sharing

one of the reasons that i really like my preschool esl teaching job rather than traditional eikaiwa (english lesson-only) is because i get to teach social skills and not just english.
at two years old, many of my students have never been in a situation where they're around so many other kids. many of them have never really had to share. but once they're in preschool, they have to start sharing.
i find it pretty amusing to watch them throw temper tantrums when i make them share. tadashi, for example is having a really rough time of this.
he'll often have 4 trains in his hand, and when another kid wants one, he'll start to throw a fit. kana or i will point out that he has four trains, but the other kid doesn't have any. we will take one trian and give it to the other kid. tadashi will then start screaming and throw himself onto the floor. it only lasts about 30 seconds and it cracks me up.
recently, miona finished lunch first and was sitting on/playing with one of the lesson cushions that they sit on. tadashi finished his lunch and started to try to take the cushion from miona.
"tadashi! what are you doing?" i said, "there's 11 other cushions over there that no one is using. that one is miona's. go get a different one."
i figured he wouldn't have any idea what i said because that's a lot of english for them, but apparently he got the point because he started screaming and threw himself down on the floor.
eventually, miona got tired of that cushion and went to get another toy. i saw that tadashi claimed the cushion which was fair. then miona came back, saw that tadashi had the cushion and reasonably, went and got herself a different one.
well, wouldn't you know it, the second she sat down with that cushion, tadashi was practically sitting on top of her, trying to push her off of it.
frickin hilarious.
apparently he only has interest in something if someone else wants it.
Tags: esl, preschool, sharing

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rice or lice?

it's well known that japanese speakers of english have a hard time with the pronunciation of "l" and "r". this is because these sounds don't exist in the japanese language. this is one of the reasons why it's so important to start teaching esl to children at a young age. when they are very young, they are still learning how to pronounce words in their own language and so it's easy for them to learn how to pronounce words in another language as well. experts say that after age 6 the language acquisition part of our brain tends to shut off and learning a foreign language becomes much harder.
so even if my kids forget all of the english that i teach them when they move on to japanese elementary school, when they start to study english again in jr. high and high school, their pronunciation will be much better than students who didn't study english at an early age. because even if they forget the english words, their brain will still remember how to form the sounds correctly.
well, i've got this one student in my after school class who drives me crazy with this "joke" of his. every time i say the word "rice", he says "lice?" and makes a motion of picking at his hair.
now, it's pretty obvious to me that some teacher before me did this. probably the kids would incorrectly pronounce the word "rice" as "lice" and so the teacher would emphasize this (and make fun of the kids) by saying "lice?" and picking at his head. the boy's only 7 and has learned that this is a "funny" thing.
so what's so annoying about this is:
a. by doing this, he's making fun of japanese people. he is japanese.
b. as a native speaker, i'm correctly pronouncing the word "rice" and there should be no mistaking it for the word lice, thus making the "joke" incomprehensible.
it's hard to know what to do in this situation. i was hoping that by simply saying "that's not funny." and otherwise ignoring it, it would go away. but so far, it hasn't. i'd like to explain what is wrong about it, but he just doesn't have the english level to understand. i'm at a complete loss and i get really offended every time he says it.
Tags: esl, japanese, pronunciation

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picnic

saturday was our semi-annual picnic and i think it went pretty good. we started off with a mini lesson that involved some games with the parents. it was fun and went well and the kids spoke some english, which made me happy because sometimes they all speak in class but sometimes they get too shy to speak when they are around their parents.
then we got to watch a bit of the performances by the kids at the other school's location. and then our kids got to perform.
they looked super cute wearing tissue paper flowers on each wrist and each ankle and one on their head. they had a really hard time separating from their parents to go on stage which was pretty rough cuz it mostly meant that the kids just kind of stood there crying instead of doing the dance that they were supposed to be doing. however, they still looked pretty cute and i don't think that any of the parents were disappointed.
i think this whole picnic deal is quite a bit more stressful for all the teachers who teach any grade higher than mine. they are more expected to show off what the kids have learned, but the kids sometimes get stressed out by performing in front of their parents. however, since i teach the baby class, all anyone expects from me is that they look cute. so mission accomplished.
i was also proud of myself because for the picnic lunch i made onigiri...rice balls stuffed with something. it was my first time making them and they came out pretty good. i used a rice mix-in that has a bunch of different types of rice. you mix it with plain white rice. but one of the kinds of rice is a black rice, which, when you mix it with the white rice, turns it into a purple rice. and then i pur some edamame in the middle. came out real pretty and yummy. this is cool because, despite living in japan, i'm not a huge rice eater and so when i do make up some rice, i often have a lot of leftover that goes to waste. now i'll just make up some of these whenever i have some extra.
Tags: esl, picnic

