ENGAGE

Actvity 1: “We fly”…. Game show

(Listening and Recognition of names of birds) As the poem was about birds, we played the popular game “kokku para para….kozhi para para, in English. The activity required that when I called out the name of a bird, for instance, crow/crane, children had to respond by flapping their hands, as an indication of their association of the bird with its movement. As they did this, they were required to say, “Crows fly fly, Cranes fly fly”. With the names of other animals or things, they had to stand still. Through this, I assessed their listening skills and prior knowledge, i.e. their ability to recognize the names of birds. I gradually increased the speed of the game to add to the fun and vigor. Children who were otherwise passive, participated in the activity with interest

I observed that four children who were new comers could not differentiate between the flying creatures from animals. To address this, I showed them picture cards along with the names of the birds. This helped them understand and they participated in the game. As a token of appreciation, the two winners were applauded with a “bird clap” (i.e.) clapping and miming the sounds of birds by others.

Actvity 2: “Birds on Paper”… Art show

(Drawing and speaking about birds)

Each student was given a white paper and asked to draw any bird they liked or could draw. Some children drew and colored on their own while others used the bird chart displayed on the classroom wall.

Of the 22 students who participated, 18 wrote the names of the birds in English, while the rest wrote them in Tamizh. Their spellings were gently corrected.

The children were then divided into groups and asked to talk about the birds they had drawn.

E.g. I draw (drew a) Peacock. Peacock is beautiful.

               Peacock (has) many feathers.

I appreciated their work and gently corrected the grammar mistakes. An interesting incident that is worth mentioning is about one of my student who drew an Owl. As we had read the word ‘wide awake’ in the good morning poem 1, she spoke about the bird this way,

               This is owl.

               Owl (is) brown (in) color.

               Owl (is) wide awake (at) night.

I was satisfied that the children were able to apply their prior knowledge in framing sentences in subsequent classes. Through this activity, I was able to assess their speaking skills and I also noticed that children were learning by observing their peers.

To strengthen their speaking skills, I asked them to exchange their drawings among their group members and speak about the birds drawn by their friends. After completing their sentenc- es, they mimed the sounds made by birds. While miming, the whole class was just like a “bird sanctuary”. Through this, the textbook activity in Pg. 13 got completed.

Parrot-kee..kee.. Crow-Kaw..kaw..

In addition, children were asked  to  draw any 5 birds with names in their notebook. They drew the pictures and shared the drawings with their friends. Here I could assess the integrity in groups. (Co-scholastic skill)

EXPLORE

Actvity 1 : “Bird Watch”- A Nature Walk:

(Exploring the bird related words)

By the end of June, we went to a nearby Siva Temple at Thiruvandarkoil for an EVS lesson. I had asked children to observe the birds, their sounds, places they perched, things they ate, their body structure and parts. These observations helped them during the lesson as they could recall and answer the questions I posed. They uttered the following words orally and I wrote the words in the cards for future reference. (Mind map)

Nest-tree-fly-egg-wing-worm-air.

In their notebooks, they were asked to write the body parts of the birds. I assessed the words used by them in the mind map and made them say the sentences that they had written. Here I introduced the two birds in the poem Robin and Jay. One of my student noted that the Jay is called Kondaikuruvi in Thamizh as the others nodded their heads in acknowledgement. I showed them the picture-cum-word chart and assessed their reading.

Actvity  2: “Fix it”

(Reading the sentences and matching them)

The class was divided into five groups and I gave two sentence strips to each group. The children had to read the sentences in their groups first and then aloud to the whole class. If a child from a group read a sentence others in the class would have to repeat it. Then, I displayed a cardboard with a bird picture on one side and a human on the other.

In their groups the children had to fix the sentence under the apt picture. Thus an Illustration board (TLM) was made by the children. They understood the difference between birds and people by reading those sentences.

I assessed their reading abilities and their accuracy in fixing the sentences on the board. Children also wrote the sentences in their notebooks.

Actvity 3: “Poem Singing”

Listen and Sing:

I read the poem several times. First I read the text and children followed it with their text books. Then I sang it rhythmically using a “poem chart”. I had displayed and then played the audio of the poem from NCERT sakshat. Then the whole class was divided into two groups and I made them practice it with action. Here one group would sing a line while the opposite group will mime the action and vice versa.

I assessed their listening and reading skills at the same time. By repeating the task every day, children became familiar with the poem and were able to recite it on their own. They also began to enjoy the rhythm and rhyme of the poem. The sakshat by NCERT helped children enjoy learning the poem.

To help the children get familiar with the words and to enhance their reading skills, I pasted the photocopy of the poem in an A4 paper on each child’s desk. About 8 children could write the  poem independently without spelling mistakes, while 5 to 7 children could write with minor spelling mistakes. All the 23 children were able sing the poem.

