Today was my first P.E. class with my kindergartners. I must say it was pretty uneventful, however I am very thankful for that. Just as with Music we have an outside Korean teacher come in to teach P.E. and he did a great job. We don't have many students, no joke we only have 7, so we just put all of the ages together in the class.
From what I can remember, and what I understood in English/Korean this is how it went:
We started out yet again with a song and dance, the Chicken dance to be correct.
Followed up by a jumping game where he put down on of these agility ladders and the kids had to be frogs, then kangaroos, and then some kind of animal that crawled as they went down the ladder
Then they played a cone game where they would hop around and then he would call out a color and the kids would have to grab a cone that color, put it on their head and then sit in one of the open spots on the ladder. The next game was a game where the girls were orange and the boys were green and whoever had the most cones of their color on top of the other teams won.
The next game that followed up was a smart clean up game of who can pick up all the cones the fastest.
Next we stood in a circle and kicked a huge ball (one of those workout balls) back and forth.
Then he had them all line up and one at a time would work on kicking the huge ball with them, and then headers, and well the headers was more of the kids leaning forward and just letting the huge ball hit them on the head.
We ended with one more song and dance (let me tell you this guy had killer dance moves, and I must be extremely uncoordinated if I cannot keep up with the moves the kids can).
He ended the class by giving everyone balloon hearts.
And well that was that, P.E. for the week was over! Whoo glad that is over sitting Indian style is not my thing! Tomorrow is Art and Music (Ryan and I don't sing so we will be doing art, we are making Lady Bugs this week, I have a photo of our demo Lady Bug I made today for tomorrow) and then Science. I look forward to telling you all how it goes tomorrow night! Wish me luck I am teaching both of the classes solo!
Oh and my cute little friend Hanna from last week was still all about holding my hand today. I won't lie I think some of our kids are the cutest kids around!
Monday, March 7, 2011
Friday, March 4, 2011
Oh...What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor?
What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor? What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor Early In The Morning?-Now that I have that song stuck in your head I can tell you about my first day of kindergarten yesterday!
If my nerves and excitement yesterday was just from me having to show up and teach I don't want to know what all those moms all over the world go through when they send their cute little boys and girls off to kindergarten for the first time. I was a mess, and I was the teacher and even better there were only 7 kids and I had a Korean Woman that was coming to teach the music class with me. So why was I such a mess? Well I was worried they wouldn't like me, or that they would cry, or that one of them would break something and I wouldn't know what to do (you know because Korean and American emergencies are so much different, umm for those of you that don't get jokes they are the same in all countries). I was worried about everything, and I was scared of the kids. I know crazy right? Looking back now I guess they are like little spiders, they are more scared of me than I am of them. That saying never really helped me when it came to scary things but yea. Well, I guess that is not true either, they all seemed more or less happy just looking at me, then smiling and turning away only to turn back around and smile, and one little girl clung to my hand like it was the best thing in the world. Ok I guess I can stop rambling with my thoughts and try to get the class in order, I mean that is the point after all, yet here I am still rambling.
I got to school a little before my 1:00 class to ask Ryan how his classes had gone (being the kindergarten teaching pro he is after last year he was not worried at all and kept telling me I was crazy for being so worked up...he was right). The music teacher, a very sweet, and almost over the top cute little girl, came a few minutes after me. We gathered all 7 of the kids in the gym for an hour of music. She was very good with the kids and I more or less just acted as another child in the class doing as she did and taking part in everything that went on. She started by getting everyone in a circle (this is harder than you think it would be) and then we did a cute little song and dance (with a puppet no less). Well once we said hello to all of our "Friends" it was time to talk about different continents and do a nice little song and dance about where the puppet was going to land, and then when he land have the class tell us where he landed. After that we did a nice fun coloring sheet (I even got to do one) coloring all the different continents. We also got to learn about the "moon tambourine" with a cute little song. We got to tap them with our fingers, then tap them on our hands, then wave them in the air, tap them on our feet, tap them on our butts, and ended the little game of where can you tap it when a little boy went to tap it on his fact and hit himself to hard. The music teacher then had us all dance as we learned a song with different way to use the tambourine and then we sang our tambourines to sleep and gently (I was shocked at how gently she got the kids to do this) put them to sleep. We ended the day with a good old dance (do you see a pattern here? yes I should of stretched before class) as we sang the song "What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor" (an odd song for kindergartners in my mind but hey who am I to judge). I got to dang with the littler girl who had earlier shown an interest in my hand, we held hands and spun in circles, jumped up and down slapping hands, swung our arms up and down, and went in and out (you know I pull my left hand back you pull your right hand back as you hold hands?).
Well that was the class. It was odd, and I felt oddly out of place, but I am looking forward to doing it again next Thursday.
Today I had Show and Tell with Anne teacher and Julie. The kids really didn't have any time yet to make anything in any of their classes for Show and Tell so they did their show and tell with pictures they drew of their family. The idea Julie and Kevin and behind this was that the kids would stand in front of the blue wall we have (used as a blue screen) and tell us about their families. Well the kids are 5,6 and 7 they are still learning Korean so that didn't go quite as planned. Most of the kids got up there and just waved at the camera, or smiled, or held their paper in front of their face and giggled. It was rather cute, well unless you were Julie who was trying to get useful video footage, but hey they are little kids. One boy could not sit still as he waited his turn, he was all over the place here there and then over there before you could even blink, but then when it was his turn he was as still as a rock. This class was scheduled to be an hour long but with the Show and Tells only taking maybe 10 minutes, followed by another 20 minutes of "Duck, Duck, Goose", which the kids didn't full understand as they ran off chasing the other all around the room, or some of the little girls would just laugh when they got called "Goose" and wouldn't get up and run, we called class and they went back to their rooms with the Korean teachers to do who knows what for the last 30 minutes before it was time for them to head home.