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kouki's confession

on friday afternoon, there were a bunch of afterschool daycare kids in my classroom. the older kids are in my classroom. on my wall i have a cute pig made out of construction paper. it's been there since september which actually surprises me because it's within reach of the kids. somehow, they've yet to destroy it.
well, i saw kouki touching the pig, around the eye area. and then later i noticed that the pigs eyes were taken off and lying on the floor.
i asked kouki if he had done it, but he kept claiming that he didn't. i was sure that he had, so in front of him i started asking all of the other kids if they had taken the eyes off of my pig.
finally i said to kouki, "look, i'm not upset that you took the eyes off of the pig, i'm upset because i think that you're lying about it."
and i went and glued the eyes back on the pig.when i finished, i saw that kouki was kind of hiding in the corner by the garbage can. kouki has a history of getting really upset after being scolded, so i wanted to make sure that he was ok.
i didn't mention the pig anymore, but we tried to talk about his feelings and i told him that i still liked him and stuff like that. after i was pretty much finished talking to him, i asked "are you feeling ok now?"
he shook his head no and said something that i couldn't understand. i asked him to repeat it.
"i did the eyes" he said.
i was so proud of him for telling the truth and i gave him a big hug.
Tags: esl, kids, confessions

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dave's esl cafe

i'm sure that most people reading my blog already know what a wonderful resource dave's esl cafe is, but sometimes we can all use a little reminder...
Tags: esl, dave's esl cafe

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baby love

in my thursday afternoon class, i've got a 9 month old baby. when i first saw him (or rather, his mother) talking with the office staff, i assumed that he had an older brother or sister. i was super surprised when they walked into my classroom.
inside, i was livid. what the hell were they thinking putting a 9 month old in this class? the other kids are for the most part 2 year olds, or at least almost 2. this kid can't do anything that they can. he can't speak japanese, let along english, he can't walk (and i sometimes have activities that require movement), it just seemed all wrong.
on some levels of course, i understand that it's great to expose your baby to a second language at such a young age. but it was an inappropriate class, given the age and ability of the other children.
the mothers in these classes come off as very competitive. they all seem supportive of the other kids outwardly, but i can see that they are sometimes jealous when another kid is more outgoing, or can pick the right answer on their own when their kid needs prompting.
that was three weeks ago, and this lil dude is fast becoming a favorite of mine. i'm actually quite amazed at what he can do. i'll sometimes lay all of the shapes, for example, on the ground and ask each kid to touch a specific shape. he can do it! of course, i make it really easy for him and only ask him to touch the shape that is directly in front of him. but today i tried to test him and i put two in front of him and he still touched the right one!
and what's super cute is that he's even starting to "give me 5". it's not quite the proper slap that a "gimme 5" should get you, but he does reach his hand out and put it in mine. it's so cute!
Tags: esl, teaching babies

