Classification Cards

We had a short but happy day at school on Friday, with our first group outing to collect shells to the nearby dunes of Barcadera. I love short trips out to the nature with the children. Our weather and the nearness of everything on the island is very conducive to these types of outings. Helping the children become aware of the variety (even in Aruba!) of environments that surround us is of my favorite aspects of my work.

After the children left at 12:30, Sayenne and I got to work making the long overdue sets of classification cards (among other things) that we've been looking forward to working with in the classroom.

Classification cards are picture cards that are used to teach vocabulary. They are used individually by the children, or can be presented as a group. Initially, they are presented verbally, but later on, children who can read match labels to the picture cards.

We've decided that it would be truly spectacular to have a starter set of cards that is directly related to our school environment. Our school environment is so rich and full of vocabulary opportunities that we decided it would be great to "go local" with our classification cards.


We got to work taking photos of different classifications in our classroom such as:

• The People in our Community (children and teachers)
  
• The Plants in our Classroom
• Our Outdoor Plants in our Garden
  
• Our Orchard Plants
• Cultural Objects in our Room
• The Furniture in our Room
• Our Table Setting
• Objects in our Bathroom
• Birds in our Garden
  
• Materials we use Outdoors
• Types of Rocks and Minerals we can find in our Garden
• Animals of our Garden
• Insects of our Garden (and occasionally classroom)
• ETC!!!!

Along with these, we plan to make short books related to "the way we do things in the classroom" which will contain pictures of the children tucking in their chairs, putting away work, taking out work, sitting at a table, sitting at a rug, using the bathroom necklace, washing their hands, etc.

This is the "fun" kind of computer work, but it is time consuming!

I will post the materials as we finish them in case they could be useful for anyone else out there.