So far I have to say I really like music but could do without the Show and Tell class. On Monday I get my first whack at P.E. (with a Korean Teacher who comes in with all the P.E. stuff) Music and Art, and Science. I am a little bit nervous about the science classes but hey what could go wrong? I'll let you know how they turn out.
If my nerves and excitement yesterday was just from me having to show up and teach I don't want to know what all those moms all over the world go through when they send their cute little boys and girls off to kindergarten for the first time. I was a mess, and I was the teacher and even better there were only 7 kids and I had a Korean Woman that was coming to teach the music class with me. So why was I such a mess? Well I was worried they wouldn't like me, or that they would cry, or that one of them would break something and I wouldn't know what to do (you know because Korean and American emergencies are so much different, umm for those of you that don't get jokes they are the same in all countries). I was worried about everything, and I was scared of the kids. I know crazy right? Looking back now I guess they are like little spiders, they are more scared of me than I am of them. That saying never really helped me when it came to scary things but yea. Well, I guess that is not true either, they all seemed more or less happy just looking at me, then smiling and turning away only to turn back around and smile, and one little girl clung to my hand like it was the best thing in the world. Ok I guess I can stop rambling with my thoughts and try to get the class in order, I mean that is the point after all, yet here I am still rambling.
I got to school a little before my 1:00 class to ask Ryan how his classes had gone (being the kindergarten teaching pro he is after last year he was not worried at all and kept telling me I was crazy for being so worked up...he was right). The music teacher, a very sweet, and almost over the top cute little girl, came a few minutes after me. We gathered all 7 of the kids in the gym for an hour of music. She was very good with the kids and I more or less just acted as another child in the class doing as she did and taking part in everything that went on. She started by getting everyone in a circle (this is harder than you think it would be) and then we did a cute little song and dance (with a puppet no less). Well once we said hello to all of our "Friends" it was time to talk about different continents and do a nice little song and dance about where the puppet was going to land, and then when he land have the class tell us where he landed. After that we did a nice fun coloring sheet (I even got to do one) coloring all the different continents. We also got to learn about the "moon tambourine" with a cute little song. We got to tap them with our fingers, then tap them on our hands, then wave them in the air, tap them on our feet, tap them on our butts, and ended the little game of where can you tap it when a little boy went to tap it on his fact and hit himself to hard. The music teacher then had us all dance as we learned a song with different way to use the tambourine and then we sang our tambourines to sleep and gently (I was shocked at how gently she got the kids to do this) put them to sleep. We ended the day with a good old dance (do you see a pattern here? yes I should of stretched before class) as we sang the song "What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor" (an odd song for kindergartners in my mind but hey who am I to judge). I got to dang with the littler girl who had earlier shown an interest in my hand, we held hands and spun in circles, jumped up and down slapping hands, swung our arms up and down, and went in and out (you know I pull my left hand back you pull your right hand back as you hold hands?).
Well that was the class. It was odd, and I felt oddly out of place, but I am looking forward to doing it again next Thursday.
Today I had Show and Tell with Anne teacher and Julie. The kids really didn't have any time yet to make anything in any of their classes for Show and Tell so they did their show and tell with pictures they drew of their family. The idea Julie and Kevin and behind this was that the kids would stand in front of the blue wall we have (used as a blue screen) and tell us about their families. Well the kids are 5,6 and 7 they are still learning Korean so that didn't go quite as planned. Most of the kids got up there and just waved at the camera, or smiled, or held their paper in front of their face and giggled. It was rather cute, well unless you were Julie who was trying to get useful video footage, but hey they are little kids. One boy could not sit still as he waited his turn, he was all over the place here there and then over there before you could even blink, but then when it was his turn he was as still as a rock. This class was scheduled to be an hour long but with the Show and Tells only taking maybe 10 minutes, followed by another 20 minutes of "Duck, Duck, Goose", which the kids didn't full understand as they ran off chasing the other all around the room, or some of the little girls would just laugh when they got called "Goose" and wouldn't get up and run, we called class and they went back to their rooms with the Korean teachers to do who knows what for the last 30 minutes before it was time for them to head home.
So far I have to say I really like music but could do without the Show and Tell class. On Monday I get my first whack at P.E. (with a Korean Teacher who comes in with all the P.E. stuff) Music and Art, and Science. I am a little bit nervous about the science classes but hey what could go wrong? I'll let you know how they turn out.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
2010/2011 Winter Intensive Speech Class
Ok I guess if I am going to do this blog I need to go ahead and do it! Before our trip home for Christmas there had been rumors here and there about a "Winter Intensive Classes" I just more or less blew it off thinking it would be much like the "Summer Classes" we offered for the kids when they were out of public school to help give them an extra class to work on their English and well for most of the parents to help give their kids something to do all day. Korean parents really hate to let their kids just sit around....ever!
Well after our trip home we got a call at 12:10 on Monday from a coworker who seemed to just want to make small talk. We were sadly still sleeping trying to catch up our jet lag and were not in the mood for random conversation. Well when Ryan finally asked what they wanted we were informed that we had a class at 12:30 (not the 2:30 when we thought we had to be in), well sadly Ryan hung up the phone without even saying good bye so we could jump up and start to get ready. We showed up at school about 12:45 and I was informed that I had a "Speech and Interview" class waiting for me, made up of 8 sixth grade students. I was not to happy to say the least once I found out there were not any lesson plains for this class and it was going to meet everyday for an hour until January 1st. My students, some of mine and Ryan's favorite, were not to happy to say the least either. Oh boy this was going to be fun, some of our smartest kids, who are also our laziest kids, who don't want to be here, unless there is food, a movie, or a game being played.
Anyways I racked my brain for ideas on what to do with this class. Most of them have pretty good vocabulary and can do free talk pretty well; however, two of my sweet girls were not quite up to the level of the rest of the class and decided to try to use this to their advantage to get out of doing any work. Sadly for them it didn't work but did lead for a lot of extra work and explaining on my part, but hey I am the teacher that is my job! So for the first two weeks of class we did just random questions that might get asked in a speech contest (I have never been to a Korean speech contest so I was just winging it) and it went pretty good. Korean kids don't always have the best imagination so some of the questions I asked forced them to try to think outside of the box, those were my favorites but they hated them and mostly used my examples as their answers.