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puppets

when i first moved into this classroom, i had a lot of puppets but i didn't really know what to do with them and wasn't sure how effective they'd be. recently i've been trying them out....
i was reading this book, multisensory strategies, and they explained how one classroom was using puppets effectively and i thought i would give it a try.
i came up with three characters.
the first is yippie skippy the bouncy bunny. he's a pink rabbit who gets really excited whenever the kids speak english and try hard.
then there's harold the hippo, who really doesn't like loud noises and comes out whenever things are getting too noisy.
and donnie the dog who is too shy to speak, but whispers in my ear to let me know about things that he doesn't like...such as fighting, not sharing, not cleaning up, etc.
i thought that the last two would be good to use because they would take the discipline baggage off of me...in that, it wasn't *me* who thought that it was time for clean up...but we had to do it cuz donnie said so. but i actually haven't been able to use them. it's just too much of a pain in the butt to run and get a puppet every time i need to discipline.
but....yippie skippy is a *huge* hit. he comes out every morning with us during circle time. he sings the hello song and gets really excited when the kids say "my name is..." he also asks them how they are doing and gets really happy when they answer. the kids really like him. they all sit down when i tell them to and have an excited anticipatory smile on their face. a lot of them even try to sit really close to me so that yippie might even give them a lil snuggle when they get it right.
i'm really pleased with the effects and i'm sure that yippie skippy is going to be a permanent fixture in our classroom.
Tags: esl, teaching, puppets

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oh--are you pregnant??

my monday afternoon class is sometimes rough and sometimes really great. basically, it started out great, then a few months down the line a new kid joined and he doesn't get along well with the other kids. this has even involved major physical fighting. but i'll write about that later.
yesterday, that boy wasn't there, so there were no problems. i like this group because their english is pretty high and they are really interested in hearing about the cultural differences between americans and japanese so it's often a pretty fun class for me to teach.
halfway through the class this one boy shogo started singing this strange song. it's really catchy and it's been popular in japan since last summer. i don't know the name of it or i'd post a link for you or something. anyway, in part of the song, the singer speaks french.
shogo asked me if i could speak french.
i replied that i had studied french in high school and college, but that i had forgotten most of it. so they wanted to know if i spoke japanese.
i said that i did ok.
and of course they wanted to hear me speak. i'm not really supposed to speak japanese in the classroom, especially when the kids have such a high level of english, but this was a little different. shogo would ask me questions in english, i'd respond in japanese. they were super impressed.
shogo asked why i could speak japanese and i told him that i study and also that my boyfriend's mother and father don't speak any english at all and so i have to speak japanese to them. they get all excited that i'm telling them i have a japanese boyfriend and i tell them that we will get married next week. they didn't know "married" so i told them in japanese.
lots of ooohing and aaaahing. we start to move on when suddenly shogo says "oh....baby?!?!" and gestures to his stomach. haha. not yet, i told him.
Tags: esl, teaching, kids

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cockroaches--edible or not??

wah! it's been awhile since i wrote. i was away from home longer than i thought this weekend, and tuesday is a national holiday here, so i haven't written. i've got some things planned that require a bit of research, so i'll post those later, but i thought i'd at least leave you with a cute story.
sometimes, with the afternoon classes, i'll say something a bit ridiculous in order to get them to give a desired answer (okok, sometimes just to make them laugh). for example i was teaching them frequncy words such as "always/often/sometimes/never" and was having a hard time getting them to say something that they never do. so finally i asked "do you ever eat poopoo?"
anyway, the other day i was with the 4-6 year olds and we were talking about favorite animals. i taught them the word cockroach. cockroaches in japan are huge and scary. i asked if anyone likes cockroaches. of course they all say no. then i asked "who likes to eat cockroaches?" and of course they all said no. then i asked "who likes to eat chocolate covered cockroaches?"
there was a very long silence while they all considered this. they looked to each other to see if anyone was going to say yes. they couldn't decide if this was a good or bad idea.
i just laughed and moved on.
Tags: kids, esl, cockroaches

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game: snake game

aim: vocab drilling
things you need: vocab cards
age: any
level: low
game outline:
*lay the vocab cards face up in a snake pattern on the floor.
*divide kids into two teams and have them start at opposite sides of the snake.
*when teacher says go, students must stand next to the vocabulary card and say the word. then they move to the next one.
*when the meet in the middle, they play "rock, paper, scissors". the winner can keep going forward. the loser must go back and the next member in the team starts from the beginning.
*the winner is the team that gets to the end of the snake.
this game is good because a student who is not so good at vocabulary can still go far if they are a good "rock, paper, scissors" player.

