"Armadillo sings the blues" by Susie Mallett 2005How a conductor teaches English
Some of the children I work with love the idea of having an English conductor especially when they have already started to learn some English at school or Kindergarten or just from computer activities or pop songs, (Sunday, 27 July 2008, "A walk in the woods with the Wundershone Englanderin"). Some children are interested in doing the task series in English which is sometimes a very difficult "task" for me as I have rarely "conducted" in my mother tongue. I find the best methods are singing English songs and action rhymes and, as the children get older, I introduce English games and we translate the texts to their favourite songs.
One young boy with whom I have worked with for several years has a special interest as both his parents are fluent English-speakers and his father uses the language daily in his buisness.
For this boy in particular I like to collect books at car boots and jumble sales when I am in England and today I found something newly published Dinosaurs Love Underpants, by Claire Freedman and Ben Cort.
Even the cover will awaken his interest just as it did my own when I saw it in the bookshop and it jumped off the shelves at me.
This book is just perfect, all little boys love anything to do with dragons, knights or dinosaurs, it contains enough interest-awakening material for a whole week at least. We will learn about cave men and dinosaurs, and underwear and anger, all in English. The words are enough to set the imagination on fire in any language and there are images galore for numerous arty projects. The book is in rhyming text so we will write our own bilingual poetry and the pictures are so vivid they will inspire creativity, we can design our own underpants and invent new dinosaurs,
I can not wait to get started!
Watch this spot for Dinosaurs Love Underpants in action!
Below are the first two verses to awaken your interest, more to come!
Dinosaurs were all wiped out,
A long way back in history,
No one knows quite how or why,
Now this book solves the mystery.
It all began when cavemen,
Felt embarrassed in the nude,
So someone dreamt up underpants,
To stop them looking rude.
............................................
Notes
Dinosaurs Love Underpants by Claire Freedman and Ben Cort
Format: Hardback
ISBN: 9781847382092
Published: 2 June 2008
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's
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