Eric Carle...'Animals Animals'

Eric Carle...the one name that every teacher...loves/fears (delete as appropriate) hearing!

As I see it there are two ways of thinking about Eric Carle...the first is the joy of teaching the very hungry caterpillar again and getting your kids to fall in love with such an iconic book (lets face it, it is probably the first book most people would name when hearing the name). The flip side of this is the dread of teaching the very hungry caterpillar again and having to try to get your kids to fall in love with a book you have taught time and time again!!!

Well...I rebelled when I was faced with the topic 'Books and Authors'. Instead I went for a lesser known collection that wasn't actually written by Eric Carle but instead it is a collection of poetry from different authors and the artwork is done by Eric Carle (kind of the best of both worlds - I don't have to teach the very hungry caterpillar for the Millionth time but I still get to enjoy the fantastic artwork!)

Animals Animals - Eric Carle

It was such a fantastic topic and the kids loved every Monday morning as we introduced a new animal each week - we started with the poem in English, we learnt about where they lives and what they ate etc in wider world and we did some animal themed music based on that animal each week in Music! It was great! We also fed in some ICT collages and research about the animal and also some artwork in our art lessons!

Here are some links to some resources I uploaded to TES:
Eric Carle Collage Making Instruction Sheet -  http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/Eric-Carle-Collage-Making-Instruction-Sheet-6344218/

Animals Animals PowerPoint Poetry, Sensory Poetry, Symbol magazine and Vocab cards - http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/Eric-Carle-Animals-Animals-Poetry-Collection-6357636/

Animals Animals Songbook and Planning - http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/Eric-Carle-and-39-Animals-Animals-and-39-Songbook-and-Planning-6370284/

So please be inspired to do something different! Don't just think you have to recycle the hungry caterpillar year after year - although it is a pretty awesome book!

Enjoy teaching this fantastic text!

Jessie's Fund and Music Therapy

What an awesome start to the half term...we have a creative golden day coming up (for which the theme is 'the circus') and for this my class have had the opportunity to take part in some music therapy which has been run by Jessie's fund which is a UK based Charity primarily concerned with providing music therapy for children who are seriously ill or have disabilities.

At this point I just want to say...THEY ARE AMAZING! We've had 2 guys come in and they have worked with my class for 3 days this week and the kids have loved it, we have 2 more sessions coming up. Most of my students don't get access to a taught music lesson which is a shame but this has unearthed some real talent!

We have been making our own music by exploring sounds and looking at speed and noises which are loud and quiet and we have also been practicing a song, which all students can play along to when we perform it for an audience. The song related to the theme of the circus and has some great lyrics to it which go something like 'jump acrobat jump, here he goes flying through the air'.

Have a look at the web site - http://www.jessiesfund.org.uk/

I hear they have a lot of experience working with students who have autism as well as students with challenging behaviors and physical disabilities. Really worth getting in touch with if your are interested in music therapy work. I would highly recommend the two guys working with us (sorry but their names have slipped my mind!)

Happy reading :)