz: Why do we get bored of our old toys? Why do new toys always sound so exciting?

English 108: Piggy Bank

Ask students to get three similar bottles from home.

We can use permanent markers to label these bottles.

Penny jar using old jam bottle

Discuss: We can also talk about the role that money plays in society.

The difference between spending, saving and giving.

Quiz: What are things that are difficult to measure in monetary terms? How do you think we should measure such things?

English 109: Chocolate Fix

This is a sudoku type game.

Here is a tutorial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R826j7FPx1E

Here is where you can play the game online

https://www.thinkfun.com/play-online/chocolate-fix/

Make chocolate fix boards

Play the game

Discuss: What is the biggest challenge that you faced in playing this game?

Quiz: Solve this simple Sudoku.

English 110: Meccano

Toy making from kits

Make some original designs.

Can we make it using standard items found in a hardware store?

Here are the components..

Quiz: What do you think this is used for?

English 111: Stick Puppets

Develop a simple script based on a story.

Make stick puppets for the main characters – using an outline stick and a joint which has a moving part

Do some puppet theater.

Discuss: Why is movement important in a puppet show? What if we had a comic – with a photograph – and instead of caption bubbles, just dialogue?

Quiz: Apart from the way that you used for moving joints, suggest one more way?

English 112: Breaking up and putting Together

Take a simple thing as an old ball pen.

The task is to break it down.

Describe and make drawings of the individual parts.

Put it back together again.

Discuss: How do you think a ball pen works?

Quiz: What do you think is the difference in ink used in a fountain pen vs a ball pen?

English 113: Balloon Hovercraft

Making a balloon hover-craft

Discuss: Why does movement of the hovercraft require so less effort?

Quiz: Do you think our hovercraft will also be able to go over water? Why?

English 114: Shadow Match

Made students match shadows and took them into the sun to work with their own shadows.

In next version use the sun in the ground to make students come up with animal shapes using their hands!

Here is some stuff that students can be asked to be made with their hands:

Answers:

Quiz: What animal will you get when you make this shape with your hands?

Ans: Horse.

English 115: Matchstick Shapes

Cutting out shapes: triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon, circle

Making shapes using straws (students will need to work out joining mechanisms)

Making the above shapes using matchsticks

Demo shape making using matchsticks. How many sticks will be required for next shape(s)?

Discuss: Let them discover that 4 mathsticks cannot make a triangle – and the Geometry principle involved there.

Quiz: What will be number of matchsticks for next shape?

English 116: Shape Hunt

Get colored papers and ask them to cut it into different shapes.

Shapes exercise, where students have to run around and find shapes corresponding to the ones that have been given to them.

Go outside and look for shapes

Discuss: Why do you think the objects had that specific shape?

Quiz: Make a note of objects whose shape changes depending on the direction that you see it from?

Ans: Something like a cylinder.

English 117: Food Shape Art

Make shapes using bread for sandwiches

Keep paper napkin below the bread

Cut fruits and vegetables in different shapes

Cut leaves – using scissors

Identifying the shapes in different eatables such as biscuits, chips etc.

Discuss: How do you think bread is made? What happens when we cut a cucumber at an angle?

Quiz: Which are the most common shapes that we see in the food that we eat? Give examples.

English 118: What’s in a Name?

Write the spelling of the child’s name on the paper with a highlighter.

Then he glues different colored paper to the name, to make a good mosaic.

Make students write down their names by making individual alphabet blocks of paper.

Two students sit down together with their names, and see if the alphabet combination can be used to make anyone else’s name in their class or school.

Discuss: How do parents go about selecting names for their children?

Quiz: What do you think your name means?

English 119: Sorts

Give kids a set of different objects.

Let them decide how many ways can they sort it in.

Sorting out objects based on color.

Sorting objects by shapes.

Tell the class how to sort out three mixed pulses.

Leaves on the basis of their colour, shape and texture.

Discuss: Why is sorting considered important?

Quiz: how can we sort out the following gingerbread men?

Start with a concept of Venn diagram after the quiz.

English 120: Time Series Data

Ask children to write on a papers their dinnertime, collect them and put them in a bag. On a whiteboard, make a table like the one below, adding tallies for the different dinnertimes.

Time We Eat Dinner

Dinnertime Tally Marks

before 7:30 PM

8:00 PM

8:30 PM

9:00 PM

9:30 PM

After 10:00 PM

Draw each piece of paper out of the bag and put a tally mark in the appropriate row for each dinnertime. When you have finished, ask questions such as:

What time did most of the children in our class eat dinner?

How many children ate dinner at 8:30?

Did more children eat dinner at 8:00 or 9:00?

