Tuesday, it was rainy and chilly. I worked in four classrooms in the morning. My first lesson was cut short because a speaker came to talk to kids about racism. Before the speaker came, the students completed a worksheet on parts of the body as a class. Then, we played Simon Says with different commands (the theme being parts of the body: point to your nose, point to your foot, etc.). The kids enjoyed playing that game. In the second class, the students corrected a parts of the body worksheet and then we continued to have students present themselves to the class. They learned how to talk about what pets they have, where they live, and how to say their phone number. Then came recess! During recess, I had some tea and assorted chocolate cookies from the principal. She always has a new treat every time for all of the teachers.
After recess, I went to the third class, which is filled with 6-7 year olds. We reviewed a parts of the body worksheet and played Simon Says. At the end of the lesson, I introduced Thanksgiving and showed some images of typical Thanksgiving food. I started to tell them that kids in the US have that day off of school, and sometimes they even have the entire week off. After I told them that, they got really excited and I wasn’t sure why. I quickly figured it out though. The kids thought that they weren’t going to have to come to school during Thanksgiving as well haha! The teacher and I quickly reiterated that only kids in America have the week off and the kids showed their disappointment with a loud "awwww". In the fourth class, the students finished labeling the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans on their maps. Then, I showed the class a powerpoint on American Food that I made which showed typical American breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert food.
I got a ride home from a teacher and then had lunch at the high school cafeteria with Kate and Kim. It was another satisfying lunch. This time I had some chicken, veggies, and blueberry tart.
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| Pretty good school lunch |
After lunch, I had two Skype classes. In the first class, I reviewed colors with them by showing them random things in my room. Then, I had them talk about the colors of their clothes. Then, I started to teach them some clothes vocabulary. I didn’t have much time though because I have only an hour to teach 11 students and I see them in groups of 2-3 at a time. So that leaves me about 12 minutes for each group.
In the second Skype session, I worked with the entire class. For the first few minutes, I showed them letters of the alphabet and they had to identify them in english. Then, I reviewed the colors with them by showing them random stuff from my room. I played a quick color bingo with the class. The kids all randomly wrote down four colors on a piece of paper. Then, I proceeded to call out random colors until someone had all four of their colors called. The winner said “bingo” and then they read out their colors to me in english so that they could practice their pronunciation. For the second round, a student came up and called the colors. I would show this students an object that was a certain color and they would have to call out that color. Then, I spelled out the colors and the students had to figure out the color that I spelled. At the end, I introduced clothes vocabulary by showing the students flash cards. I had the students repeat the names of the articles of clothing as well as sketch a quick picture of the item.
On Wednesday, I woke up and it was snowing! It didn’t snow a whole lot, but it was still exciting to see it!
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| Snow! |
I taught three classes today. In the first class, I reviewed snow vocabulary because of the weather. The kids were really excited about the snow so they were a bit more rowdy than usual. In this class, I worked with half of the class and they reviewed how to present their families and how to ask/answer the questions: “What’s your name?”, “How are you?” and “How old are you?” The kids all received a little notecard with name, age, and smiley depicting a feeling. The kids went around and asked/answered these three questions to each other. Then, I had them sit on the floor while I reread “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” This time they read along with me and had to identify the colors and animals.
In the second class, I also started off by reviewing snow vocabulary (snowball, snowman, winter clothes, etc.). Then I worked with half of the class for the rest of the session. This time, I had them sit in a circle on the floor for the activities. This allowed me to better monitor the kids and it made it easier for me to make sure the kids were paying attention. They behaved pretty well in a circle so I think I am going to try to continue this practice. In this class, I also did the same activity with the little notecards that reviewed “What’s your name?”, “How are you?”, and “How old are you?”. Then, we went around the circle and everyone presented their drawing of their family. After this class, the kids had recess, and it was still snowing! Unfortunately, the snow quickly turned to water when it touched the ground.
In the third class, we reviewed the numbers 1-100. I told them a number and they had to write it on their dry erase boards. Then, we went over a worksheet which had rules about how to say and write the numbers.
After that, I took the bus back and met up with Kate in town. We got some grocery shopping done, but it was a tough walk back in the cold. When we got back, we had lunch, and then I headed out to get some fruits and veggies at this cute little shop called “the little pea.” This little store was on strike for the past week I think, so I had to go the first day it reopened. I really like the freshness of the produce here.
On Thursday morning, a teacher drove me to work. Whoo! I worked with the three oldest grades at the school today. In the first class, I talked about the differences between an America breakfast, English breakfast, and French breakfast. I showed the kids a few pictures of typical american breakfast food and the teacher had pictures of typical English and French breakfasts already. Then, the kids took turns saying what they had for breakfast today.
In the second class, I talked about Halloween (yes I know it’s been almost a month-but this teacher really wanted me to present about it lol). I taught kids about “Trick or Treating” and Jack O’Lanterns. Then I taught them some Halloween Vocabulary like pumpkin, witch, ghost, etc. They they did an activity where they wrote out what happens on Halloween based on the picures on the worksheet. Then the kids had recess, and I went to the teachers lounge for a cup of tea with two other teachers.
In the third class, I talked about typical food eaten at Thanksgiving. Then, the kids translated them and wrote the words in their notebooks. Then, they practiced questions like, “Do you like...?” and answers like, “Yes, I like...” or “No, I don’t like...” with the different Thanksgiving food. Then I taught more random food vocabulary using flashcards. Then, they played a game where the class was split into two teams and they had to correctly say the name of the food on the flashcard in english. Then we played another game where we had three students come up and get one notecard each. The rest of the class had to ask them “Do you like...?” until they figured out which food was on their flashcard. At the end, I taught the students the months of the year Macarena song. It is something I remember doing in the US while helping out in schools there. It is just doing the Macarena while singing the months of the year. The kids and the teacher really seemed to like it! At the end of the day I got a ride home from the same teacher as in the morning.
I had lunch back at the apartment, and then I headed to another school for an hour long lesson. In this class, they worked on a worksheet on the parts of the body. We completed it as a class to make sure everyone was getting the vocabulary down. For the second half of the session, we reviewed clothes vocabulary. I had 21 pictures of different articles of clothing and I showed them all to the class and had them repeat after me a few times. Then, we played a game called, “I Have, Who Has?” I gave each student a picture (I am lucky that there are only 21 students- I had exactly enough pictures!) and I wrote all of the words on the chalkboard as well as the prompts: “I have...” and “Who has...?”. So, I started off by asking, “Who has a dress?” and then the student with that picture responded, “I have a dress.” Then I would circle that word on the board to show it has already been said. Then the student would ask the class, “Who has...? They can pick any word from the board that hasn’t already been circled. This went on until everyone had a turn. The students and the teacher seemed to really enjoy this game! There were a few funny parts during this lesson. For example, there were a few laughs when I showed the kids a picture of underwear...haha.
Then I took the bus back, and later on that evening Kim’s boyfriend arrived to visit her. He is really nice and we all hung out together. I also learned how to make pesto salmon thanks to Kim! It turned out really yummy! First, you get something to cook it in (I just used aluminum foil) Next, you put the green beans on the foil and the salmon on the green beans. Then, you cover the salmon in pesto. Next, you add olive oil, lemon juice, and salt. Then you cover it tightly in aluminum foil and put it in a hot oven for about 25-30minutes. And voila!
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| Pesto Salmon |
On Friday, I did some lesson planning and a little shopping in town. I bought a hat because it is started to get pretty cold here!
Hope it snows more here soon,
Magdalena