Tags: esl, esl games, teaching games

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introducing my assistant

at first i was thinking that i should hide her name to protect anonymity or something like that.
but now i'm feeling like it just seems plain weird to always be saying "my assistant" this and "my assistant" that. seems kind of haughty and unkind of me, as though she's not important.
which is so not the case.
my assistant is kana. she's totally awesome. we work so well together and have a really good vibe going in the classroom.
unfortunately, soon i will lose her. my boss is opening up a new nursery class soon and thought that it wasn't fair to have an experienced foreign teacher and an experienced japanese assistant in the same class while the new class had a brand new foreign teacher and brand new assistant. major major bummer. i was heartbroken when i found out.
i have met my new assistant and she seems pretty cool. i'm happy cuz i met some of the prospectives and wasn't very impressed. but seems that my boss tried to find someone who's a good match for me. i hope. she starts in april. we'll see how it goes.

Tags: esl, teacher assistants

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rough day

man, i try to be pretty upbeat all the time, but today it was so hard to keep a smile.
i went into work already in a bad mood for personal reasons. usually if i go in when i'm in a funk, the kids quickly cheer me up. not today.
i'm sitting at the table, writing out some stuff in my planner, when mao walks in. no "hello!" no "good morning!" just "i don't like shannon." (in japanese)
i couldn't believe it. i turned to my assistant and said "did she just say 'i don't like shannon'?" my assistant confirms.
so she starts telling mao in japanese that that's not a very nice thing to say. and at the end she says "you like shannon, don't you?"
but mao shakes her head no.
i have no idea where this is coming from or why she said it. i do know that she always insists that it's the assistant who puts on her jacket or her bib, but i never thought too much of it. today it was really pissing me off.
fortunately, my assistant was taking my side on the whole thing and at lunch, she didn't put on mao's bib, leaving it for me to do. i knew what was going on so i went to put on the bib and mao insisted that the assistant do it. but she said that she was busy and mao was going to have to let me do it. she did, but then cried afterwards.
i'm so sad man. i have no idea what i did to deserve this. there were a few times today when i felt like crying myself. i mean, *everyone* loves shannon. what gives?

Tags: esl, teaching

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smiles

this is a great reward system that i came up with when i first started in this classroom.

before i started here, i was working for the same school, but in a class of slightly older kids with a co-teacher (two foreign teachers and a japanese assistant). they opened a new school in september and i got my own class, the class that i currently teach for. i had seen my student list and there was one girl on the list who i thought would be a problem. i had seen her in the "baby class" which she took with her mother and she would spend the entire class running around the room. she didn't pay any attention and her mother didn't do anything to stop her.
i wanted to have a really positive environment in my classroom and wanted to come up with a way not to punish her for being bad, but to reward her for being good.
i came up with the smile system.
each child has their own calander and each day is separated into two categories. they can get a smile for being good during lesson time, and a smile for lunch/clean up time. i make a really big deal out of it, especially at the end of lesson. i call each kid's name. if they were good, i draw a little smiley face in the space and they get a hug from me. if they're not good, no smile and no hug.
this actually works really well. there are of course times when the child is not so good, and they don't get a smile. it's kind of sad to watch because as i call their name, the child stands up, anticipating a hug. but then i frown and say "no smile" and they are just crestfallen. but it does inspire them to be good and get a smile next time.
as it turned out, the girl that i thought would be a problem in my class was no problem at all. it's been a while, but i think that her calander was full of smiles at the end of the month.

Tags: esl, teaching, kids, rewards

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surprise poo!!!

i teach two year olds and this of course involves changing diapers. no big deal. and i don't even mind when it's a poo.
i've gotten used to the fact that at least once a day i'll look at my assistant and say "i smell a poo." and we'll both start grabbing any kids that come close to us and check their diaper for poo. this kind of cracks me up cuz we'll say to the kid, "show me your butt."
well today we were doing our usual after lesson diaper changing. this is mostly just a pee check. i got to the final girl , took off her pants, snapped her diaper apart down the sides and pulled it out between her legs.
"wah! surprise poo!" i shouted. to my complete surprise, her diaper was filled with poo. i looked up at my assistant and said "i didn't even smell it"
i was actually quite lucky that she was there because i might have been caught off guard by myself. she was able to run and get me the necessary poo acoutrements--wipes and a plastic bag--while i kept the lil girls too-long shirt poo free.
crisis averted.

