Teaching Stories (Part 3)

School has been going by fast, and we just ended our second bimestre last week. The students have been up to a lot in class, and outside of class too.

my fourth graders who love to smile

At the start of the bimestre my fourth graders started practicing the simple present tense, and they worked on making simple story books.

We also read together a book about "Show and Tell," and I consequently had a show and tell activity in class. I had the students bring in their favorite thing, and they had to share something about it with the rest of the class.

Show and Tell

One afternoon after we had done a quiz, we had about half an hour of free time left before the day was over. I let my students play whatever they wanted to. The kids love having free time, and things can get crazy and noisy. One of my students came up to me and said he was bored, so I told him that he could go read a book. He said he didn't have one, so I asked him if he wanted to borrow one in the English office. I was surprised that he agreed (he is usually a student that procrastinates doing his work), so we went to the English office to look for one. He then spent the remainder of the class just sitting quietly on his own, reading the book. :)

Stalker picture, so proud of him

On another afternoon, to try to tame down their play, I borrowed the school projector, and played some online games with them. For most of them, it was their first time playing English games online, and they enjoyed it a lot. (Cue surprised reactions that learning English can be a lot of fun!).

Two thumbs up!

And here are just a few pictures of some sweet students who asked to have their picture taken. ;)

In first grade we have been enjoying working with food vocabulary. I especially love it when they insert English words (especially vocabulary we have been learning!) when they converse with me.

Me: What did we eat for breakfast today?
Student: Comemos banana y cereal y milk!

For this activity I just asked the students to draw what they like and don't like. 

The girl on the left went a step further and tried to write the names of the food underneath each picture. She has rueyps (grapes), llus (juice), cukis (cookies), apol (apple)... it was such a cute effort. :)

Their preferred worksheets are those wherein they have to draw and color, so I try to incorporate a lot of those in class.

Bingo is also a class favorite, and it really helps them with vocabulary retention.

We usually go to the park for P.E. every Friday, but because of some issues, we were not able to go to the park for the whole of April. We were finally able to go back last month, and the students were overjoyed.

Me: How are you today?
Student: Excited!
Me: Why are you excited?
Student: Porque vamos al park!

We were supposed to start new classes at the park (we did judo on our first bimestre), but on our first day back, the teacher didn't show up. Instead we improvised with some small games which the students enjoyed.

The next Friday we started our class... football!

Football at the park

Last week we had a special park day and went on a Wednesday instead of Friday. There was an event and we ended up doing some aerobic dance activity. 

Back to classroom activities... towards the end of my class on certain days, I let my students play with whatever materials or toys I brought for the lesson. Even the simplest things can keep them entertained for so long.

Sometimes we do random activities and games. This one below is the "ha ha" game, where the kids lay their heads on another's stomach, and they have to sound out a deep "ha" kind of lifting the person's head up. It starts with one "ha" from the first person, and additional "ha" is added with the second, third, fourth, and so on.

Another favorite of my students is something I call the "sushi roll hug." We all make a line holding hands, then we walk in a circle around the person at the end of the line creating a group hug that looks a bit like a sushi roll. (They also really love falling over each other at the end of the hug).

Class with the first graders are always so fun, and my students are the sweetest. I love receiving random letters and notes like these:

♥

But more than that, I love seeing them being sweet and helping one another. This moment below was so heartwarming to witness. The kid on the left can't read or write, so the kid on the right went up to him (without being told to or asked to), and spent the rest of the period helping him do his work.

Aside from classes in and out of the classroom, we've also been doing other activities in school. On one Thursday, in preparation for the rainy season where the streets tend to flood because of trash, the school decided to organize a clean up in the streets and surrounding areas of the school. It was a bit disorganized, but it was nice to help a little, and see the kids clean and pick up trash.

We had one random day in school where the kids came in in their pajamas and had a movie day.

There was also one Friday where all of the grade levels had to present a play. My first graders did Snow White, and it was quite adorable. (Our Snow White was actually absent on the day itself, so we borrowed a girl from second grade to be our Snow White. It was more just acting and no lines, since we had a narrator).

I mentioned over here that I went to Lago Amatitlán for a race. The local government had organized a race for all the teachers in Villa Nueva, and it was their fourth year doing it.

We had five teachers who ran, and three of them placed! It was a fun morning cheering them on, and hanging out with the other teachers.

At the start of May we also celebrated Mother's Day, and boy, was it a huge celebration! At school we had a program and event on May 9th, and had no classes on May 10th, the actual Mothers' Day. (Funny story, only the teachers who were mothers didn't have to come in to work. In my school the grade levels have one teacher for all their classes (except English). So it was only the fourth grade students and the sixth grade students who had classes because the fourth and sixth grade teachers weren't mothers. I found the whole situation really weird, but I digress). Mother's Day was a pretty big deal here. The kids were half day for two days before the 9th, and we spent those afternoons preparing party favors, decorating, and setting up for the program. Then on the 9th we had a program wherein each grade level presented a little something. 

In between the song and dance numbers by the kids there were also games for the moms. It was a fun morning which the mothers enjoyed.

Ending with a little note that I received from one of my first graders. It warmed my heart, because I have so much love my students who, to me, are like my kids. :)

♥