Part 2:

How many seconds do you think it would take you to write your first name five times? Tell the children to write their guess at the top of the worksheet. Tell them that they are now going to find out.

Tell the children to start writing their first name on the first line of their worksheet when you say, Start. Tell them to write their first name on every line, five times in all. Tell them that you will say the number of seconds that have passed as they write so they can write the number of seconds down on their worksheet when they finish.

When all children have finished, ask them to look back at the guess they made. Ask the following questions:

Did it take you more seconds or fewer seconds than you thought it would to write your first name five times? Make a tally chart or graph that shows the number of seconds it took the children in the class to write their first name five times.

Quiz: What are the factors that affect how fast you can write your name?

For example, some names are longer than others, some letters take a longer time to write than others, some people write faster than others, etc.

Lovely resource website: http://www.eduplace.com

English 121: Lemonade

Pour water from one container to another.

Making lemonade. Groups can be divided into those who want to (i) taste something tangy like a lemon, (ii) sweet like sugar, (iii) bitter like neem/bitter gourd or (iv) salt. Let them make nimbu pani with the required ingredients and drink it.

The children can be taken outdoors during the break and allowed to eat their snacks there.

Let them be motivated to talk about different tastes after the meal or have a conversation about nimbu pani.

Let them talk to each other about the different tastes of foods. Ask children to speak to the point and take turns. Also inculcate in them a habit of listening when others speak.

Quiz: ORS is made like this. 6 level teaspoons of sugar and 1/2 level teaspoon of salt dissolved in 1 litre of clean water. When do doctors give ORS to children?

English 122: Smells

What are things at home that have distinct smells.

What are good smells? Bad smells?

Students have to get these material in bottles from home.

Keep coriander, lemon etc and demonstrate smells.

Have plastic bottles of different material with smells – close eyes and identify bottle contents.

One thing we can do is to make them match bottles based on scents.

Discuss: Does smell play a role in taste? How can we design an experiment to find out?

Quiz: We associate a certain smell with a memory. What is yours? Discuss.

English 123: Sandwich Making – instructions in English

Making Subway type of sandwiches-in-English.

https://www.wikihow.com/Make-Subway-Sandwiches-at-Home

Please give instructions only in English.

Ensure that students end up doing what they are told to do.

Discuss: What is more healthy – a burger or a sandwich? Why?

Quiz: What is your favourite dish. Write down the steps for making it.

English 124: Skit on Eating Habits

Make a skit to educate children about right habits connected to food and eating. Washing hands before and after meals. Tell the class that we must cover our food from flies. Encourage the children to brush their teeth after meals.

Discuss: Why are some people obese? How do eating habits differ across states / cultures?

Quiz: The Chinese use chopsticks to pick up food. Why do you think they take so much effort in eating food?

Ans: This is a slow process, making them require more time to eat, or eat less in a certain time interval. This is significant, because research has shown that people who eat fast tend to eat a lot more before feeling full.

Make them understand the advantage of eating slowly.

English 125: Testing Foods

For fats, squeeze food between papers. If oil mark is left, then it has fats.

Put an iron nail inside an orange. The iron reacts with ascorbic acid (Vit C) in orange. Squeeze the orange to make anemia tonic.

Dilute iodine reacts with starch to give a blue black color. Use this to find out which foods have starch in them.

Discussion on Food types:

Forms of carbohydrates:

Sugar – quick energy release

Starch – slow energy release

Cellulose – Fiber

Fat energy / gm = 2 * Carbohydrate energy / gram

Proteins are building blocks. Body uses proteins as a nutrient only when no carbohydrates or fats are present.

Limes have Vitamin C.

Discuss: The roles that carbohydrates, proteins and fats play in the body.

Quiz: Write down what nutrients are there in your dabba today?

English 126: Chappati Making

HW: Discuss with your mom, how she makes chappatis.

Write it down and get it to class.

Showing wheat grains and making dough and chappati.

Practice making chappatis

Hope to cook chappatis on our induction heater.

Discuss: What is the reason that some moms add salt / milk / oil?

Quiz: This is a type of chappati made in Rajasthan – called Bati. How do you think this is made?

English 127: Table Etiquettes

Students to come up with rules for eating at home:

Here is a possible list:

Discuss: Why is eating together important?

Quiz: How many times should we chew our food?

English 128: Food into Fuel

Groups to write the Story of what happens to our food after it enters our mouth.