Tags: kids, poo

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sometimes i'm so proud

on tuesdays and thursdays i teach a short "baby class" in the afternoons. these are kids who range from 9 months (!) to 2 years old and the classes are held with their mothers. when space opens up in my regular daytime class, and the kids are at least two years old, they get to move into the regular class.
right now, i've got two kids who were in the afternoon class who have just started the regular class. they've been in the regular class only since march 1. when i had them in the baby class, they were pretty smart, but they didn't speak very much.
what i mean, is that they could touch the color red if i asked them to, but they wouldn't say the word red.
after being in the regular class for such a short time, they are starting to speak so frequently. it really amazes me.
for example, today i was alone with gou. he had done a poopoo during "outside" play time (we were actually playing inside, in the gym due to yucky weather), so i took him upstairs to change his diaper. i'm talking to him the whole time, just saying the things that i am doing:
"let's take off your jacket."
"and your shoes."
blahblah. but he kept repeating me. saying everything that i was saying. it totally blew my mind.

Tags: esl, teaching, toddlers

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game: ABC/123 volleyball

aim: practice ABCs or 123s
things you need: electrical tape, balloon
age: under 10
level: beginner
game outline:
*mark a volleyball court using the electrical tape.
*divide the class into two teams.
*teams hit the balloon back and forth. each time a child hits the balloon the must say the next letter or number in the sequnce.

it's really simple, but the kids really like it.

Tags: esl, esl games

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kouta

kouta is one of my new boys and i think he's super cute. he's just turned two so he's totally tiny. his head is a little big for his body.
he doesn't really speak any language yet, english or japanese. but he's really enthusiastic about speaking. for example, i'll be going around asking all the kids "how are you?" they're supposed to respond with "i'm fine thank you." many of them kind of say it quietly or mumble. kouta however loudly exclaims "oouha aeo wowou". and then flashes a big smile as he waits for my praise.
at times he's annoying because he'll do naughty things, but he doesn't yet understand the meaning of the word "no" (or any sort of japanese equivalent). so he'll be doing the naughty thing, such as standing on the table. and i'll pick him up, make my "angry face" and say "NO KOUTA NO" while waving my finger. then he smiles and says "nonono!" and acts all proud that he spoke. so i'll muster up an even angrier face and say "NO!" and then he sticks his tongue out and makes a funny face and i can't help but laugh.

Tags: cute kids, esl stories

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game: airplane

kids really like this game and i often get asked to play it again.

aim: vocabulary drilling
things you need: vocabulary cards, paper, crayons (optional)
age: any
level: any
game outline:
*give kids 5 minutes at the beginning of the lesson to create their paper airplanes. if they have time, they can make designs on the with crayons.
*divide into two teams. place them on opposite sides of the room. the object is to get their paper plane to cross the opposite team's members.
*call up one person from each team. show them a vocabulary card. the person to say it first, gets to throw their airplane. if it crosses the other team's line, they get a point.
*repeat with a new set of students.
you can make up a different scoring system if you like...such as one point for getting the english right, one point for getting the airplane across. in my experience, it works well to only score the airplane. that way you can call questionable shots in favor of the team that's losing, thus evening up the score.

Tags: esl, esl games

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ooops

i realized today that the dance that i mentioned in the last post did not come from toddlerific but rather from diaper gym.

however, toddlerific also has another dance that we're doing. it's a kids version of the can-can dance and it's also super cute. every time we play the song, the kids always beg "one more time!"

