Sunday, March 31, 2013

Phonics Cards (Short A Sound)

Today I would like to present you my new series of flashcards devoted to teaching phonics and reading. Being an English teacher in a kindergarten I faced some difficulties in introducing English language reading rules to the children. In Russian, French, German, Italian, Spanish and many other languages reading rules are less complicated than in English. English can be really confusing for non-native speakers.


Everybody knows that there are too many exceptions in English language that makes reading and spelling a stumbling block for little and even adult learners. That’s why I decided to develop a series of very simple cards where words are sorted by phonograms. All the words are easy to read and remember as I have selected only the most frequently used words trying not to overload children with unnecessary information. I hope my cards will facilitate the work of many ESL teachers from all over the world.









The first set of phonics flashcards is dedicated to the short A [æ]. There are 12 cards in the set which include all the common phonograms with this sound: -at, -am, -an, -ap, -ag, -ab, -ad, -and, -ash, -ack, -ank. Card № 12 presents different words with this sound.

phonics flashcards for kindergarten short a sound
Phonics flashcard: short a [æ] sound

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Butterfly Song (+ Coloring Pages and Worksheets)

It's springtime. It's time of flowers and butterflies. And it's also time to learn some spring vocabulary during English lessons with kids. I wrote a very simple song about butterflies a year ago which I used to teach English to preschoolers in spring. So I would like to share this butterfly song and some printable activities with other educators and parents who teach their own children at home.

Butterfly Song


Down the valley,
In the meadow
I saw pretty butterflies,
They were flying in the air
They were flying very high.

On the flowers
Up the trees,
In the gentle morning breeze,
Butterflies, you’re so cute,
I would like to fly with you.

I have prepared a few coloring pages and worksheets to go with this song. They are rather simple and can be used for preschool and kindergarten activities.

Coloring Pages


butterfly coloring for preschool
Butterfly coloring page 1

butterfly coloring for kindergarten
Butterfly coloring page 2

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Pepper Paper Craft

I would like to present you another vegetable craft – a pepper. It can be used by teachers and parents while teaching a lot of topics: gardening, harvest, healthy food and helping at home. This pepper craft is very colorful and positive.

This craft goes with my Garden song:


pepper craft for kindergarten

While making this craft your child will learn about:

Monday, March 11, 2013

Forest Animals Worksheets

A lot of teachers need worksheets to make their work easier and lessons more interesting. However, not many educators have time and abilities to create worksheets by their own. So they are often looking for printable teaching materials online. I am lucky to have learned how to use graphic editing software to make all kinds of worksheets for my teaching purposes. I totally understand the problem of thousands of teachers around the world who experience shortage of visuals as they are too busy to dedicate their time for designing good-looking printables. That is why I decided to share worksheets, flashcards and coloring pages I had created to teach English to kids at the kindergarten where I work here in Ukraine. So I hope that teachers, educators and parents from around the globe will find my materials useful. You can find all posts containing free printables in this blog following this link.


Here are worksheets which go with my recently announced Forest Animals song:

forest animals worksheet for learning English
Forest animals matching letters and pictures worksheet

wild animals matching worksheet
Forest animals matching words and pictures worksheet

Monday, March 4, 2013

Forest Animals Coloring Pages and Flashcards

As I promised in my previous post about my forest animals song I would like to share some flashcards and coloring pages based on the song.


I always show flashcards to my pupils while learning the song. A teacher can leverage visuals such as flashcards to make the process of learning a foreign language easier and more enjoyable for little kids. I offer you two sets of flashcards. One set includes cards with images and words written on the same picture. Another set of flashcards includes cards with images only while the words are written on separate cards. The latter set can be used for matching pictures with words or for any other game or activity you may invent for your little students or own children.

forest animals flashcards with words 1
Forest Animals Flashcards with Words 1

wild animals flashcards with words 2
Forest Animals Flashcards with Words 2

forest animals flashcards with words 3
Forest Animals Flashcards with Words 3