Learning some Makaton at snack time

For learning languages week we have been learning some Makaton at the snack table.

Some of the children recognised Mr Tumble. We discussed that Mr Tumble uses Makaton to communicate. This means he is using his hand to talk. We as discovered that some adults and children might use makaton if they have a hearing loss of if they find it difficult to talk.

We looked at the signs and Fiona help demonstrate them.

The children enjoyed putting it into practice.

Here are some of the signs we have been learning at snack time.

“Hello”

“Eat”

“Drink”

“More”

“Thank you”

 

Exploring our senses!

Today our little investigators took part in an activity to explore our senses. Following on from exploring our sense of smell, today we looked at our sense of touch.

A selection of item’s were chosen and hidden inside our mystery bag. Using our sense of touch the children had to guess what was inside the bag. They were encouraged to use descriptive words to describe what they could feel. Once they had made their predictions they were asked to mark make to record their findings.

Bellow are some of the items we were exploring along with our drawings and comments.

First up was a woolly glove! We took it in turn to feel inside the bag and make our predictions. Then we drew pictures to record what we thought it could be.

“It feels soft”

“It’s a glove I can feel the fingers”

“It can be a hat”

“It’s not hard it’s soft”

Next up was a feather! Again we used our senses to explore inside the bag and mark make to record our findings.

“It’s a feather I can feel the soft parts”

“It’s got a sharp spiky bit”

“It’s really fluffy”

The last thing we explored inside the bag was a carrot! Lots of discussion took place to decide what it could be. 

“It’s not mushy it’s hard”

“It’s a cold carrot from the kitchen”

“It’s got lines on it I can feel them”

”it could be a banana”

Well done everyone! lots of amazing descriptive words used and lots of amazing drawing to recording our findings. The group managed to identify all the items inside the bag.  They worked together as a team to share our predictions and make decisions.

What sense will we explore next?

Languages Week Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

This week is Languages Week Scotland 2023 where we celebrate language learning and multilingualism in Scotland. This years theme is “Languages for a peaceful world”.

This morning the children came across some stories and we discovered they were in different languages. This got us chatting about what language we speak in and how not everyone speaks the same language.

“What does this say”

“That is the title of the story, “The tortoise and the Hare” written in Mandarin, Chinese”

”When I went to Italy I hear a different language”

“Can you say any words in Italian”

”No”

“What language is the Elmer book in?”

“The Elmer book is in English and Polish”

“ how do you speak to someone if they don’t speak the same language?”

“Say Hello”

We used the internet to find out how to say Hello 👋  in other languages and wrote them down so we could practice how to say them.

The children were developing their mark making and writing  skills as they wanted to copy the words so they can practice.

We can now say Hello in different languages to welcome our friends who speak English as an additional language.