Dino and Me by Richmond - Pre-Primary American English Course

Dino and Me by Richmond embraces the love of literature and the joy of learning through a literature-based approach. Each unit has three literature selections—an Informative Reader, a Dino Chant and a Narrative Reader with a related value. The course integrates comprehensive instruction with a special emphasis on developing communication, language and literacy skills, based on social interaction and scaffolding where students listen, imitate, practice and innovate. Children have an active role in their learning process and become engaged thinkers, gaining increasing confidence and autonomy in their learning.

Student’s Book - Each unit includes a cute rhyming Dino Chant, and at least two or three lessons based on the Informative or Narrative Reader, which links the text with the unit language and supports reading comprehension and personalization. Lesson 16 is always a Value Lesson, where children react to the value depicted in the story. The unit closes with a two-page review to consolidate key language. Lessons are designed to guide students in learning new content by following these scaffolding phases: I do, you watch; I do, you help; You do, I help; You do, I watch.

Activity Book - This reinforces and builds on what students learn in the classroom, through a variety of fine-motor activities like drawing, coloring and finger painting. They also do plenty of hands-on craft activities, including using the pop-outs at the back of the book to make puppets, masks and so on. Children practice their oral skills too, by retelling stories, singing chants and more! There are detailed instruction notes for every page.

Resource Book - This creative goldmine contains additional fun material to help children learn English through doing. There are informative and narrative Mini-readers, Mini-flashcards, a Dino Cutout, a Response Fan, stickers and a diploma. (A word of warning: your students will use these materials over and over throughout the year, so either you or their parents should look after this resource.)

Student's CD - Students can listen to all the songs, rhymes, chants and stories on these audio CDs at home or in the classroom. They include karaoke versions of lots of the songs and chants, too, to enrich and vary practice. There are also instrumental versions of the songs, to give you additional ways of using them creatively – your notes in the Teacher’s Guide explain how.

The Teacher’s Guide - contains complete teaching notes interleaved with the Student’s Book pages, giving you balanced lesson plans and suggesting ways you can use all the different materials to make the most of Dino and Me. It explains the course methodology, gives an overview of the Early Learning Goals, and how the units fit across the school year. We suggest activities to develop literacy and incorporate values into your classroom, and plenty of other teaching tips.

Language Cards - These fun cue cards illustrate the most common classroom commands and instructions. You can use them to quickly give instructions to the children and encourage communication in class.

Flashcards - There are 100 simple, photographic, age-appropriate Flashcards per level, showing the key vocabulary and basic language structures learned in each unit. One side has the picture, the other has the word or phrase.

Posters - Each unit has a big Poster and accompanying Cutouts. These colorful visuals help you present and reinforce key vocabulary and language. The lesson notes explain when and how to use them, with a wide variety of games and activities to make the most of them. There are also Stick Puppets of the main characters included at the back of the Teacher’s Guide, which you can use with the Posters, or independently, to present and model language.

Values Posters - These Posters help you explain and reinforce the value learned about in each unit. Every Values Poster shows photos of children doing activities that reflect the key value. You can use this poster in a variety of ways to discuss and personalize the value with the children.

Story Cards - The Narrative Reader is presented in the form of Story Cards – these fictional stories show an illustration of a scene from the story on one side, with the text printed on the back of each card. Like the student’s Informative Mini-readers, the Narrative ones are also in Student’s Resource Book. Audio for both Reader types is recorded on the Student’s CD and the Teacher’s Resources CD.

Readers - There are two readers in each unit: An Informative Reader and a Narrative Reader. The Informative Reader, in a Big Book format, is a non-fiction text, realistically illustrated and related to the unit theme. Your students can follow along with their Mini-readers (in the Student’s Resource Book), which are smaller versions of the same book.

With Dino and Me students will:

- establish literacy skills and concepts through songs, rhymes, finger plays, physical activities, stories and games.
- develop critical-thinking skills and emotional intelligence through activities based around values.
- learn to listen socially: make eye contact, pay attention to the speaker, respond to what is said, and so on.
- learn in a language-rich environment, encouraging their interpersonal skills and the confidence to take risks.
- learn letter formation and initiate emergent writing skills.
- reinforce learning with manipulatives for open-ended activities, like retelling stories and posing questions.
- develop phonological and phonemic awareness, with songs and Dino chants.