Developing Social Competences of Children with Early Childhood Language Learning
Copyright © 2019
INDEX
Daily routines
The social competences:
I know myself and my group
I know my school and my town
I know my Nation and its symbols
I know my holidays
Social competences and our stories:
Slovenia: “Kitty the cat” and “Oli the mole”
Italia: “The Frog”
Bulgaria: “The little blackbird Kose bose”
Estonia: “I am very happy”
Our body, the movement and the environment
Our future: environmental education
New technologies
Evaluations
This is a manual for kindergarten teachers. Teachers disseminate their method of teaching English.
The manual comes from a collaborative work in the Erasmus project.
The states involved are: Slovenia, Italy, Estonia and Bulgaria.
The cover of the book was chosen among the 9 drawings made by all the children.
The children together with the teachers and the parents voted.
INTRODUCTION:
The Erasmus + project “Developing social Competence of children with early childhood language learning” was planned on the basis of different methodological approaches, first of all the “learning by doing” one.
To teach the english language starting from kindergarten, a path linked to “doing” for excellence has been designed, with constructive and concrete daily practices, with the aim of making children acquire new terms in L2 through games and body movement.
From the theoretical point of view, the project refers to H. Gardner’s studies on multiple intelligences. This theory has revolutionized the traditional way of thinking about intelligence, since it replaces the idea that it is unitary and homogeneous, the idea that every individual has more intelligences, each one assigned to a specil cognitive ability. This theory, has also given greater dignity to intelligences always placed in the background (like the musical-rhythmic one or the corporeal-kinesthetic one) respect to the intelligences most considered as linguistics or logic-mathematics.
In order to promote different forms of intelligence in children, this path was planned allowing every child to live different experiences with operational proposals through multiple expressive channels. All the activities have been diversified to offer everyone the opportunity to express themselves and their knowledge in the most congenial and appropriate way that everyone has to learn.
In every chapter of this ebook you can find a different intelligence linked to the activities:
Naturalistic intelligence: vegetable garden
Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence: mouviment games
Linguistic intelligence: stories
Logical-mathematical and space-visual intelligence: robotics
Working with the future European citizens of tomorrow, the teachers have designed in line with the European Key competences, so as to promote their active and responsible
citizenship.
In particular:
– communicate in the mother tongue
– communicate in the foreign language
– social and civic competences
– spirit of initiative and entrepreneurship
– cultural awareness and expression
The materials collected in this book are the result of two years of cooperative work between the four teams involved in the project: Slovenia, Italy, Bulgaria and Estonia.
We presume to tell this path in the form of an operational guide aimed at teachers who believe in communication, active citizenship and in Europe.
THE ATTENDENCE ROUTINE
In this everyday routine children take turns every morning to do the attendance. They greet their mates and the teachers; they identify the day of the week, its color, its rhyme, they sing
the song of the month, the song and the rhyme of the season; they look out of the window to see the weather and find the right symbol; they count the pictures of their mates on the
attendance train (the big ones males and females, the medium ones male and female, the little ones males and females) and find all the numbers.
Games:
WAT’S YOUR NAME?
Children are sitting in circle time singing a song. One of them, sitted in the middle of the circle, while is singing, point another child who has to answer a question. So
on for all the children.
HOW MANY CHILDRENS ARE THERE TODAY?!
One child count all the other ones, splitting them up into 2 groups (boys and girls). At last the child sign the total number of children on a paper.
A lesson in the Estonian school.
Singing all the same songs together promotes knowledge, cooperation and the use of another language between children. Here you can find many links to the songs sung by all the children of this project:
https://youtu.be/tVlcKp3bWH8
https://youtu.be/fN1Cyr0ZK9M
https://youtu.be/l4WNrvVjiTw
https://youtu.be/w_lCi8U49mY
https://youtu.be/h4eueDYPTIg
https://youtu.be/9EQjDEpzSU8
https://youtu.be/26k-o8taW_4
Social skills: Knowledge of ourselves and of the group
The use of online applications allows different schools that share a project to get to know each other in real time and in depth. We used “Padlet”.
The padlet allows you to share more information in real time and have a total view of the participants in an European project.
All children can introduce themselves and can get to know others.
Our Padlet collects a lot of information:
Keywords to know each others:
I, YOU, US,
WHAT IS YOUR NAME?
MY NAME IS…,
CHILD, CHILDREN, BOY, GIRL,
FRIEND, TEACHER, HELLO,
GOOD BYE.
Each school makes a video to tell something their school.
Social skills:
The territory was known through an online activity using google documents; In this way, it was possible to insert descriptions and photos of the different environments.
The following question was asked to the children and their families: “What do I see from my window?”. Each group does its research, takes photos, reproduces what it sees with
the drawing and shares everything on our Twinspace.
KEYWORDS:
My home,Tree, Car, Snow, Birds, Sun, sky, Trees, grass, a fence of wood, clouds, road, garden, flowers, open the window, what do I see?, bicycle…
Game:
Find a picture, name it and draw it.
The game allows children to contextualize new learned words, to use them in communication.
The new words become the heritage of all children.
Social skills: A Nation and its symbols
Talking about hymns and flags at the kindergartner is difficult because children of this age need real contexts to learn; but it is possible to play with these symbols that will remain in the memory of the child. In this way they can know them and appreciate them.
On the page below are shared all the flags, songs and hymns of each Nation. It is important for children to listen to songs in the mother language because it transmits the cultural values of a Nation.
Hymns:
Italia https://youtu.be/PxBUMt64V64
Slovenia: https://youtu.be/WcRrqabxN4I
Estonia: https://youtu.be/-Hesqmps9kA
Bulgaria:https://youtu.be/BVdaFShTMlI
Songs shared by the Slovenian team:
The flags have become board games and online puzzles; through these games the children have learned to identify their friends and their nations.
