Something parents and preschoolers could do together. . .?

[Jane W]

Hi -- I teach ESL to parents of small children (up to age 5). Lately we've decided to include the students' children in part of the class, because a lot of them need to learn English too and because some of the parents have a hard time getting away from their kids, out of the playroom and into class. So, does anyone know any fun activities parents and small children can do together, hopefully while both of them learn some English?

[Sally Olsen]

Good idea. We had a Rhythm and English course in Japan. We gradually built up a format so that by the end we had introductions with songs - do you know "Where is Thumpkin? (Where is Yoko?) or Hello, Rio, how are you? I'm fine thank you? You could make up any tune I imagine. Then we did weather, colours, numbers, days of the week, and so on as the year went by. We always did things in the same order so they knew what was coming and varied the activities about weather for example with games or songs or matching pictures of rainy, windy or making up stories which they illustrated - here is Rio in the rain. We got books with stories about the weather and made a board game with weather elements and the same with colours, transportation, sports, food, and so on. They get a lot of opportunities to hear the words over and over but in different situations. They loved slap which a game played with large cards of whatever the subject is - food for example. They name the cards as you spread them on the floor and then give them flyswatters or they can do it with their hands if they promise not to slap each other. You call out "potatoes" and whoever is first to slap gets that card. They can name their cards as they give them back to you or their parents at the end of the game. We played in small groups of four or five. Any of the Ring Around the Rosy type games were popular. We learned a song about animals such as "Old Macdonald" and acted these out with puppets, masks, costumes, reading the story and we gave the children and parents a tape of 10 or so songs to listen to at home. Then at the end of the session we put together a little play with all the songs and they acted out the parts in front of relative and friends. It is amazing how you can string a sort of story together from popular children's songs. It helps if you all sit on the floor if possible and the parents hold their children on their laps to do actions to songs and such, particularly at the beginning. Towards the end, the parents become more of an audience but usually a very attentive one, mouthing their children's part in the play and of course, they know all the lines by heart of everyone. It is way to get a lot of repitition without them thinking it is babyish, particularly the Beginner's Adults but no mother or father is ever bored to see their children learning.

[Jane W]

Thanks for all the good ideas! I was also glad to hear that in your class, the kids ended up doing most of the "work" and the parents didn't get bored. We'll try out all the ideas we have time for.