Here is a peek at the questions I asked them. We would do a warm up for about half the class where I would write 2-3 questions on the board and I would ask them to answer them (in complete sentences) and then I would ask them to ask or interview a friend in the class the same questions. For the most part they would answer the questions about themselves and then look at their friends page and just copy the answers they wrote down, enn I guess at least they did it.
As I look back at these questions I start to think that it maybe a little hard for me to answer these. I think I might have to give it a try later.
Questions For Winter Intensive Speech Class:
Tuesday January 4th:
1. Do you think doing homework is good or bad for you? Why?
2. Do you think that watching cartoons all day is good or bad for you? Why?
3. What is your favorite animal? Why do you like this animal?
4. What is your least favorite animal (animal you do not like at all)? Why do you not like this animal?
5. Do have a pet? What kind of pet is it? Is it a girl or a boy? What color is it? What does it eat?
Wednesday January 5th:
1. What do you think the best thing about school is? Why?
2. What do you think the worst thing about school is? Why?
3. What are two things you would do to make school better?
4. What is your favorite school subject? Why do you like this subject?
5. What school subject do you not like? Why do you not like this school subject?
Thursday January 6th:
1. Who is someone you respect and look to for advice (information) and support? Why do you look up to this person?
2. If you could have one super power what would it be? Why would you want this super power and what would you do with it?
3. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Why do you like to do this?
4. Do you like having to wear a school uniform? Why or why not?
5. If you didn’t have to wear a school uniform what would you wear to school?
Friday January 7th:
1. Do you think it is ok to litter (throw trash on the ground)? Why or why not?
2. What are two ways you think would help people stop littering?
3. Do you think it is good recycle? Why or why not? Do you recycle?
4. If you didn’t have to wear a school uniform what would you wear to school?
5. What Disney character would you like to be? Why?
Monday January 10th:
1. Who is your favorite family member? Why do you like this person?
2. What you think really happened to the dinosaurs?
3. What are three things that make you a good friend?
4. What would be your plan to get rich fast?
5. What would you do with all your money once you were rich?
Tuesday January 11th:
1. You are in jail, what did you do to get there?
2. What are 2 good excuses for missing English class?
3. You are a monster, tell me what kind of monster you are, what you look like, what you eat, and where you live.
4. What are 2 things you have learned so far in life?
5. What are 2 things you hope to learn in life?
Wednesday January 12th:
1. What is one bad thing that has happened to you?
2. What is one good thing that has happened to you?
3. If you could be any animal for a day what animal would you be? Why did you pick this animal? What does this animal look like? What color is this animal? What does this animal eat? Where does this animal live?
4. What are 2 different animals you can see at the zoo? What do these animals look like? What do they eat? Where do they live?
5. What are 3 things you are thankful for?
Thursday January 13th:
1. What is your favorite holiday? Why do you like this holiday?
2. What is another planet you would like to visit? Why do you want to visit this planet? What do you think it would be like?
3. Do you believe in aliens and UFOs?
4. What do you think it would be like to be kidnapped by aliens?
5. If you were invisible for a day what would you do?
Friday January 14th:
1. Do you have a hand phone?
2. Do you think it is ok for students to use their hand phones in class? Why or why not?
3. What are your goals in life?
4. What will you do to reach these goals?
5. Do you ever feel like it is ok to tell a small lie? Why or why not?
And then I, and well they, got sick of that plain so we started to work on one big main speech and well countries seemed like the best thing to write about. So here are the questions they all had to find on the Internet and then write into their speeches (with the help of Ryan and I). Following the questions are the speeches I still have saved from my students. Sorry I know they are full of errors.
Country Speeches:
1. What country are you doing?
2. What is the capital city of your country?
3. What colors are the flag?
4. Does the flag have anything special on it?
5. What is the national animal?
6. What is the national flower?
7. What sports do they play in this county?
8. What language do they speak?
9. What religions do they practice?
10. What holidays do they celebrate?
11. What kind of money do they use?
12. What kinds of food do they eat?
13. Where is this country located?
Crystal's:
Hi my name is Crystal. Today, I am going to tell you about France. The capital city of France is Paris. The colors of the flag are red, blue and white. The flag has red, blue and white rectangles. The national animal is the Gallic Rooster. The national flowers the fluer-de-lys, lily and iris. They play a lot of different sports in France like football, soccer, baseball and basketball. In France they speak mainly French. The main religion practiced in France is Catholic. In France they celebrate many different holidays like Good Friday, White Monday, and Labor Day. The money they use in France is called the Euro. They eat many different types of food in France like bread, cheeses, and fresh vegetables. France is located in Europe. Thank you for listening.
The capital city of Switzerland is Bern.
The colors of the flag are red, and white.
The flag is a red rectangle with a white cross.
Switzerland has no national animal.
The national flower is the Edelweiss
The play a lot of different sports in Switzerland like Ice- hockey, volley-ball, hand-ball.
In Switzerland they speak, German,French, Italian, Romanian and many more.
The main religion practiced in Switzerland is catholic.
In Switzerland they celebrate many Holidays like New Years Day, Labor Day, and Christmas.
The money they use in Switzerland is the Swiss franc.
They eat many different types of food in Switzerland like potatoes, cheese, and chocolate.
Switzerland is located in west central Europe.
Thank you for listening.
Ben's
Hi my name is Ben.
Today I am going to tell you about France.
The capital city of France is Paris.
The colors of the flag are red, blue and white.
The national animal is the Gallic rooster.
The national flower is a lily and Iris.
They play a lot of different sports in France like soccer, basketball, baseball and short track.
In France they speak mainly French.