Tags: toddler, toddler music, toddler dance

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they couldn't be cuter

lately we've been practicing a dance for our upcoming picnic. the dance is off the toddlerific cd which my assistant brought in to use. the words go like this:

with my little hands i go clap, clap, clap
with my little feet i go tap, tap, tap
with my little arms i wave bye bye bye
with my little legs i kick high, high, high
with my little eyes i say PEEKABOO
with my little lips i say i love you

and of course as they sing the words we do each action to it. words cannot possibly describe how adorable they are when they do the peekaboo part.

new babies in the family

we have to be super sensitive to the lil ones who have new babies in their families.
lately, i've been feeling so bad for my cute lil ayu. i mentioned her before. she's the one who i figured out wants to use the toilet. she keeps coming into school with a very angry look on her face. she also has a new baby in the family. yesterday, she came in late and looked so mad. it was music time and i sat her on my lap and was giving her lots of extra love. keep in mind my punkins are only 2 years old and english is not their first language, so i have to go easy when i'm talking to them. i said:
"ayu happy?"
slow shake of the head.
"ayu sad?"
slow shake of the head.
"ayu angry?"
slow nod. aha.
"ayu angry with mommy?"
slow shake of the head.
"ayu angry with baby?"
pause. slow nod.
aaaaahhhhhhh. cutie pie. i've been showering her with attention. but the poor thing is having a really rough time of it. today she was grumpy all day. she's gotten really protective of her space and starts screaming whenever somebody gets into it. she's also just started being really possessive of the toys that she is playing with.
but i know she's just going through a rough time, so i simply do what i can to let her know that i think she's the cutest lil girl in the whole world.
her baby brother is pretty darn cute though.....

so cute

so i've written about how i've got all these new kids and there's a lot of crying going on.
anyway, i discovered that if kouta is crying, then all i need to do is make a turkey noise and it really gets him to giggling. gou is also fascinated by this. they've tried to do the noise themselves, but they're too young to realize that you need to make a noise with your mouth, not just wiggle your finger in their lips. so i let them make the noise with me...i make the noise with my mouth and i let them wiggle their finger in my lips. it actually grosses me out a little cuz i imagine that their hands are all full of grubby germs. but it makes them so happy i can't stop.
this morning, gou wasn't crying at all, he came running right up to me, jumped on my lap and started wiggling his finger in my mouth. this is especially cool considering it was monday and he had had a whole weekend where he could have forgotten about that.

tip for "cry babies"

this is a technique that i've found to be effective in stopping the "cry babies"--kids who will cry at the drop of a hat whenever something happens to them.
i used to teach a boy who was very active, yet very clumsy. he was always falling or bumping into things. he'd get that sort of shocked look on his face, look at one of the teachers and start screaming.
well, one time, when he fell it was kind of funny looking. so again, he got the shocked look on his face, looked up at me....but instead of seeing my "worried" face, he saw me laughing. so he started laughing too. no tears at all.
so every time he hurt himself, i started laughing. and it worked!! as long as he wasn't *really* hurt, he'd just start laughing too.
and i've tried it with other kids too with much success.

big steps for a lil girl

i just have to tell this cute story.
ayu is a darling little girl. she's 2.5 years and has the chubbiest cheeks ever. she has a really expressive face and you can immediately tell if she's upset about something. she babbles all the time, but doesn't make any sense. i'm fairly good at japanese and can usually tell what the kids are saying in japanese, but i could never understand her. one day, i asked one of the japanese teachers if ayu makes any sense in japanese. and they said no. haha.
a few times a day we do diaper changing/toilet time. usually, i stay in the classroom and change diapers and my assistant takes the kids to the toilet. ayu is in the diaper changing group.
well, the past few days she has been really grumpy and sad. her mom was getting worried because she was saying that she didn't want to go to school. yesterday, the first time we changed diapers she was really pouty and told me "no!" but i still made her do it.
later in the day, my assistant also said she didn't want to change her diaper. i was brushing ayu's teeth and trying to give her some extra love because i could tell that she was sad. i was trying to get her to tell me what was wrong. as i was talking to her, my assistant started calling out the kids to go to the toilet. and suddenly ayu got even sadder. i said to her "does ayu want to go toilet?"
her little face just lit up and she looked at me incredulously, as if to say "really?! me?!" it was one of the cutest things i've ever seen. i got her off of my lap and said "gogogo".
the rest of the day she was smiling and she was even saying "ayu happy!"
i told her mom that night, and i think she was relieved that that's all that was bothering ayu.
apparently, she hasn't yet actually peed in the toilet, but she does sit on it. and she's now so happy all the time. always running up to me and giving me a big hug.
and i can never get enough ayu hugs.

