October, 4th 2015 -Tamil Jr. Class

        This week, We split the class into two groups. Group A handled by Sowmya and Group B by Vidya Aiyer. After individual group activities, We practiced the alphabet Song as a whole class. We will be learning this song for the next couple of weeks. our kids will sing this as one of the performances in the assembly sometimes during January. Our class will be working on two group system for rest of the year. Our goal is to graduate the group A kids to Senior in the following year (if the kids cooperate this year).

Group A (Kids who are done with vowel sounds): 

         We reviewed the vowel sounds. kids wrote the alphabets in their notebooks on their own.  We also worked on words with vowel beginning sounds. We started making the  vocabulary list section in the Tamil notebook. I asked the kids to start from the back of the notebook. Each page is assigned a letter and words beginning with that sound will be written in that page. We will continue to add the more words to the collections through out the year. By the end of the year, kids will be amazed at how many words they have learnt in Tamil.        In the next class, We will review the homework word list , Lesson -2 in the text book. Then, we will start on consonant sounds. 

Group B(New kids / Kids who do not know vowel sounds or any basics of Tamil): 

     We started vowel sounds. Kids worked on learning the vowel sounds and tried to trace them. We made kids repeat the vowel sounds for couple of times.We started Lesson-2. We read the books on relations. We will be working on Lesson -1 along with other lessons until each child is comfortable either saying and identifying them or Writing them.        Next class we will have activities to practice letter sounds and Letter sequences. We will be continue to learn the Lesson -2 (My Family).

Home work:

 Group A: 

         Group A kids will have to write the words that begins with vowels sounds in their vocabulary list sections. We are going to see who could bring in lots of words. Kids can write the Tamil words in English and we will eventually write them in Tamil.  Here are some sample shots. Also use the Textbook and their last year printouts as reference for words. 

Group B:

Practice Vowel sounds. They should be able to identify the letters and/ or put them in the correct order when asked to in the next class. Please print the following and have it in their folder for the next class.

• https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B4zzJ3Rgj-K-c29aUFMxcWxMU28

• Pages 6,10,11 from this Link https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4zzJ3Rgj-K-S3BpQWJoLWFHd0E/view?usp=sharing

Other Information:

Our welcome letter is in the following google doc. Please make sure that the child has his/ her class supply in their bags.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MeFeJ5BBedK8ssaT872Te5EWa_f_NQBmBtMFCbW0dtU/edit?usp=sharing
 

Most Kids know which group they are in. We emailed the parents about which group your kids will be. If any of the parent do not get our email. Please let us know.

September , 27 2015 Tamil Jr.

 Our First class went on well. Its good to see our friends from last year. We also welcome our new comers this year. Vidya and I are excited to be Tamil Jr. teacher. We have lots of fun activities planned for this year. 
   We started the class by each child introducing themselves to the class. We also reviewed vowel sounds with our returning students. 
May students still remembered them!!! We also learnt a new alphabet song in Tamil. We will be singing that song in our assembly presentation probably in January.
Good job kids!!!

Next class:
 We will  be getting to serious studying from next class.We are planning to split the class into two group. 

Group A (Kids who are done with vowel sounds): Will start consonant sound and words beginning with vowel sounds. 

Group B(New kids): Will start vowel sounds. Kids in grade -K and under will work only on oral skills. We will work on writing vowels for kids above grade 1. 

Textbook:
    This year we have got a text book for Tamil Jr. Our textbook will be available for purchase in the next class. It cost $6 per book.  We expect each child to have his or her own copy of the book as they will be writing on the activities in the book. 

Class List:
   From next class, each kid need to have the class list ready to get our class going. The following are required for each student and has be brought in for every class.

• 1- Subject Notebook. If you have the note from last year, bring it. We will continue lessons from there.
• Textbook
• Sharpened pencil -2 , eraser
• Color pencil or crayon ( basic 6 color is enough, No Markers please. It bleeds through the paper.)
• Folder - to keep the printouts.
• Snack (like cracker or nutrition bar. Pref. nut free.)

Snack:
Kids get hungry by the time, they get to language class. Please provide them with easy too eat snack. There will be not be specific snack time. Kids will eat while we are working on our lessons. So keep that in mind.  We will not encourage sharing of food as we are not aware of allergy information. Still to be on the safe side we insist on NUT FREE snack.

Email: 
  Our major communication will be done through email. check our name list in our next class to make sure, we have your correct email.  

Tamil Jr. 4/26/15

This class we spent the entire class practicing the consonant sounds and action words. Each kid also pasted the first set of Sight words in their notebook.

We played a game to practice the action words. Kids should have known the following actions words by now. Please review them and have them use in their day to day talks at home. 

     This week earned our star towards the cup cake party at the end of the year. 

Home work:

   Practice and get very comfortable saying and identifying the consonant sounds. If  you have time, practice writing them too. Use the following links for practice

https://youtu.be/6MX6eArOD2E

http://www.baasha.net/lessons/Level-1/b_Mei_lessons.html

 Only after they get comfortable with the consonant sounds, we could move on to secondary letter sounds. 

 Also, kids need to pick atleast one day and note down the various actions they do through out the day (eating, drinking, brushing, walking to bus....)  and talk about their one day's activity in the next class. 

Please help them in preparing for that.

Action Words:

Eat

Drink

Play

Talk/ speak
come
Go
Write
Read
Jump
Run
Walk

Tamil Junior 4/12/15

This week, we had Uyir ezhuthukkal test. So happy to note almost everyone did a remarkable job. Couple of students, went on to write mei ezhuthukkal as well.

After the Test, we made colorful and creative greeting posters denoting the upcoming Tamil New Years. We learned it marks the occasion of the birth of the First Tamil Month Chithirai. So the festival is also called Chithirai pirappu or chithirai thirunaal or some folks call it Chithirai Vishu.
"Iniya puthaandu nal vaazhthukkal" is how we greet everyone for the occasion.

With the gap of spring break, it was a challenge to bring all students back to Tamil writing/talking. But with a little push, they were able to get to the position comfortably. So we did not earn a "star" we were suppose to, as our target is to earn more stars towards the year end cupcake party. We are hopeful that in classes going forward, we might earn couple stars together.

For any reference or class notes kindly refer to http://baasha.net/
Until we see you next week, 
"புத்தாண்டு மற்றும் சித்திரைத் திருநாள் நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள்"

Hari OM
Sowmya and Vidhya