The main religion practice in France is Catholic.
In France they celebrate many different holidays like Labor day, Victoniaday and Christ day.
The money they use in France is called the Euro.
They eat many different types of food in France like cheeses, fresh salads, and breads.
France is located in Western Europe.
Alex's
Hi my name is Alex.
I today I am going to tell you about Russia.
The capital city of Russia is Moscow. The flag has white, blue, and red stripes.
The national animal is the brown bear.
The national flower is chamomile.
They play a lot of different sports in Russia like boxing. In Russia they speak mainly Russian.
In Russia they celebrate many different holidays like Christmas and Christmas is on January 7th.
The money they use in Russia is called the ruble.
They eat many different types of food in Russian like Potatoes, bread, eggs, meat, beef and butter.
Russia is located above China and Mongolia.
Thank you for listening.
Crisy's
Hi my name is Crisy. Today I’m going to tell you about France.
The capital city of France is Paris.
The colors of the flag are blue, white and red.
The flag has one blue, one white and one red stripe.
The national animal is the Gallic rooster. The flower is an iris and a lily.
The play a lot of different sports in France like foot ball, basket ball, and tennis. ln France they speak mainly French.
The main religion practiced in France is Catholic.
ln France they celebrate many different holidays like new year’s day, Labor day, and Bastille day.
The money they use in France is called the Euro.
They eat many different types of food in France like Baguettes (a long Thin loaf of bread) and crepes (thin pancakes).
France is located in Europe.
Thank you for listening.
John's
Hello my name is John. Today I am going to tell you about Portugal.
The capitol city of Portugal is Lisbon. The flag colors are red, green, yellow, white, and blue.
The flag has a red square, a green rectangle, a yellow circle, and a blue cross in the middle.
The national animal is the cock and the wolf. The national flower is lavender.
They play a lot of different sports like soccer, basketball, and auto racing.
They speak mainly Portuguese. The national religion is Roman Catholic.
They celebrate many holidays like Carnival which is in February.
In Portugal they use the Euro as their official money. They eat many different types of food in Portugal like fresh fish, lobster, crabs, and oysters. Portugal is located in South Western Europe in the Western part of the Iberian Peninsula. Thank you for listening.
Dean's
The kids took about 2 weeks worth of classes to memorize these. It started out with them just performing their speeches in front of Ryan and I, but then somehow someone wanted to turn it into a video to send home to the parents. Well this said teacher makes all my kids really uncomfortable so they didn't do too well. The next day they were having a snack and movie party; however this teacher thought that Ryan and I should take it away and make them present again, this didn't go over to well and none of them knew their speeches anymore. Ryan and I had to print them in very large print so they could read them off for the camera; however this didn't seem to help to many of them. Sadly they were angry and I can't blame them.
Anyways that was speech class and boy oh boy and I, and the students, thankful it is finally over!
Well after our trip home we got a call at 12:10 on Monday from a coworker who seemed to just want to make small talk. We were sadly still sleeping trying to catch up our jet lag and were not in the mood for random conversation. Well when Ryan finally asked what they wanted we were informed that we had a class at 12:30 (not the 2:30 when we thought we had to be in), well sadly Ryan hung up the phone without even saying good bye so we could jump up and start to get ready. We showed up at school about 12:45 and I was informed that I had a "Speech and Interview" class waiting for me, made up of 8 sixth grade students. I was not to happy to say the least once I found out there were not any lesson plains for this class and it was going to meet everyday for an hour until January 1st. My students, some of mine and Ryan's favorite, were not to happy to say the least either. Oh boy this was going to be fun, some of our smartest kids, who are also our laziest kids, who don't want to be here, unless there is food, a movie, or a game being played.
Anyways I racked my brain for ideas on what to do with this class. Most of them have pretty good vocabulary and can do free talk pretty well; however, two of my sweet girls were not quite up to the level of the rest of the class and decided to try to use this to their advantage to get out of doing any work. Sadly for them it didn't work but did lead for a lot of extra work and explaining on my part, but hey I am the teacher that is my job! So for the first two weeks of class we did just random questions that might get asked in a speech contest (I have never been to a Korean speech contest so I was just winging it) and it went pretty good. Korean kids don't always have the best imagination so some of the questions I asked forced them to try to think outside of the box, those were my favorites but they hated them and mostly used my examples as their answers.
Here is a peek at the questions I asked them. We would do a warm up for about half the class where I would write 2-3 questions on the board and I would ask them to answer them (in complete sentences) and then I would ask them to ask or interview a friend in the class the same questions. For the most part they would answer the questions about themselves and then look at their friends page and just copy the answers they wrote down, enn I guess at least they did it.
As I look back at these questions I start to think that it maybe a little hard for me to answer these. I think I might have to give it a try later.
Questions For Winter Intensive Speech Class:
Tuesday January 4th:
1. Do you think doing homework is good or bad for you? Why?
2. Do you think that watching cartoons all day is good or bad for you? Why?
3. What is your favorite animal? Why do you like this animal?
4. What is your least favorite animal (animal you do not like at all)? Why do you not like this animal?
5. Do have a pet? What kind of pet is it? Is it a girl or a boy? What color is it? What does it eat?
Wednesday January 5th:
1. What do you think the best thing about school is? Why?
2. What do you think the worst thing about school is? Why?
3. What are two things you would do to make school better?
4. What is your favorite school subject? Why do you like this subject?
5. What school subject do you not like? Why do you not like this school subject?
Thursday January 6th:
1. Who is someone you respect and look to for advice (information) and support? Why do you look up to this person?
2. If you could have one super power what would it be? Why would you want this super power and what would you do with it?
3. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Why do you like to do this?