sometimes ya just gotta roll with it

i got 4 new kids in my class on wednesday. i was pretty excited because these new students (in addition to the 3 that i got the week previously and others that i've gotten since the beginning of the year) were bringing the age level of my class down significantly...from "about to turn 3" to "just turned 2". this is a huge difference in kids at this age.
so i was trying to be super prepared and had worked out this whole new teaching technique involving a lot of puppet use (more on that later). i even went in early on wednesday to get super prepared for the day.
well, wednesday came 3 out of the 4 were crying (screaming). i was trying to do lesson, introducing the new puppet, over all the crying. a student came in late which broke up the vibe. and some of the students wanted to run over to the latecomer to say hello. blahblah. so i turned to my assistant and said, "let's just do some songs, and then play with toys."
thursday came and again they were crying. this time, the one who wasn't crying at first on wednesday was throwing a complete fit and banging her head on the floor, presumably thinking that if she hurts herself, mom will come get her (mom later told us that she's done this before). so i decided that we needed to play with playdough instead of having a formal lesson time.
and then i thought it wasn't a bright idea to try to start them on the lesson routine on a friday so today we did puzzles and counted blocks while making towers and seeing how high before they'd fall down.
i think it's important when teaching kids so young that you learn to be flexible in these ways. i had been excited to do the things that *i* wanted to do, but i knew that it wasn't what the kids needed right then. they needed to learn to feel comfortable in the classroom. to feel comfortable with all these new people who were going to be taking care of them.
and it's just as fun for me to spend this time playing with them.

game: tickle monster

thought that it's about time that i post a game you can use in your lessons. i completely made it up myself and i call it "tickle monster".
aim: practice any vocabulary and/or sentence structure
things you need: tickle monster cards; bag; vocab cards (optional)
age: under 10
level: adaptable to all levels

***to make the tickle monster cards***
i'm not a very good artist and you can design your "tickle monster" in any way you want. my tickle monster is a daisy with a smiley face in the circle part. then it has a stick figure body. you want to cut up about 20 cards all the same size. draw the tickle monster on some of them. blank cards are "safe". i find that the kids really like getting the tickle monster, so it's best to make several tickle monster cards and only a few safe cards. then put all of the cards into the bag.

game outline:
*designate an area of the classroom to be "safe". this can be a wall, or a table, or whatever you want.
*student does the english that you want them to do. for example, maybe you show them a "food" flashcard and they have to say whether they like that particular food or not.
*student then gets to pick a card out of the bag. if they pick a tickle monster card, then you try to tickle them. they all try to run to safe without being tickled.
*return to your lesson area and let the next student have a go.

who farted?

in the afternoons i teach slightly older kids. around 4-8 years old. the kids in the mornings spend at least 5 hours in an english-speaking-only environment so their english level tends to be a bit higher.
most of the time when i'm talking to the afternoon kids, they have no idea what i'm saying.
well one day i'm teaching them computers. it's in a really small, enclosed space and someone cracked one. the smell was pretty bad.
"who farted?" i asked, not expecting to get an answer.
"i did!" piped up a cute little 4 year old girl. she hasn't been studying english for very long and often gives incorrect responses to questions because she thinks that's the way you're supposed to answer. so i ignored her, thinking that this was the case.
"who farted?" i asked again.
"*i* did." she insisted.
so i decided to humor her.
"you farted?" i asked.
"i farted." she said with a definite nod of the head.
even though i'm not supposed to use japanese, i leaned in and asked her if she farted in japanese. she nodded her head.
very well. carry on then.