I might be ready to dust off this blog. I officially returned to work in September, but I'm teaching so few hours (by choice) that it's really more of a hobby that I get paid for at this point. It's clear to me now that I still love teaching elementary aged students, though.
Today I was pleasantly surprised by my students' enthusiasm for a very quick Mad-Libs inspired Valentine's Day activity that I created in approximately 2 minutes. They're in CE1-CE2 and have had at least one year of English before. I try to give them little cultural tidbits every now and then without taking too much time out of the main language focus, so I talked very briefly about how children celebrate Valentine's Day back home. (I was trapped by one clever student who said, "So, where's our candy, then, huh?" Mental note to self: find the box with the Harry Potter cards and suckers and be ready for this next time).
It's not necessarily the most communicative nor most creative of activities, but it doesn't take long to do and they loved it so much that I'll do it again. The only special material I used was a book of photocopiable thematic stationery for K-3 students, which is basically a bunch of fancy themed borders for students to write in. I've used it several times and they seem to like working with it. I'm sure you can find something similar on the web or just make your own using clip art, but for me this type of book is worth the expense. I initially intended this to be a quick wrap-up at the end since they've been working on body parts and describing people, but I might try to figure out a way to expand this.
At the top of the paper, I wrote My Funny Valentine, and underneath I wrote Your ________ is like a ___________ [repeat 3 times] but that's okay, I still like you anyway. Students had to write 4 body parts of their choice in the first blank, and 4 animals in the second blank and the end result was pretty hilarious to them once they figured out what it meant. I find some French students to have a little trouble at times with the concept "of your choice" ... they want to know if they need to write in blue pen or red pen or where exactly they should write their name and such. Invariably I'll have one or two students who really get anxious about this kind of stuff but today they somehow decided it should be the 4 body parts of their friend that they really admired. Hey, whatever works, and most importantly, whatever gets them started.
They ended up asking for vocabulary they didn't know (a bonus for me), and got some alphabet pronunciation practice in as well. The kid who in an earlier post stuck Mr. Potato Head parts up his nose for laughs last year came up with "Your heart is like a tiger," which I thought was very poetic (even though it was accidental). Then they ended up sharing their poems in English all on their own without prompting, demanded extra copies so they could make more for their friends, and stayed so late I had to shoo them out of the classroom. The real bonus for me was the part when they spontaneously shared their poems, so in the end I guess it was more communicative than I had predicted.
The other teachable moment that I ran out of time for was the possibility of a Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head Valentine story. They wanted to act out a whole kissy-kissy, I love you do you love me, check the box yes or no routine, but it wasn't possible today. I might try and combine the two activities in a situation where Mr. Potato Head has to court Mrs. Potato Head in English and see what they come up with.
I have to wonder if today's success was due to my (ahem) in-depth planning or rather to the fact that the sun was shining and they were in a good mood. I'll try not to think too hard about it.
Anyway, if you have any ideas for improvement, a spin-off activity, or just a general comment I'd love to hear it. ETA: Margie had a wonderful suggestion for a tie-in activity: From Head to Toe by Eric Carle. It covers both body parts as well as animals and provides students opportunities to act out the book. I'm going to use it in our next class. It would have been better if I had read it before making Valentines, but it's still relevant and I'm sure the kids will love it. This is one of my essential books for English teaching in elementary schools.
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3 comments:
I just checked here and saw you had a few posts. I liked this blog concept, but if you're not teaching much anymore, I can understand not keeping it up. You'll always have the other one...
Hi, this sounds like a great idea! While teaching body parts, I read to my classes the story "From Head to Toe" by Eric Carle and they really enjoyed it, I had them acting out the different scenes. Your idea with the poem,comparing body parts to animals would work great with the story.
I've got classes from CE1 to CM2 with a wide range of abilities.
Thanks for starting up the "teaching english' blog again. I've been really bad about keeping up my (one) blog....
Thanks, Betty! I'm going to try to keep this one up, with a goal of one post a week. It would be wonderful to try to set up something that any other interested people could discuss on their blogs or in comments like some of the best book blogs do, but for right now I'm just going to try to post regularly.
Margie -- wonderful tie-in with the Eric Carle book!!! I hadn't thought of it and *that* is exactly what I've been missing here. People to say, "Oooooh, you know what, you could do such-and-such!"
Eric Carle is great for EFL, isn't he? From Head to Toe is one of the ones I use regularly, and even though I've used that book with some of the students before it goes so well that I'll bring it next week. They've all seen the Potato Heads before and that doesn't stop them from loving them. I'm going to edit my post to add in your idea.
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