4. Do you like having to wear a school uniform? Why or why not?
5. If you didn’t have to wear a school uniform what would you wear to school?
Friday January 7th:
1. Do you think it is ok to litter (throw trash on the ground)? Why or why not?
2. What are two ways you think would help people stop littering?
3. Do you think it is good recycle? Why or why not? Do you recycle?
4. If you didn’t have to wear a school uniform what would you wear to school?
5. What Disney character would you like to be? Why?
Monday January 10th:
1. Who is your favorite family member? Why do you like this person?
2. What you think really happened to the dinosaurs?
3. What are three things that make you a good friend?
4. What would be your plan to get rich fast?
5. What would you do with all your money once you were rich?
Tuesday January 11th:
1. You are in jail, what did you do to get there?
2. What are 2 good excuses for missing English class?
3. You are a monster, tell me what kind of monster you are, what you look like, what you eat, and where you live.
4. What are 2 things you have learned so far in life?
5. What are 2 things you hope to learn in life?
Wednesday January 12th:
1. What is one bad thing that has happened to you?
2. What is one good thing that has happened to you?
3. If you could be any animal for a day what animal would you be? Why did you pick this animal? What does this animal look like? What color is this animal? What does this animal eat? Where does this animal live?
4. What are 2 different animals you can see at the zoo? What do these animals look like? What do they eat? Where do they live?
5. What are 3 things you are thankful for?
Thursday January 13th:
1. What is your favorite holiday? Why do you like this holiday?
2. What is another planet you would like to visit? Why do you want to visit this planet? What do you think it would be like?
3. Do you believe in aliens and UFOs?
4. What do you think it would be like to be kidnapped by aliens?
5. If you were invisible for a day what would you do?
Friday January 14th:
1. Do you have a hand phone?
2. Do you think it is ok for students to use their hand phones in class? Why or why not?
3. What are your goals in life?
4. What will you do to reach these goals?
5. Do you ever feel like it is ok to tell a small lie? Why or why not?
And then I, and well they, got sick of that plain so we started to work on one big main speech and well countries seemed like the best thing to write about. So here are the questions they all had to find on the Internet and then write into their speeches (with the help of Ryan and I). Following the questions are the speeches I still have saved from my students. Sorry I know they are full of errors.
Country Speeches:
1. What country are you doing?
2. What is the capital city of your country?
3. What colors are the flag?
4. Does the flag have anything special on it?
5. What is the national animal?
6. What is the national flower?
7. What sports do they play in this county?
8. What language do they speak?
9. What religions do they practice?
10. What holidays do they celebrate?
11. What kind of money do they use?
12. What kinds of food do they eat?
13. Where is this country located?
Crystal's:
Hi my name is Crystal. Today, I am going to tell you about France. The capital city of France is Paris. The colors of the flag are red, blue and white. The flag has red, blue and white rectangles. The national animal is the Gallic Rooster. The national flowers the fluer-de-lys, lily and iris. They play a lot of different sports in France like football, soccer, baseball and basketball. In France they speak mainly French. The main religion practiced in France is Catholic. In France they celebrate many different holidays like Good Friday, White Monday, and Labor Day. The money they use in France is called the Euro. They eat many different types of food in France like bread, cheeses, and fresh vegetables. France is located in Europe. Thank you for listening.
Ploby's
Hi my name is Ploby.
Today I am going to tell about Switzerland. The capital city of Switzerland is Bern.
The colors of the flag are red, and white.
The flag is a red rectangle with a white cross.
Switzerland has no national animal.
The national flower is the Edelweiss
The play a lot of different sports in Switzerland like Ice- hockey, volley-ball, hand-ball.
In Switzerland they speak, German,French, Italian, Romanian and many more.
The main religion practiced in Switzerland is catholic.
In Switzerland they celebrate many Holidays like New Years Day, Labor Day, and Christmas.
The money they use in Switzerland is the Swiss franc.
They eat many different types of food in Switzerland like potatoes, cheese, and chocolate.
Switzerland is located in west central Europe.
Thank you for listening.
Ben's
Hi my name is Ben.
Today I am going to tell you about France.
The capital city of France is Paris.
The colors of the flag are red, blue and white.
The national animal is the Gallic rooster.
The national flower is a lily and Iris.
They play a lot of different sports in France like soccer, basketball, baseball and short track.
In France they speak mainly French.
The main religion practice in France is Catholic.
In France they celebrate many different holidays like Labor day, Victoniaday and Christ day.
The money they use in France is called the Euro.
They eat many different types of food in France like cheeses, fresh salads, and breads.
France is located in Western Europe.
Alex's
Hi my name is Alex.
I today I am going to tell you about Russia.
The capital city of Russia is Moscow. The flag has white, blue, and red stripes.
The national animal is the brown bear.
The national flower is chamomile.
They play a lot of different sports in Russia like boxing. In Russia they speak mainly Russian.
In Russia they celebrate many different holidays like Christmas and Christmas is on January 7th.
The money they use in Russia is called the ruble.
They eat many different types of food in Russian like Potatoes, bread, eggs, meat, beef and butter.
Russia is located above China and Mongolia.
Thank you for listening.
Crisy's
Hi my name is Crisy. Today I’m going to tell you about France.
The capital city of France is Paris.
The colors of the flag are blue, white and red.
The flag has one blue, one white and one red stripe.
The national animal is the Gallic rooster. The flower is an iris and a lily.
The play a lot of different sports in France like foot ball, basket ball, and tennis. ln France they speak mainly French.
The main religion practiced in France is Catholic.
ln France they celebrate many different holidays like new year’s day, Labor day, and Bastille day.
The money they use in France is called the Euro.
They eat many different types of food in France like Baguettes (a long Thin loaf of bread) and crepes (thin pancakes).
France is located in Europe.
Thank you for listening.
John's
Hello my name is John. Today I am going to tell you about Portugal.
The capitol city of Portugal is Lisbon. The flag colors are red, green, yellow, white, and blue.
The flag has a red square, a green rectangle, a yellow circle, and a blue cross in the middle.
The national animal is the cock and the wolf. The national flower is lavender.
They play a lot of different sports like soccer, basketball, and auto racing.
