Sweet life: Butterflies, strawberries, elephants

Good evening! Today I introduced the letter

ف   "f"

There are so many fun words that begin with this letter! 
Farawala (strawberry):  فراولة 
 Feel (elephant): فيل
 Farasha (butterfly): فراشة
 Fondoq (hotel)
Farkha (chicken, but this is not colloquial  Arabic, rather the dialect version of "dajaj")
 etc. 
Many of the kids I teach Arabic is their second language so introducing several words a day is pointless and it is difficult for them to remember. I usually aim to introduce about 2-3 words per Sunday. If this were an everyday school, I would only introduce one word per day. Remember, repetition is key. Repeat the letter and words several times and have the students repeat the words several times (3-5 times). I also have my students write down the new letter on project of the day. 

Today I introduced three new words: farawla, feel and farasha. However, farasha (butterfly) was the main activity.I wanted to bring in fresh strawberries for the kids to eat -- but it was a crazy week. So I had they make little strawberries with puff balls (see below). I drew a photo of an elephant on the board and also showed our class puppet -- an elephant! He is now referred to as Mr. Feel instead of Mr. Elephant (Mr. elephant usually helps out with morning exercises). 

One student told me today after we completed the projects: you are the best teacher ever because you make us do fun things when we learn them! Totally made my day. Hands- on activities, sunday school teachers, is SO important for little kids.

So here are our pretty butterflies. 

Supplies:

popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, stickers, glue, scissors,  markers googly eyes ,  tissue paper & puff balls (for the strawberry)

My masterpiece

And the students' awesome work:

Oh look! The Farasha is eating a Farawla! Notice the elephant (feel) in the back that I drew- no ears (Hi Amirah & Tony)!

That one cool student who  decided to put the eye on the wings

The other awesome student who made a cyclops butterfly

Have a beautifulfly day!

What other fun letters begin with the letter Fah? 

Rudolph the Red Nosed Ghazala?

It has been a very very very long week with midterms, papers and a hectic work week. I am not on Spring Break! Yay! I just want to thank Amirah and Miran on Twitter for helping me last night to brainstorm ideas for today's lesson plans! Follow them, they're awesome! When students are learning a second or third language, throwing many vocabulary words at them is useless. One new word per day is practical and also reviewing the words you have taken the days before. But since Sunday Schools taken place only once a week, I try to do 1-3 words but focus on one word. Today the students learned the word: Ghamad (close; i.e., close your eyes), Ghaba (forest), and Ghazala (Gazelle, or for simplicity sake, deer).

So I had the students "ghammad" their "Ein" (eyes, which we took last week) imagine they were walking in a forest (ghaba) and they see beautiful animals and come across a ghazala. And I kept going on and on until I told them to open their eyes. I then introduced the letter

غ

 (Ghein)

I had them say it a couple of times and had someone explain to me and the classroom how this letter was different from the letter we took last week (Ein) because of the dot. I passed out paper lunch bags and they all wrote the letter ghein several times. They think of it as a backwards 3 with a dot on the top (hey whatever works, right?).

And this was the activity:

Supplies: (plus popsicle sticks and contraction paper)

This is how mine turned out:

My ghazala got hungry last night and started eating the supplies. :(

The kids' masterpiece:

It was a long day.Let's just say I'm glad the week is over and so it today. What are other words that start with the letter "ghein" that children might enjoy learning about?

Chilling at the Desert with ص

A couple of weeks ago I introduced my students to the letter ص "sa-ud" Brainstorming always takes the longest part in my lesson plan. Here are the words I came up with (and I always brainstorm with my twitter friends and husband so thank you to them!):

صبار "so-bbar" Cactus

صحراء "sah-ra" Desert

صخرة "sa-khra" Rock

I first drew a cactus and rocks on the white board (no we do not have a smart board). THey all knew what the cactus and rocks were in English. I then ask if anyone has visited a desert before and we talked about that for a little bit. Then I introduced the letter and wrote it on the board. I had them pronounce it a couple of times and write it. Then for the fun part of the lesson plan: the activity!

These were the supplies used:

popsicle sticks

play dough (yellow and green or any other if you want to be creative)

pipe cleaners

small decorative rocks (I got them from the dollar store)

cups

And here is what the class and I came up with!

This is was very fun activity. I called the students to come up and take their supplies and choose their cacti color. Then I asked them what they were as I handed to them. If they didn't know it, I would say it and they repeated after me those three words.

Do you use play dough in your classroom? What activities have you done before for this letter?

Letter ر "R" and TPR

Good morning!

A couple of months ago I introduced the letter ر or "R" to my kindergarten students. I was talking to a colleague of mine who is currently doing her PhD. in Education about TPR (Total Physical Response) and she suggested I use in this teaching method lesson.

Let me tell you something. I have taught elementary school children before (2nd-5th graders) and adults (ESL college students), so teaching such a young age was quite a different path. You can't just have these kids sit for an hour and lecture them. That's a big NO NO that I often hear of happening in some Arabic school.

So, since our letter was ر "R" I realized that several body parts began with that letter: ras (head) rokba (knee) Remsh (eyelash) and rejl (leg). Instead of just showing a photo of those body parts, I thought why not sing and come up with our own version of "Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes." This is what I found on YouTube:

And this ...

Our version, consisted singing: Ras, rems, rokba, rejl, rokba rejl. And repeat. And repeat again. And again. And again. The kids loved this and although there are four new vocabulary words introduced here, many still remember them until this day because they sang it and involved their whole body. In fact, since yesterday we were on the letter "Ein," I had the students do this dance/song again and add the Ein (eye) to the song.

For assessment, I had the students draw a picture of them and circle the words we learned. If they were a little older I would have had them write down what body parts they are, but they are still learning to write in both English and Arabic.

Have you tried TPR before? Do your kids love to sing and dance when learning a new word/lesson?

ع for عنكبوت "Ein" for "Ankaboot"

For our Arabic lesson today I introduced my students to the letter ع.

I usually start out my Arabic lesson plans with questions and advanced organizers . Today I asked my students if they liked spiders. Then they shared what spiders they like, how they dislike spiders and I drew a couple of pictures of spiders. This type of advanced organizer really helps the students think about what's coming next and exercise their brains a little before being introduced to the new letter and word.

After writing the letter ع on the board and having them say it a couple of times we move to the fun activity! عنكبوت is spider in Arabic. I stayed up last night pulling apart egg cartons and painting them:

I encourage critical thinking and thinking outside the box. So I told my students to use their imaginations with the spiders. I was so surprised what they came up with!



This is what I did and showed them:

Our supplies were toothpicks, pipe cleaners, glitter glue, ribbons and the egg cartons. This is what the students came up with:

They loved this activity! I then asked them as they were working on the project what they were making (had them say it in Arabic-- as assessment) and had another spider conversation. Some kids came up with stories about how their spiders were crying because they were going to get squished. Others made their spiders simple and to the point!

Purpose of this blog

Just wanted to write a quick post of the purpose of this blog. I recently started teaching Arabic to kindergarten kids at my Sunday School. This was my first time teaching elementary and Arabic, and it was challenging to find resources online. After brainstorming, researching, and help with my Twitter followers, I am more than half way through the year and have done many exciting and fun lessons!

I thought I would share some of those ideas here. I never found a blog that focuses on teaching Arabic to children so this will be the main focus. Whether it is for Sunday School, Islamic School or teaching your kids Arabic at home, I hope this will be somewhat beneficial. This might also be of interest to those who want to learn Arabic and are at the beginners level.

I will be posting lesson plans, activities, ideas, tips and resources!

Stay tuned for some Arabic fun!

Testing!