Here we are at Food For Thought at the Botanic Gardens…. all ready to rock ‘n’ roll for a pop up class with Jan & Elly English Langauge School!
My kids were waaaay below the age (and intelligence) limit to truly benefit and understand what was going on, so they spent a lot of the time wandering around like renegade machines. But, Hunter did cotton on to it near the end, so whew!
This particular session focused on Phonics, and the ‘lesson’ was run outdoors and with loads of fun and games, so all the kids there were so engaged!
There was a phonics game where the kids would hop to each box, and match the letters together to form short words. You can see here that the kids all obediently lined up… except mine….
Finally, it was playground time. Which was exactly what Hunter was dying for! But, it’s not free play. The kids went up one by one, and when they went down the slide, they had to grab a flash card and match it up.
And so here’s my little 3 year old, the youngest and smallest of the whole lot!
Being the youngest didn’t deter him, he GRABBED that flash card with gusto and RACED over to go match it!
I was pretty floored when he matched his up correctly. It wasn’t a fluke either, cos he went to check a few matches before picking the correct one.
I’ll be honest here though…. pretty sure he can’t actually read the actual word he had (“frog”). Just that he can visually match up the alphabets! A tricksie one, this is!
All done, he sat himself down in the line by himself, feeling all chuffed 😉
YAY FOR PHONICS!
It’s made me realise how quickly kids can learn when they’re having fun. I’d even wager they learn better (and enjoy it more) when they learn in a play-based environment versus a sterile one where they sit at a desk and study. I wish there were more of these play-based outdoor classes around!
The Jan & Elly school focuses on showing children that learning is lots of fun, with interactive games that involve lots of motion and engagement.