They speak mainly Portuguese. The national religion is Roman Catholic.
They celebrate many holidays like Carnival which is in February.
In Portugal they use the Euro as their official money. They eat many different types of food in Portugal like fresh fish, lobster, crabs, and oysters. Portugal is located in South Western Europe in the Western part of the Iberian Peninsula. Thank you for listening.
Dean's
Hi my name is Dean. I am going to tell you about Brazil. The capital city of Brazil is Brasilia. The colors of the flag are green, blue, white and yellow. The flag has blue, yellow, green, and white stripes. The national animal is the Macau, and Jaguar. The national flower is the orchid. They play a lot of different sports in Brazil like Basketball, Auto racing, volleyball, and soccer. In Brazil they speak Portuguese. The main religion practiced in Brazil Roman catholic. In Brazil they celebrate many national holidays such as Corpus Christi day and Independence Day. The money they use in Brazil is called the Real. They eat many different types of food in Brazil such as root vegetables, yams, and peanuts. Brazil is located in South America, next to Paraguay, Bolivia, and Peru. Thank you for listening to my speech about Brazil.
Esther's
Hi. My name is Esther. Today I’m going to tell you about Germany.
The capital city of Germany is Berlin. The colors of the flag are black, red and yellow. The flag has a straight pattern. The national animal is the Black Eagle. The national flower is the knapweed. They play a lot of different sports in Germany like soccer, and ice hockey. In Germany they speak mainly German, however you can also find English, French, Spanish and etc. The main religion practiced in Germany is Protestant. In Germany they celebrate many different holidays like Christmas, Easter and New Year’s Day. The money they use in Germany is called the Euro. They eat many different kinds of food in Germany like White Bean Soup, Sausage, Potato Dumplings, Fresh Asparagus and Apple Pan cakes. Germany is located in the center of Europe. It is by Belgium, France, Switzerland and Poland. Thanks for listening.The kids took about 2 weeks worth of classes to memorize these. It started out with them just performing their speeches in front of Ryan and I, but then somehow someone wanted to turn it into a video to send home to the parents. Well this said teacher makes all my kids really uncomfortable so they didn't do too well. The next day they were having a snack and movie party; however this teacher thought that Ryan and I should take it away and make them present again, this didn't go over to well and none of them knew their speeches anymore. Ryan and I had to print them in very large print so they could read them off for the camera; however this didn't seem to help to many of them. Sadly they were angry and I can't blame them.
Anyways that was speech class and boy oh boy and I, and the students, thankful it is finally over!
Friday, February 4, 2011
The Forgotten Blog
To be honest I have not totally forgotten about this blog. Every time I log in to blogger I look at it under my main blog and think about how I need to finish some of the many blogs I have started and have just saved as drafts. I think about all the things that are going on at school and would love to rant and rave about them but then take a minute or two and think about how nobody wants to read about how unfair I think this is, or how I think that should be done, or about how much better I could do things.
Oddly most of the things that go on at school still get posed under my main blog even though the point of this blog was for all the school stuff. So rather than sit here and copy and past everything in to new blogs on this blog and then have to re-enter all the photos I think I will be super lazy and just past the links to the blogs from the main blog in to this blog and then try just a little harder to keep this blog up. Ha I may even fill it with rants and ramblings or thoughts that make you just say "hummm" or stories that make you laugh...I don't know....or in the end I might just up and put this poor blog out of its misery.
The School Christmas Party
http://bart-megan.blogspot.com/2011/01/we-want-some-lucky-cookies-school.html
English Camp 2011
http://bart-megan.blogspot.com/2011/02/english-camp-2011.html
The main point of this blog was about homework and I do have some blogs in my drafts about homework I have given and some of the great responses I got. So I hope to finish those in the next week or two (first I have to find the original homework again) and the post those. Some are good some are sad and some are just bad. All of my students are smart, not all are good at English but some work and try very hard, some are good but lazy and wont do the work. So yes when you read some of the homework you will see where people are not too good at English but you can see the time and thoughts they put in to their homework.
Ok so yes I will try to work harder on this blog this year! If not only for the fact to share homework and get thoughts on homework or class assignments. Lord know with me being an business major and not being very great at English that I can take all the help I can get!
Oddly most of the things that go on at school still get posed under my main blog even though the point of this blog was for all the school stuff. So rather than sit here and copy and past everything in to new blogs on this blog and then have to re-enter all the photos I think I will be super lazy and just past the links to the blogs from the main blog in to this blog and then try just a little harder to keep this blog up. Ha I may even fill it with rants and ramblings or thoughts that make you just say "hummm" or stories that make you laugh...I don't know....or in the end I might just up and put this poor blog out of its misery.
The School Christmas Party
http://bart-megan.blogspot.com/2011/01/we-want-some-lucky-cookies-school.html
English Camp 2011
http://bart-megan.blogspot.com/2011/02/english-camp-2011.html
The main point of this blog was about homework and I do have some blogs in my drafts about homework I have given and some of the great responses I got. So I hope to finish those in the next week or two (first I have to find the original homework again) and the post those. Some are good some are sad and some are just bad. All of my students are smart, not all are good at English but some work and try very hard, some are good but lazy and wont do the work. So yes when you read some of the homework you will see where people are not too good at English but you can see the time and thoughts they put in to their homework.
Ok so yes I will try to work harder on this blog this year! If not only for the fact to share homework and get thoughts on homework or class assignments. Lord know with me being an business major and not being very great at English that I can take all the help I can get!
Sunday, December 5, 2010
First W5 Game Day
Friday was the first official Game Day for my W5 class. All the students shocked me by being up to date on their homework books and seemed to be pretty excited; honestly I really I can’t ever think of a time I was ever excited to play word games in English and I speak English.