The first step into learning about nutrition is to help students understand the pattern of digestion and how the foods they choose to eat is broken down. It’s best to have a visual when discussing how food is broken down and digested, this way you can refer to it while you are talking. If you don’t have one then you can point to your body as you talk. Discuss how when food enters your mouth it is broken down and partially digested before down your body. Then the stomach squeezes it even more, and adds water, enzymes, and hydrochloric acid to break it down even more. After discussing digestion, challenge students to choose a piece of food and write a short story as if they were that piece of food going through their body.

A Balanced Diet – To encourage students to eat healthy meals have students create a balanced meal of their own. They will need to search through grocery ads and magazines to find a balanced meal for breakfast, lunch or dinner. Instruct students to cut out photos and glue them onto a paper plate. Before sending them off to search for a balanced meal, discuss how our bodies need a variety of foods. Show students what a balanced meal looks like by going to choosemyplate.gov.

Quiz: Why do we like to eat cooked food?

English 129: Sounds

Show objects and ask them starting sounds – Balloon and Pin prick (Students to do this)

Encourage children to walk and jump like different animals. Let them make the sounds of ‘huff’, ‘puff’’ etc. with force.

Ask children to imagine that they are birds and let them call out to another bird. Encourage them to listen to sounds of nature (chirping of birds, rainfall, wind blowing etc.)

Identification of the beginning sounds of the cutlery, stationery or class room objects.

Imitating different sounds

Discuss: How do you think birds create sounds?

https://www.birdnote.org/show/how-birds-produce-sound

Quiz: What part of your mouth has a role to play in creating what type of sound?

English 130: Making a Guitar

Separate a small matchbox into its two parts. Apply glue along half of each side of the tray, and push the tray halfway into the frame, and let dry.

Cut a small cardboard trapezoid for the bridge, and notch the top in four places. Glue the bridge upright on top of the matchbox, and let it dry. For strings, stretch four rubber bands of various sizes around the matchbox, fitting them into the notches of the bridge. For strumming, buy a guitar pick from a music store.

Discuss: What happens to the note frequency when the width of the rubber band increases?

Quiz: Which instrument is closest to human voice?

Flute

Piano

Trumpet

Violin

Ans: violin

English 131: Karaoke

Teaching of rhymes through karaoke. Follow up with a discussion on words. Make students use these words in their own sentences. Make them note their grammatical mistakes in a separate book.

Make them do this Karaoke at the start of the school year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcmOXzz6X88

One experiment, you can ask them to straight away do the karaoke without listening to the original.

Make them do this Karaoke song –

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lOgcxP_QII

Discuss: The origin of karaoke. Why do we like songs?

Quiz: What is your favourite song? What do you like about the song?

English 132: Venturi

What happens when you blow air out of your mouth with it totally open?

What happens when you close it so that only a small orifice is formed by your lips?

Why does the temperature fall?

Venturi effect to be discussed by the teacher. “The Venturi effect is the reduction in fluid pressure that results when a fluid flows through a constricted section of pipe.” Bernoulli’s equation, together with conservation of energy shows that a stream of fluid moving through a constrained space at higher speed must be at a lower pressure.

The trick of two strips of paper getting pulled together when you blow in between them is also explained by this suction around a jet of air.

English 133: Lighting a Fire

Light energy received from the Sun can be converged to a spot, on a piece/sheet of paper with the help of a biconvex lens. Such converged, concentrated light rays produce heat. As the heat increases, the spot becomes too hot, combustion occurs and the paper burns.

Materials:

A magnifying lens – This could be a regular magnifying lens/biconvex lens, glass bottle bottoms, eyeglasses (far-sighted prescriptions). Even a drop of water on the glass can be used as a lens.

A sheet of white paper

Pencil

On a sunny day, hold the lens at such an angle so as to focus the Sun’s rays on as small an area as possible on the ground or a table top . Place the piece/sheet of paper under this spot. Ensure that the lens is still. Draw a small circle and fill it with ordinary pencil and focus the concentrated sun light on it. The spot will soon burn.

On keeping the lens still, as the Sun’s rays converge onto the spot, the piece of paper soon burns or catches fire.

Discuss: What is the conclusion from this experiment?

Solar light has heat energy.

Heat is required for burning. Why? Why does only the small area, where the Sun’s rays are converged/ concentrated, start burning?

Quiz: Why does the area of the same paper, which directly received the Sun’s rays does not burn? Why does the area on the paper, when darkened with pencil, and kept under converged/concentrated Sun’s rays, start burning faster?

English 133: Air-o-soil

The air is an essential “ingredient” for life on Earth. Plants, animals and humans all need it to survive. Many animals and plants live/grow in the soil. Air present or trapped in the soil is used by living organisms growing in it.

Materials

3 small beakers

Some tap water

3 kinds of soil samples (garden soil, sand and clay. The teacher may go exploring

with the students to find samples in different places)

Labels

A pen

A notebook

Camera ( Optional)

Method

Take three beakers.