EXPLAIN

Actvity  1: “Mind Map”-Writing word web:

By now, children were familiar with the words in the poem. I asked them to write the words and create a mind map related to birds. I also added some words given in the text exercise in pg-13. After telling them the sentences they wrote it in their notebooks.

A readymade template of a mind map activity sheet was given as a frame work to write the sentences. The same writing task was carried out in their fair notebook to reinforce their writing skills.

Actvity  2: “Rewrite and Differentiate:”

(Writing sentences using the contraction don’t)

At the beginning of this session I asked the class a few yes or no questions. Initially their answers remained ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but later they started saying ‘yes they have’ and ‘no they don’t’.

E.g.

                Do birds have wings?

                Do people have wings?

                Do birds eat beetles?

                Do people eat beetles?

Speaking skills could be assessed through their answers

The “Differentiation Template sheet” was given to each student asking them to rewrite the sentence for people using the contraction ‘don’t’. As a next level activity, another set of questions were given and the students were asked to fill up the blanks to the questions provided  using “have” or “don’t have”. Hence both reading and writing skill could be assessed here.

Actvity 3: “Elephant talk”-Role Play

To develop their creativity I asked questions about elephant and wrote some words related to elephants on the board. Then I displayed the poem chart and two volunteers were given masks of elephants. They were asked to change the lyrics of the poem using the words written on the board.

Here I encountered a problem as the students did not know which of the words to replace. Then I wrote the poem on the board underlining the words to be altered.

Children were asked to write the poem “Elephant Talk” by replacing it with other animals and they were proud to be “Young Poets”.

I assessed the way they expressed themselves as elephants i.e. walking and swinging their hands like elephants and the vocabulary they used in the poem.

ELABORATE

(Speaking and Discussing)

Actvity 1: “Come come birds”- Love and care for birds.

Students were asked to say the various ways to invite their “feathered friends” to their house. This activity was to extend what they had learnt in the previous classes to other related instances.

• By making the sound kaw..kaw.. to call the crows and feed them.
• By making a hole in a small pot and hanging it in the gate/door with some grains inside it.
• By putting kolams in front of their house so that the birds can come to eat the rice powder.
• Using a bird bath, by placing a trough of water for birds to quench their thirst.
• “In magic garden children gave bread to the birds, like that we could also give bread to the birds” said a children calling and applying what she had learnt in the previous lesson. Children were able to apply what they learn in class to their real life
• “We can climb the trees and keep food in the birds nest” said a student which amused all the others in the class.

Actvity 2: “Praise the nature”-Everybody is unique and special”:

To help the children appreciate the good qualities and uniqueness in others, I asked each one to say something special about one of their friends. This got them interested and everybody was interested in talking and appreciating each other.

EVALUATE

Actvity  1: “Puppet play”- Do and learn:

The extent to which the lesson attracted the children was visible in the last activity I gave them. I distributed old invitation cards to children and asked them to draw a small picture of any bird and cut them out. I then gave each child a strip of paper and double sided tape to stick the cut out in the strip so that they could insert it on their fingers to resemble “finger puppet”.

In pairs the children were asked to sing the poem” bird talk” as per the bird puppets they had on their fingers while I assessed the way they recited the poem.The activity was so effective that the children imagined themselves as birds, so much so that when a child named Jegadeswari (who mimed a parrot) asked for water, her pair Dharshini (smiled) and said, “Miss, Parrot is thirsty, parrot is drinking water”.

Everybody was running around the class flapping their arms as birds and miming the sounds of birds. They wanted to know what sounds peacocks, owls, jays and robins produced. This needed audio support and I used the audio video of birds’ sounds in our school computer. I evaluated them here by asking them to name the bird by playing the audio alone.

Actvity 2: “Same sounding words”-Rhyming words:

In my next level of evaluation, I wrote some words from the poem and asked them to say the rhyming words and write them in notebook. In their book they highlighted the rhyming words using colours.

For further reinforcement I gave word cards to them to play the “Memory Match” game by placing the cards upside down and taking two cards at a time and matching the rhyming words.

To make the learning of rhyming words interesting and easy, I used a clean trash bin and a ball. I divided the children into two groups. When I say a word one group has to say a rhym- ing word to match mine. If the group answered it right, then they will get a point and a chance to throw the ball into the bin. If the ball fell into the bin the group got an extra point. This made the evaluation more enjoyable.

Extended Follow Up activity:

• Collection of picture of birds.
• Cuttings from the newspaper.
• Knowing the State birds.
• Feeding birds whenever possible.
• Writing sentence using can and cannot.
• Playing hop-scotch game (paandi in tamizh) writing rhyming words in the boxes.
• Bird watching whenever possible.

Conclusion: “It’s not an end”…

The period allotted for this poem was 12. My children and I enjoyed the entire lesson. Planning and executing the lesson through 5E model has definitely helped the children to develop their language skills.