In the past this class has loved to play games at the end of class like Hangman and a game they call Word Chain where someone says one word and then you have to link the first letter of the new word to the last letter of the last word. For example someone says banana -> apple -> eraser -> run -> notebook ->kitchen and so on and so forth. It is not a bad game; however it gets dull for me after one or two rounds as I stand by the board and writes all the words out for them. Sadly Hangman was only fun for the first few classes because these students have strong vocabulary and can count letters to guess words better than a card shark can count cards in poker.
The first unofficial game day was kind of a mess. They all wrote me letters begging for a game day due to stress. They talked me into a game called Fruit Salad where everyone sits in a circle with one student in the middle. There is a pattern of apple, banana, apple, banana that goes around the circle. The student in the middle will yell out apple, banana, or fruit salad. If they yell out apple all the apples have to jump up and swap seats, the last one standing is now the person in the middle. The same thing goes on when they yell out banana however when they yell out fruit salad everyone has to swap seats. After about 15 minutes of crazy, loud, madness and my boss stuck her head in the door to make sure everything was ok I came to the conclusion that Fruit Salad is not really an English word game.
To try to beef up the English in the game I swapped it to where the person in the middle would think of a category and all the people on the outside had to think of words that were related to that category. It wasn’t perfect as students now just yelled out whatever came to their mind in both English and Korean and then fought over who said what word first and what words counted and what words didn’t count. This went on for another 20 minutes or so leaving only 10 minutes left when I finally called the game of Categories to an end. We spent the last 10 minutes playing ABC World Wind (not the best name but I had to think fast and make it sound fun), a game where they yet again stood in a circle and would go from letter to letter having to think of a word that started with the letter they were given. The last person standing is the ABC World Wind Champion. In these kinds of games I always feel bad for those that get letters like Q, U, V, X and Z as they often have to sit down early in the game.
On Friday I got the idea to try to make my own Scrabble boards for game day however after an hour and a half and only one board complete I sadly had to bump it to the next game day. Instead this time we played a knock off king of Boggle where I would write 15 letters on the board, break the class up into somewhat even teams of 3 each and then play one Justin Beber song as they tried to come up with as many words as they could. Over all I must say it went pretty well minus the arguing over what is really a word and what is not. Sadly they all wanted to use abbreviations and Korean names and well with it being an English game I just couldn’t allow them. Sadly there was one team each round that would blow the other team out of the water with not only the words they came up with but also the amount of words they made. I kept trying to evenly break the teams up after each round but sadly there is one girl in the class that stand out above the others when it comes to her vocabulary. I did points based on what team won and who was on that team and the girl that won first place was nice enough to choose cookies as her prize and then sat there and gave one to everyone else in the class, not taking one for herself. I found this to be quite interesting and offered her another choice of a Snickers Bar or Lolly Pop after class.
Over all I think it went well and look forward to having more game days with them in the months to come.
Monday, November 29, 2010
W5 Game Day
My W5 class maybe one of my favorite classes! They are a mix of 5th and 6th graders with mostly girls and sadly only 2 boys. They are very good at English and can hold conversations well enough that we can free talk about almost anything. This also means that unlike my other classes when the complain the almost always do it in English. They are a very smart class and work really hard; however once in a while they will get talkative or lazy and just not want to work. Lately that have been on a "Game Day" kick and tried to convince me that once a week should be "Game Day" and I had to break their hearts because well we only meet twice a week. So right now I am working on a compromise of every other Friday.
A few weeks ago they all wrote me short little notes about why we should have "Game Day". Just thought I would share a few because they didn't do a half bad job with writing them.
Here is the deal I am thinking about offering them:
A few weeks ago they all wrote me short little notes about why we should have "Game Day". Just thought I would share a few because they didn't do a half bad job with writing them.
Here is the deal I am thinking about offering them:
W5 GAME DAY
- We can have 2 Friday Game Day's a month.
- Every other Friday
- We can only have Game Day if we stay 1 unit ahead of your Grammar Lessons.
- In order to stay ahead we will have to work the full 45 minutes all the 3 classes leading up to Game Day.
- We will only play English word games.
- You can come up with new games and rules if you would like.
- You can also ask to play special games.
- Please email me all request or new games a week before Game Day. Mbartlady@aol.com
- We will NOT have a game day if:
- There is a lot of extra talking in class
- There is a lot of playing around in class
- There is a lot of sleeping in class
- There is a lot of complaining about working
- If there is trash from W5 left in my room
- If there is eating food or chewing gum in class.
- If you are behind on your homework book.
*Being the teacher of W5 I have the right to take away Game Day from the class as a whole or any single student. I also have the right to move Game Day to another day or end Game Day early if the class is out of control or students are fighting. I also have the right to cancel Game Day indefinitely due to different circumstances.
Ok so the point of this was to find out if anyone knows of any fun English games! I am open to all suggestions and ideas!
Ok so the point of this was to find out if anyone knows of any fun English games! I am open to all suggestions and ideas!
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Marketing and Science Demonstration for JCK
Well update time and if I do say so myself this update is not too late!
This week we have been getting stuff together for the kick of off the JCK program. The rooms are finally done and put back together; however mine is now strictly for kindergarten because they have the little chairs and tables in there and well my older kids just don't fit so I have permanently moved down the hall and well can't says its to bad because now I have a nice big window to enjoy. The new rooms are cute and colorful with wood floors and bookshelves. They have cute little windows that are different sizes and shapes from the whole back glass wall before.
On Monday Ryan and I had to come in at 10 to help with marketing. For once I got to use my degree in a totally legit way! If you have not read in my main blog one of the first few weeks we were here our boss took us over the the elementary school one morning to hand out Hello Kitty suckers as kids came out and once Ryan or I had the kids attention with the sucker the Korean teachers would come up behind them and slip a folder of information into their backpack. We also spent a day over at the middle school bribing them with notebooks to give us their information and take a short quiz. I found this all odd because none of these were methods we covered in any of my marketing classes and seemed a tad illegal.
