Chinese New Year

Understanding the World: People and Communities

Chinese New Year has a wealth of different activities and resources to enhance an Understanding the World lesson about People and Communities.

The children are always interested in different cultures and customs, especially something they are unfamiliar with.

Chinese New Year dates depend on the lunar calendar. It falls on a different day each year.

You may see the words ‘Kung hei fat choi’ associated with Chinese New Year. This is the Cantonese way of saying happy Chinese New Year. Cantonese is mainly only spoken in Hong Kong. The majority of people in China speak Mandarin. The Mandarin way to say Happy New Year is ‘Gong xi fa cai’ (or gong see fah sigh).

I tend to teach the Chinese New Year topic and have accumulated a number of resources over the years.

Please see the lesson plan below..

Maths is Everywhere!

Not Just in Maths Lessons

When children struggle with recognising numbers in the classroom I always ask parents to do number walks with their children because maths is everywhere!

This is the Maths is Everywhere display I have at school. I use it to illustrate that there are lots of everyday items that have numbers on them. There are always opportunities to share counting and number recognition with children.

It is incredible how prevalent numbers are in our every day environment.

As the collage shows, there are numbers on our every day objects such as house phones and mobile phones, computer keyboards, street signs, television remote controls and even television channels.

Watches and clocks obviously have numbers on them, but also car number plates and microwave controls.

Receipts, train and bus tickets, measuring tapes, bathroom scales and kitchen scales all use numbers, as well as the labels in clothes. I didn’t include house numbers on my collage but they are an easy one to spot as children walk to school, as well as bus numbers!

You could ask the children to do a number walk and see what numbers they can spot! The higher the numbers they can see, the more points they get! The children can count up the points and find out who is the winner!

It’s All Gone a Bit Gruffalo

I am Gruffalo Mad!

I’ve been a huge fan of the Gruffalo from the first time I read the story. It’s different and unique and sparks the children’s imagination. There are thousands of lesson plans you can use from the Gruffalo, and I’ve gone a little bit Gruffalo Mad!

My husband will say I don’t need an excuse to spend money, but with a Gruffalo lesson week coming up, I couldn’t resist!

I am teaching a rhyming lesson, but I didn’t want the children to only be involved in rhyming, I wanted them to have a rounded experience of the Gruffalo so the resources I have are:

• Gruffalo role play
• Gruffalo story sequencing
• Gruffalo large pairs matching
• Gruffalo small pairs matching
• Matching the written description to the picture (that’s to challenge my highers)
• Matching rhyming pairs, so ‘snake’ would be paired with ‘lake’ for example
• Making a Gruffalo’s child puppet
• Writing the roasted fox, owl icecream, scrambled snake and Gruffalo crumble recipes
• A maze (for fine motor skills)
• Story writing frames if the children would like to write their own Gruffalo story
• And a Gruffalo puppet
  
  
• I also have in my classroom a matching rhymes game that isn’t Gruffalo related