The Balloon Man

R. Anitha

Enjoy the colours and their beauty through songs                                CBSE, English, Class – III, Unit-5

ENGAGE

Activity 1: Color Game (Listening and Recognizing colors) - Playing tick... tick game inside the classroom. When I played this game i felt like a child and played along with the children. I assigned myself the role of a catcher. The game continued as follows…
Tr: Tick..Tick..
Ch: Who’s that?
Tr.: Mohini..
Ch: What do you want?
Tr.: Jewellery..
Ch: What jewellery?
Tr.: Color jewellery….
Ch: What color?
Tr: Green color…
As my children were already aware of the colors, they played and enjoyed the game with supreme pleasure. Children went round and round the class, rushed and buzzed like bees around a flower to touch the said colors. All the
colors in the classroom were covered and the children who found it difficult to recognize were helped by their peers. Some made fun in escaping  from me. Some stood on the mat (barefoot) and when I was about to catch them they jumped and told me “Miss, I am touching with the foot”.

Here I assessed their previous knowledge about recognition of colors, their active participation and involvement of getting into the lesson.

Activity 2: Role Play (Dramatizing the sellers- Speaking and participating) - I asked the children to say about some persons who sell various things during local village functions/festivals (Thiruvizha). In random, I noted down the names of sellers said in each group as Group1: Bangle seller, Saree seller, Group2: Dates seller, Rice ball seller, Group 3: Ice cream seller, Balloon seller,
Group 4: Sweet candy seller (panjumittai), Soan Papadi seller and Group 5: Doll seller, Pop corn seller.
In groups they acted out the role of each seller in a great way. In later periods I showed the visuals of sellers. They talked about the carts, things they sell, the way they sell, the place where they sell. A child shared that “Many items are only eatables and play things, nothing to read and write”. Nobody can expect an eight year old boy to say this. As a first step to the poem “The balloon man” I assessed the children’s prior knowledge about people in general who all they can see in the makret square.
Activity 3: Listening and Reciting - I played an Audio Visual song on colours in which things of different colours were shown. Children listened and tried to sing the song. Even a week after listening to the song they used to sing the color song while walking and when they were at leisure.

EXPLORE

Activity 1: Bloooooow the balloons (Colour Recognition –Speaking) - At the beginning of the class I pasted smileys of different colors around the classroom. I gave the children balloons to blow on hearing the teacher whistle twice. On hearing the 2nd whistle, children ran to the place where the balloons matched with the smileys. Children spoke simple sentence. Each one was given a chance to speak. “My balloon is red”. “My balloon is purple”.
I displayed the spelling cards of names of colours and gave the activity sheet to ind the hidden colours with clues. So children could read the key words and ind the colours in the grid. 

Clues to ind the colors: Write the colors after your search:
1. Crow _____________
2. Cement ____________
3. Teeth _____________
4. Tongue ____________
5. Orange fruit _____________
6. Sky _____________
7. Blood _____________
8. Sunflower ____________
9. Brinjal ______________

Children were not confused as to which colour was left out since they were given the clues. Hence reading was being assessed simultaneously.
Activity 2: Match me to my colour (Reading  writing sentences) - On the black board I wrote the following and asked 2 children in each group to read the things and match them with the colours. The other 2 children were asked to write them in the form of a sentence.
Eg. Blood is red. Sky is blue.
In later periods, the same activity was done in the class work notebook and assessed. Color the circles as per the color names given and Match things with the colors:
1. Your hair                    Black
2. Blood                          Red
3. Sunflower                  Yellow
4. Your teeth                  White
5. Sea                             Blue
6. Tomato                       Red
7. Your Class Board     Bla ck
8. Sky                              Blue

Picture-1

EXPLAIN

Activity 1: Singing the poem (Listening) - I displayed the lyrics (chart) of the poem and sung in my own tune with actions. Children followed the same. I drew a rough sketch of the scene of a
balloon man selling balloons and illustrated the words with diagrams meant in the poem how the balloon man sells. Children also drew according to their imagination 

Activity 2: Opposites (Sentence writing) - I gave word cards and asked to read and find out the opposite words for the given words from the poem. Simultaneously completing the bookwork. Later children were given practice in writing sentences using the opposite words. Eg.: far x near Sivan temple is near to school. Railway gate is far from school

Activity 3: Spot it (Listening, reading and speaking) - I put the questions about the place where he sold balloons, the season mentioned,the string to which the balloons are tied, etc. Children now turned to the page and read the
sentences and could answer the questions asked. Each child was given a chance to explain the answers and some answered in their own language. By reading the poem again and again they could identify the rhyming words in the poem and highlighted as usual in yellow crayons.

ELABORATE

Activity 1: Read and color the balloons (Reading and recognition) - I framed the sentences with familiar words known to most of the children so that they could read and enjoy colouring. Everybody was keen to know what colours others used i.e. whether their friends like fish fry, they know their age etc. I could see the real empathy among the kids.

1. If you like fish fry, color the first balloon blue or else green.
2. If you help your mother, color the second balloon red or else yellow.
3. If you know your age, color the third balloon orange or else black.
4. If you like potato, color the fourth balloon violet or else pink.

Activity 2: Dictation (Listening and writing) - I gave piece of white chart paper to everyone and dictated the names of vegetables, fruits, birds, flowers which were familiar to them and asked them to write the spelling of the words dictated in color accrding to the object’s colur The coloursthey used could be seen in the chart very clearly as it was a white chart.
Eg. I said apple. Kids wrote the spelling “apple” in ‘red’ crayon. “Wood”, in ‘brown’ color and so on. Children who were unaware of the spelling just drew the picture in the colour. Here I assessed the spelling and color recognition. I praised the children who had drawn the picture for their work and tried to read the spelling in the later classes by giving them label cards of color names.
Activity 3: Life oriented - Children made cut outs of balloons with golden rules written in it. I displayed it in the classroom to be followed in their life.
Eg. Grow plants, Save water, Help others.
 

EVALUATE

Activity 1: Fruits Colouring - Children drew their favorite vegetables and colored it and wrote simple sentence. I assessed the singular pluralforms and the verbs used in the sentences. (Is/ are)
Activity 2: Grouping (Reading and classifying) - I gave word cards of names of food, colors and nature things. Children read out the words and grouped under the headings. And completed the book work.

Picture-2

Follow up activities carried out:
I took 10 class period to complete the poem.We took 6 periods to complete the 5E of the poem and the other 4 periods for practice time for FA(b) activities. FA(a) was carried out during
the 5E itself.
FA(b)-1: Color the balloon and write the names of the colors given by you.
FA(b)-2:Read the given colors and crayon them:
FA(b)-3:Match and color as indicated:
I planned to take the children to the nearby temple for field trip to fly the balloons high when I take the next lesson “The Yellow Butterfly” (for butterfly watching). Paper and pencil test or readymade projects never judge a child’s intelligence and uniqueness. This 5E way of learning clicks and shows their real talents hidden in them. Salute to 5E and Salute to children…