Anyways this time we got handed a huge bag full of handouts and tape. I got to work with Grace Teacher, Ann Teacher and Jessica Teacher over in some of the nicer apartments in town while Ryan worked with Jasmine Teacher and Keven. Grace and I went off in one direction as Ann and Jessica went in another only for Grace and I to find out we needed a key to get into these apartment buildings. So for the first one we just rang the bell and Grace spoke to someone on the other end saying something in Korean that worked because then the door opened. Once inside she dashed for the elevators and up to the 21st floor we went. Once in the elevator she told me she lied and we needed to do this quickly. Each floor had 2 apartments and we went from floor to floor sticking handouts on the doors as fast as we could. Once back outside Grace called Ann who let us know she had a friend who lived there and would get us a key. After about an hour and 4 buildings down we were out of handouts so we headed back to the school. This way took more energy but it was much better than bribing kids and even more fun. The only downfall was the dashing down the stairs from floor to floor as most Koreans store stuff in stair wells like bikes, grills, couches, and lots of ashtrays all made for perfect tripping conditions.
Monday afternoon Ryan told me I would be doing a science presentation for some parents on Wednesday and that the science kits would be in on Tuesday so I could pick one. The information he had and I later got from Keven was all very vague and left me a little nervous. When the Fun Science kits came in on Tuesday Keven gave me one and told me to pick one of the four projects to present to the parents. Some of the projects were really cool. They had one that was magnet soccer and another that was a propeller car. I opened it up to find all the pieces I needed and some instructions but not much information about how the car worked or why it worked. Ryan told me to come up with my own things to say to teach the science part of the project freaking me out a little bit because the adults don't know much English and well I don't really know much science. I asked Keven what he wanted telling him the projects didn't really have much to do with science. He more or less told me it was kindergarten and left me even more confused.
I did the presentation yesterday and remembered to talk very slow, smile, and hold everything up and explain what each part was and what I was doing. I did some of the vocab/main words to show how their child would be learning English with the project. A few parents got into it and repeated after me nodding their head to show they understood how the flashcards worked and made me feel a little better. Most parents just looked board and unamused. Over all I don't know how it went and have yet to get any feedback however I feel it went pretty good and think it helped that once it was over I had some of the older kids who where there come running over yelling "Megan Teacher Megan Teacher" to play with it and ask me how it worked.
Over all I am looking forward to teaching some kindergarten classes but I am worried with my lack of Korean that it could be frustrating to have kids crying and screaming and I don't have the slightest clue why.
Wish me luck it is all kicking off in February 2011!
This week we have been getting stuff together for the kick of off the JCK program. The rooms are finally done and put back together; however mine is now strictly for kindergarten because they have the little chairs and tables in there and well my older kids just don't fit so I have permanently moved down the hall and well can't says its to bad because now I have a nice big window to enjoy. The new rooms are cute and colorful with wood floors and bookshelves. They have cute little windows that are different sizes and shapes from the whole back glass wall before.
On Monday Ryan and I had to come in at 10 to help with marketing. For once I got to use my degree in a totally legit way! If you have not read in my main blog one of the first few weeks we were here our boss took us over the the elementary school one morning to hand out Hello Kitty suckers as kids came out and once Ryan or I had the kids attention with the sucker the Korean teachers would come up behind them and slip a folder of information into their backpack. We also spent a day over at the middle school bribing them with notebooks to give us their information and take a short quiz. I found this all odd because none of these were methods we covered in any of my marketing classes and seemed a tad illegal.
Anyways this time we got handed a huge bag full of handouts and tape. I got to work with Grace Teacher, Ann Teacher and Jessica Teacher over in some of the nicer apartments in town while Ryan worked with Jasmine Teacher and Keven. Grace and I went off in one direction as Ann and Jessica went in another only for Grace and I to find out we needed a key to get into these apartment buildings. So for the first one we just rang the bell and Grace spoke to someone on the other end saying something in Korean that worked because then the door opened. Once inside she dashed for the elevators and up to the 21st floor we went. Once in the elevator she told me she lied and we needed to do this quickly. Each floor had 2 apartments and we went from floor to floor sticking handouts on the doors as fast as we could. Once back outside Grace called Ann who let us know she had a friend who lived there and would get us a key. After about an hour and 4 buildings down we were out of handouts so we headed back to the school. This way took more energy but it was much better than bribing kids and even more fun. The only downfall was the dashing down the stairs from floor to floor as most Koreans store stuff in stair wells like bikes, grills, couches, and lots of ashtrays all made for perfect tripping conditions.
Monday afternoon Ryan told me I would be doing a science presentation for some parents on Wednesday and that the science kits would be in on Tuesday so I could pick one. The information he had and I later got from Keven was all very vague and left me a little nervous. When the Fun Science kits came in on Tuesday Keven gave me one and told me to pick one of the four projects to present to the parents. Some of the projects were really cool. They had one that was magnet soccer and another that was a propeller car. I opened it up to find all the pieces I needed and some instructions but not much information about how the car worked or why it worked. Ryan told me to come up with my own things to say to teach the science part of the project freaking me out a little bit because the adults don't know much English and well I don't really know much science. I asked Keven what he wanted telling him the projects didn't really have much to do with science. He more or less told me it was kindergarten and left me even more confused.
I did the presentation yesterday and remembered to talk very slow, smile, and hold everything up and explain what each part was and what I was doing. I did some of the vocab/main words to show how their child would be learning English with the project. A few parents got into it and repeated after me nodding their head to show they understood how the flashcards worked and made me feel a little better. Most parents just looked board and unamused. Over all I don't know how it went and have yet to get any feedback however I feel it went pretty good and think it helped that once it was over I had some of the older kids who where there come running over yelling "Megan Teacher Megan Teacher" to play with it and ask me how it worked.
Over all I am looking forward to teaching some kindergarten classes but I am worried with my lack of Korean that it could be frustrating to have kids crying and screaming and I don't have the slightest clue why.
Wish me luck it is all kicking off in February 2011!
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