Fill each beaker half way full with different soil samples, separately.

Label each beaker with the name of the type of soil it holds.

Fill the beakers one after the other, with tap water until they are almost full.

As the water is added in the beakers, air bubbles from the soil in the beakers start rising to the top of the water. There are more bubbles in some of the beakers than in the others. You may take their photographs. Draw what you see in all the three beakers and write your observations in the table given.

S. No. Soil type Amount of bubbles

Discuss:

Name the type of soil which traps the maximum amount of air. Minimum? How do we conclude about the air quantity in the soil?

Release of air bubbles in the three beakers demonstrates the presence of air in the soil. Different types of soils have different amounts of air trapped in them.

Quiz:

What happens to the air trapped in a garden soil if the garden gets water logged for a few months?

English 134: Water Cycle

The Sun’s heat causes water on earth to evaporate from streams, lakes, rivers, and oceans. The water vapour thus produced rises up in the air. When the water vapour moves to upper atmosphere along with the wind, it cools & condenses to form cloud droplets. Students will be able to infer that water on earth circulates in liquid and vapour form.

Materials

A large glass bowl

A sheet of clear plastic wrap/cling film

A small glass bowl

Some water

A piece of string or a large rubber band

Some ice cubes

Method

Put the bigger bowl in a sunny place outside.

Pour some water into the small bowl until it is full.

Place the small bowl in the center of the bigger bowl.

Take care not to spill water into the bigger bowl.

Cover the top of the bigger bowl tightly with the plastic wrap/cling film.

Tie a string or place a large rubber band around the bowl to hold the plastic wrap in place.

The plastic wrap will appear to become hazy. The “mist” like appearance that is formed on the inside of the plastic wrap will change into drops of water after some time. When the water drops become larger, they will begin to drip. (You can speed up the dripping by carefully moving the bowl – don’t splash! – into the shade or by putting small pieces of ice on the outside of the plastic wrap).

Water thus will start getting collected in the larger bowl. Water from the ocean/water body i.e, as in the small bowl evaporates. It condenses to form misty “clouds” in the inside of the plastic wrap. When the clouds become saturated, it “rains” into the bigger bowl, returning the water to earth. Water on earth circulates in its different forms as liquid or vapour.

Discuss:

Name the different forms of water you see in nature. Which form of water you do not normally see? Can you feel it? Which form of water is present in the clouds?

Quiz:

What happens when some amount of water is spilled on the floor and you forget to wipe it?

What happens to water present in freshly washed clothes when you put them outside to dry?

English 135: Water Purification

Flowing water has the ability to get filtered by natural processes like the water cycle. The sun’s heat causes water on earth to evaporate from streams, lakes, rivers, and oceans .Water in these water bodies contain many impurities. The water vapour rises up in the air from the water bodies, leaving behind the impurities. When water vapour reaches higher, cooler air, it condenses to form clouds. When the clouds are saturated, they release some of the water as rain which goes back to streams, lakes, rivers

and oceans as fresh water.

Materials

A large glass bowl

A sheet of clear plastic wrap/cling film

A small glass bowl

Some water

A piece of string or a large rubber band

A little mud

Some salt

Some ice cubes

Method

Put the large bowl in a sunny place outside. Put mud and salt in the small bowl. Pour some water into the mud and salt in the small bowl. Place the small bowl in the center of the large bowl. Take care to see that no water is spilled in the large bowl. Cover the top of the large bowl tightly with the plastic wrap/cling film. Tie the string or place the rubber-band around the bowl to hold the plastic wrap/cling film in place. Place the set up in the sunlight. The plastic wrap will appear to become hazy. The “mist” like appearance that is formed on the inside of the plastic wrap changes into drops of water after some time. When the water drops become larger, they will begin to drip. (You can speed up the dripping by carefully moving the bowl – don’t splash! – into the shade or by putting some pieces of ice on/the outside the plastic wrap).

Pure water thus will start getting collected in the large bowl outside the small bowl. This water does not have salt or mud particles in it. Soil and salt particles are left behind in the small bowl.

Water from streams, lakes, rivers and ocean, i.e., in the small bowl, evaporates. It condenses to form misty “clouds” on the plastic wrap (inside). As the clouds become saturated, it “rains” into the bigger bowl, returning the water to earth which is pure, leaving behind soil and salt particles in the water bodies as in the small bowl.

Discuss: Why is nature also called as “Mother Nature”? Explain how “Mother Nature” played a role in this experiment? Can “Mother Nature” purify any amount of impure water ?

Quiz: How are clouds formed?