Winter Camp

This week I have been teaching a Winter English Camp for 3-6th graders at my elementary school. The 3rd and 4th graders come from 9:10- 10:30 and then the 5th and 6th graders come and stay until 12:20. The camp is a great transition back to teaching after my vacation. It also is a wonderful opportunity to for me to strengthen my teaching before I return to the states to teach. During the school year I do not have a lot of room to be creative in my classroom. I am asked to follow a very rigid schedule. I complete the activities in the textbook for 20 minutes and then play a game for 20 minutes. I have the freedom to design any type of game I want but I still sometimes get frustrated when I believe there are better ways to teach the material in the textbook.

Luckily, during winter camp I have complete control over my lessons as long as they go along with the camp's theme. The three other English teachers and I decided on the camp's theme, 'Around the World in Five Days', together. Everyday we study a different country and by the end of the week our students will have learned about America, Egypt, Australia, India and France. The students have really loved the  camp so far and I believe they are finding the lessons much more engaging than they find the textbook. I also am having a lot more fun teaching the lessons that I created.

On Monday, we learned about baseball in America and the students created their own cheers for their favorite baseball teams. On Tuesday, the students created their own gods after learning about Egyptian gods and how to describe people. On Wednesday, we studied the various animals that live in Australia and also learned words like tail, fur, claws, ruff, scales, etc. The students really enjoyed playing 'Guess Who' with the animals we studied. They would ask "Does it have claws/fur/scales/etc.?" until a student could correctly guess the animal. Today's lesson was by far my favorite. The students learned the different verbs associated with body movements, such as bend, raise, lower, twist, step, etc. I then used those words to lead them through a yoga sequence since yoga was invented in India. The students loved it- although they did find the yoga pretty trying. We had so much fun trying to balance in difficult poses.

Tomorrow is my last day of camp and I wish it wasn't. I've loved getting to know my students better (the largest class is 12 kids) and really like to see them enjoying themselves during English class. This is also the last time I will teach my 6th graders since they are graduating in two weeks. Fortunately, I'll be able to watch them graduate but I'm really sad I won't teach them anymore. I am hoping some of them will elect to participate in Rachel's Club Class. Rachel is the English teacher at the middle school and the two of us won a grant that will allow us to take 5 of my 6th graders and 5 of her 1st years to Seoul in April. The 10 students will also complete a project reflecting on what they learned on the trip together. Since Rachel's 1st years will be my current 6th graders I will have the privilege of teaching 5 of my students once again. I can't wait!

Sang Gyoo perfecting his tree pose.

Hyeon Yeong trying to find her balance.

Warrior One

W-I-N, WIN
Let's Win!