New Kids Book!

February 16, 2009 at 1:06 pm | Posted in Children's Classes, Teaching Tips: Reading | Leave a comment
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letcountbutton We have had a really nice response to KidsEnglishBooks.com Thanks to everyone who has been visiting the site and downloading the books! We have already had over 5000 downloads of some of the books in the week the site has been up. That’s a lot of kids reading or being read to. To me that is really cool. Keep up the good work.

New Book Let’s Count!

Pictured here is the cover of the new Let’s Count book we recently added to the site. It is a fun, and easy counting book. It goes along great with the Dream English Let’s Count song. So you can read the book, and sing the song, and makes some children smile along the way! We are already working on more books, so please check out KidsEnglishBooks.com Happy Reading!-Matt

Thank you- A Donation to Heifer International

December 15, 2008 at 5:53 am | Posted in Teaching Tips: Reading, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

chicks-ecard212x212 On behalf of Dream English I have made a donation of a Hope Basket to Heifer International. If you don’t know about Heifer International, it is a really great organization that uses its donations to provide families with livestock, in order to empower them to make a difference in their lives. This is from their website:

Heifer International provides livestock and training so that families can improve nutrition and earn income for health care, shelter and education for children. Each gift multiplies because every family that receives a Heifer animal promises to “pass on the gift” by giving one or more of their animal’s offspring and knowledge to another family in need.

Thank you!

It is your support of Dream English this year  that helped make this donation, so thank you for your support! If you would like to make your own donation, or learn more about this great organization please check out the Heifer International website here.

Lesson plan based on Brown Bear, Brown Bear for 2-6 year olds

March 26, 2008 at 7:27 am | Posted in Children's Classes, Teaching Tips: Reading | 3 Comments
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I really like the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Bill Martin Jr.,Eric Carle, and I teach it often in my classes of 2-6 year olds. Here is a lesson plan that is a great review of the book, and colors. You will need the book Brown Bear, crayons, and a piece of paper with a drawing of a bear, a frog, a fish, and a duck.

1. Warm up the kids- sing a song, etc.

2. Read Brown Bear to the kids, try to get them to read along, or repeat after you if you can.

3. Hand out the crayons, after reviewing all the colors with the students. You can have them repeat after you, or if they are older ask them, “What color is this?”

4. Hand out the paper with the animals drawn on it, and explain to the students that you are going to ask them to color the animals the color you ask.

5. Ask the students, “Please color the bear brown.” You may need to help them find which one is the bear, and which one is brown, if they are younger students. Continue with all the animals. If the students are advanced, you can say, “color the bears ears blue, and its feet brown” etc.

This is a fun exercise, and the kids really enjoy it. If you are not a good drawer to draw the animals, ask a friend, or do your best. The kids won’t mind, as long as the animals are recognizable. You could also print out from these free downloads of Brown Bear animal coloring sheets.

Have fun!

The International Children’s Digital Library

February 23, 2008 at 4:36 am | Posted in Teaching Tips: Reading | Leave a comment
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I came across this website in a book I am reading called Practical English Language Teaching: Young Learners by Caroline T. Linse. I definitely recommend this book, and to check out the International Children’s Digital Library. http://www.icdlbooks.org This is a really cool website, that I have just begun to explore. There are many books here, in many languages, which you can read online for free.

I don’t use the internet in my classes, but I can see how this resource could be great for students who have access to a computer to read some books in English. You could also assign a book as homework for the students to read with their parents.

TPR Reading

February 4, 2008 at 7:47 am | Posted in Teaching Tips: Reading | Leave a comment
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I am reading a great book on teaching children called Practical English Language Teaching: Young Learners by Caroline T. Linse. I highly recommend it, as it has many great ideas for teaching English to children.

TPR Reading

One of the most useful things I have found in the book so far is on TPR Reading. It gave me the idea to teach books in a different way than I have in the past. I am teaching Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Bill Martin Jr. with illustrations by Eric Carle. I found a great website with flash cards of the animals in the book. Now when I read the book, I put the flash cards on the floor, and ask the students to touch them when I read the page with the animal. Then we repeat the text of the page together.

This action of touching the cards helps keep the students focused on the book, and excited to see the next page. Another way I read the book is to hand out the cards to the students, and when I read the page with their cards, they have to hold up the card and say it. Simple, but effective.

Reading Books in the Children’s ESL Classroom

January 27, 2008 at 4:35 am | Posted in Children's Classes, Teaching Tips: Reading | Leave a comment
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When I first started reading books to children in my classes, I admit that I didn’t fully understand the potential of a book. A book is not simply words and pictures, but a complete interactive lesson in itself. I discovered this by watching other teachers read to their classes.

Each page of a book is a world of questions: What do you see on this page? An apple? How many apples do you see? Let’s count,1,2,3…What color is the apple? and so on. Of course it is important to balance these questions with the reading of the text. However, I have found that asking these questions every few pages helps keep the children focused. As I have mentioned before, pacing is important.

My favorite books for teaching English to children are Brown Bear Brown Bear and Hungry Caterpillar both by Eric Carle. What are yours? 

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