Book winner

Congratulations Vana from California for winning the Lucky Cake book!! I'll be sending it out to St. Katherine's Church early next week!!

K-1 Christmas song

The artist Theofilos (6th Grade Geography Class)

The Lucky Cake give-a-way!!

It is so heartwarming to see Greek Americans produce books and materials to teach children in the diaspora about our wonderful Greek traditions. I was blessed to get in contact with Anna Prokos not too long ago, a great children's author out of New Jersey. Anna has just produced a book about the Vasilopita tradition and about St. Basil. Her book is called the Lucky Cake and it is available in both Greek and English

(How lucky are we?!).

Mrs. Prokos has generously offered a book to be given away on my blog. So, this is your chance to be one of the fist to have a copy of The Lucky Cake. Please a post a comment to be eligible for the drawing that will take place a week from today, December 11th.

To learn more about Anna Pokos and The Lucky Cake, visit her website at

theluckycakebook.com

Merry Madagascar in Greek

η ημέρα των Ευχαριστιών

Την τελευταία Πέμπτη του Νοεμβρίου, κάθε χρόνο, γιορτάζουμε στις Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες την ημέρα των Ευχαριστιών. Μαζευόμαστε στα σπίτια μας με συγγενείς και με φίλους να ευχαριστήσουμε τον Θεό για όλα τα καλά που μας δίνει.

άλφα, άλφα......α α α

Watch a great

alphabet review song here

I can't stop singing it!! Neither can my students!!

Christmas song for Kindergarten

ΖΗΤΩ Η 28Η ΟΚΤΩΒΡΙΟΥ 1940!!

Projects and ideas for OXI Day

OXI Day pictures from around our school

Images from World War II posters and photographs from the internet printed out and laminated to decorate the bulletin board on the way into school.

Project completed by Kindergarten and Pre-School students of the Afternoon school.

Bulletin board with project completed by 1st graders of the Day school outside the Greek rooms.

Thank you to all the Kindergarten bloggers from Greece for the wonderful ideas for OXI Day. What a blessing to be able to share resources and ideas across the world to benefit our children.

For more OXI Day ideas, take a look at my favorite blog list to see what teachers in Greece are doing to teach the new generation about Greece's heroism and role in

World War II.

ΖΗΤΩ Η ΕΛΛΑΔΑ!!

Pictures from my other Greek School will be posted tomorrow.

Καλό Φθινόπωρο

Today is the first day of Fall!! What a beautiful day to begin our new vocabulary unit.

Η τάξη μας

Where did the summer go?! I can't believe we have been back at school for over a month!

Here are some pictures of my classroom. This back wall is invaluable in our 1st grade daily routine. We go over letter sounds, vowels, colors, shapes, seasons, weather, months and days every class session.

This is our season, calendar and weather wall.

Our letters, colors and vowels wall.


The view from the front of the room.

Maria Rousakis--Greek children's author

I was so excited to receive an e-mail from Maria Rousakis today. She is the well known and honored Greek children's author of my daughter's favorite book Η Μέλπω η Μοναδική. Please take a look at her website to learn more about her. Her books are available to purchase on line here. Any of these books would make a wonderful addition to your child's Greek library as they are beautifully illustrated and always have a meaningful message in the story.

For more about the author, take a look at her interview here, at the Mikros Anagnostis website.

Happy Reading!!!

Keep them singing over the summer!!

Visit the blog Παιδικά Τραγούδια to listen to Greek children's songs! It really has everything from Baby Lilli to Aliki Vougiouklaki's songs from the 60's!

Το Μικρό μου λεξικό Free picture dictionaries

Some parents have requested summer review materials. I will try to post new material weekly to keep our little students speaking Greek over the summer.

The following are a series of picture dictionaries produced by ΚΕΔΑ for students in Greece learning Greek as a second language. There are four in all.

Picture dictionary #1

focuses on the Greek alphabet

Picture dictionary #2

focuses on the school environment

Picture dictionary #3

focuses on home, family and neighborhood

Picture dictionary #4

focuses on transportation, colors, clothing, seasons, time, weather and months.

I hope you enjoy these wonderful free Greek learning resources!!

Questions and answers

So, for some reason I am not able to respond to comments in the comments section lately, so I will try to answer some questions sent my way here.

Question #1
Is it possible to post a copy of the church from the Kryfo Scholio project.
Answer:
This coloring page was found on the Potamitis Publishing website a few years ago. I do not have the rights to this coloring page to post it, but perhaps you can contact Potamitis Publishing and they could send it to you.

Question #2
Where did you find the costumes for the Passport Please post.
Answer:
These were found in the book Greek Boy and Girl paper dolls from Dover Publications. It has costumes from Ancient Greece in it too! It really is a cute book. Take a look at the book here.

Σ΄αγαπώ μανούλα-- I love you Mommy!!