The European flag symbolizes both the European Union and the unity and identity of Europe in general. The European flag consists of a circle of 12 golden stars on a blue background. The stars represent the ideals of unity, solidarity and harmony among the peoples of Europe.
Social skills can also be developed by sharing holidays.
A common holiday for all children is Christmas.
Christmas means exchange of gifts and good wishes; it is the exchange of stories, traditions and songs. It is also a magical moment in the kitchen with the production of typical sweets.
From Slovenia:
“WE’RE EXPECTING THE ST. NICHOLAS… WARM CHRISTMAS GREETINGS TO ALL CHILDREN AND STAFF IN PARTNER KINDERGARTENS”
From Italy a story told with children’s drawings.
From Estonia: 2Before Christmas our children have special activities. These activities develop child’s social skills. Our children are learning by doing. One of these games- Christmas cooking. ”
From Bulgaria: A special Christmas tree
“Dear friends from Slovenia, Italy and Estonia thank you for Christmas decorations.”
Warm hugs and kisses from Bulgarian children…”
video conferenza_Italy_Bulgaria from tizzi on Vimeo.
KEYWORDS:
Christmas, Christmas tree, presents, decorations, stars, bingo, sock, elf, Santa Claus, sweets, snowflakes,Merry Christmas, snowball, Rudolf, snow, sleigh.
Social skills through stories
The story, the reading of a book allows the child to enter in another world to understand and experience feelings and emotions.
For this reason, each Nation has found a story of its own to tell to all the children of this project.
A department of English books was created in school libraries. The shelf has been enriched with the books of all the partners.
Let’s start with the story “Kitty the cat” proposed by Slovenia.
“There is a white house with a red roof in the middle of the forrest. The windows overflow with flowers. The sign on the door says” »Slipper Keeper Kitty«.
This very special kitty was created by renowned and highly popular slovenian artists Ela Peroci and Ančka Gošnik Godec.
Kitty has been mending and making children’s slippers for the last sixty years. If your slippers like to go missing, too, try taking a peek in her workshop.
http://online.fliphtml5.com/fvba/tvzo/
The reading of the book was done in English and through various activities the content was reworked by all the children:
Slovenia: https://youtu.be/y69x3dp5q8E
Itay (1): https://youtu.be/_8WMBx0-JgY
Italy (2) https://youtu.be/napAaFa0aEA
Italy (3) https://youtu.be/9arRkvdX3Jg
Estonia: https://youtu.be/Zk7ynQ1YBXU
Social skills through stories from Estonia
“I AM HAPPY”
What can we do to make a bear happy?
Every partner recreated the story in their schools.
The next stories from Italy are: “it is mine” by Leo Leonnì.
Three selfish frogs live together on an island in the middle of Rainbow Pond. All day long they bicker: It’s mine! It’s mine! It’s mine! But a bad storm and a big brown toad help them realize that sharing is much more fun. With characteristic clarity, simplicity and exuberance, Leo Lionni makes it possible for kids to see themselves through the antics of others who share our world.
An activity based on “it’s mine!” made by the estonian children:
Italy proposes another story “FROG FINDS A FRIENDS”
In our school every years the team of teachers chose a story with a caracter that leads the children through the activities during the first part of the years . This year our character is a frog that finds a little Teddy Bear and takes care of him. The choice of this character is due to the fact that we live in a area where there are many rise-growing fields and the frog is the tipical animal of this land.
Social skills through stories
BULGARIAN STORY : KOSE BOSE
It’s a traditional story. It teaches to children that every action has consequences. Everyone has to behave in the best way!
Activities made by:
The Italian children
Estonia and Slovenia children used the interactive whiteboard and puppets.
All the stories were told in the original languages and also in English.
Children through these stories enriched their vocabulary with many words that they will remember because they are linked to a specific activity and above all those are the gift of from friends.
With these words a Bingo was built, which has become both a board game and an online game.
Keywords of the 4 stories:
book, bear, bed, frog, frog family, Kitty the cat, fox, nest, eggs, hat, ball, black bird, boots, butterfly, children, colors, dog, duck, hedgehog, house, mole, mouse, pound, reflector, scarf, sheep, slippers, sunglass, sweater, tail, wood.
Game in Bulgaria:
Game in Estonia
Game in Italy
Oli the Mole is the protagonist of our last shared story.
Oli lives in Slovenia.
The Slovenian children told us their story and we discovered many things like: the volcano, the paths and precious stones.
Story telling: Oli the Mole written and represented by Italian children
Movement outdoors in English: some proposed activites.
Each Nation offered a game to play outside. Later, every partner proposed it in their school.
below are some videos that tell the collaborative experience.
Our future: environmental education
In September we talked a lot about our environment and how to keep clean the vicinity around our kindergarten. We did a lot of activities, we invite you to have a look.
Snow activities in the winter months allow children to share the landscape, to let people know about the climate and outdoor activities.
seeding in Europe
A flowerbed in each school made with the seeds exchanged between the children of every Nation.
Recycling activities:
memory game
https://learningapps.org/watch?v=pkpv3wb1v19
https://sway.office.com/GbjLkqDDtjxCcFir?ref=Link&loc=endofstory
children tell about their experiences with water
English lesson, Robot Bee-bot Supports children to learnig.
thank you,
Grazie,
hvala,
tänan teid,
благодаря ви.
https://video.arnes.si/portal/video/api/asset/ovYAegUmcdOPKdTBYhpLBPEC/play.mp4
Published: Jul 4, 2019
Latest Revision: Jul 5, 2019
Ourboox Unique Identifier: OB-662571
Copyright © 2019
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