We had so much fun making these Mother's Day projects at Greek School tonight. The girls especially liked learning princess vocabulary like βασίλισσα, στέμμα, κοσμήματα and more.

Thank you to the bloggers at Στο τελευταίο θρανίο της Πάτρας for the crown template. The poem on the reverse side is by Γιώργη Κρόκου called "Μανούλα" from the book Ανθολογία Σχολικών Ποιηματών και Τραγουδιών

Day School Kindergarten Graduation Songs

For my Kindergarten Day School students. Please practice this song for our graduation program.

Φύλλα εργασίας-- τα σχήματα /Shapes Worksheets

Some useful worksheets for reviewing shapes with your students. Encourage your students to trace the shape, color them in and then write out the shape name.

Click here for Greek Shapes Worksheets

Exciting news from Papaloizos Publications

Papaloizos Publications and Greek 123 are working on a new online tutor ! The online tutor contains hours of interactive content. Each lesson includes animated video, spoken vocabulary, speech recognition, comparative pronunciation and testing for writing, listening and speaking. It's fun and engaging with 43 lessons, 6 quizzes and a final exam.

You can try Papaloizos' online tutor by clicking here.

Letter matching activity

I created these alphabet matching cards last summer for my kindergarten class. They have become very popular during centers. It is great listening to little 5 year olds talk in Greek about the pictures. It is even better watching them identify the lower case letter that matches the capital letter on the card.

To make them last, I printed them out on card stock paper and laminated them. The clothespins were purchased at the local discount store. If you use these at home or in your class, I would love your feedback!

ΤΟ ΚΡΥΦΟ ΣΧΟΛΕΙΟ

This is one of my favorite projects for Greek Independence Day. I was lucky enough to find a great coloring page of a small church from Potamitis Publishing a few years ago, and incorporated the famous painting το Κρυφό Σχολείο by the Greek artist, Nikolaos Gyzis. I explain the painting to my students and teach them the song φεγγαράκι μου λαμπρό, then we create this project. My students really like the fact that they each get a small copy of the painting in their projects and they enjoy drawing the stars and moon on the black construction paper. In doing all of this, they are able to visualize that boys went to school secretly at night, and were in many cases taught by the clergy.

Awards and certificates

from the blog Στο τελευταίο θρανίο της Πάτρας

Take a look at the blog Στο τελευταίο θρανίο της Πάτρας for cute certificates in Greek to print out and give your students.

Greek Alphabet Banner

Image from the etsy handmade shop of Play to Learn

In my Greek classes, we usually spend the first half of the year learning the alphabet and letter sounds. Come January, its time to read,and to accomplish this, we review our letters and letter sounds constantly. I created this banner for my classes for a couple of reasons. First, I have marked all the vowels red and the consonants blue. The children are taught that the vowels are red because they like to have big voices. Secondly, word association. Each letter has a word and an image that is in view during class if they need help. At the start of each class, after we do weather and calendar, we review our alphabet. A student is invited to come to the front of the class with a pointer and lead us in our lettter reveiw. You can find my banner here

Our Word Wall

It's an exciting time in Kindergarten!! We have reviewed all the letters of the alphabet and we are beginning to read words and sentences. The photo above is of our classroom word wall, where we put words that we know how to read. We review these words every session and include them in our word journals.

In this class, we follow the curriculum set out by Papaloizos Publishing for Kindergarten, so most of the words included in this area are from the chapters we have completed so far.

Resources from the National Book Center of Greece

I know I say it all the time, but I am a big fan of Evgenios Trivizas! Every time I introduce his books to my students they are always so excited and really have a good time listening. Today in one of my Kindergarten classes, we began reading the book ΠΟΙΟΣ ΕΚΑΝΕ ΠΙΠΙ ΣΤΟ ΜΙΣΙΣΙΠΗ and we had so much fun listening for rhyming words in Greek.

If you would like to listen and follow along to one of Trivizas' books on-line for free take a look at The National Book Center of Greece's children's site mikrosanagnostis.gr. They have a number of books that children can listen to. A new book is added weekly, so make it one of your favorites and and introduce your child to the wonderful world of Greek authors and children's literature.

Happy reading!

Fun Alphabet Worksheets

I was so happy to find this website! It is exactly what every Pre-K, Kindergarten and 1st grade teacher needs to teach the alphabet. Check out nipio.gr to find free downloadable worksheets on the Greek alphabet and more!

Καλή Χρονιά!

Happy New Year!

What better way to welcome the new year than by making a Greek calendar and learning the months of the year.

To find a template for a 2011 calendar in Greek from Microsoft Office, click here.



Have your students draw a picture depicting each of the 12 months of the year, add those drawings to the calendar, bind and there you have it, a Greek calendar for 2011 for them to practice the months, days of the week and seasons. You could even go through each month to highlight special days like Easter, 25th of March, OXI Day etc.

I can't wait to get started making these tomorrow!