Archive for the 'Activites' Category

Feb

New Year’s Party

On Tuesday, the Kindergarten celebrated Korean New Year. All the students came in their 한복 (hanbok). In the morning, they made their 복주머니 (lucky pouches) for the school’s New Year’s day celebration. They then practiced their 세배 (saebae, New Year’s Bow). After the traditional New Year’s meal of 떡국 (TteokGuk, rice cake soup) and some free time, the kids played 윷놀이 (yutnori). Then they went home. Enjoy the pictures of the kids in their hanbok.

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Celebrations,Holidays,Maple Square,Pictures,Students and have No Comments

Jan

Irregular Verbs

One of the things my advanced level students hate the most is irregular verbs. Well, actually all my students hate them. I don’t make them memorize them, but the Korean teachers do. They have a huge list of base/simple past/past participles that they have to memorize. In all fairness, I don’t think I’d do too well on one of their verb quizzes. Sky class had a bit of leftover time the other day so I decided to try to find a fun way to help them recall the verbs.

What you need: a list of irregular verbs (example pdf), a soft ball (or something soft that can be thrown back and forth) and a die.

What you do: Start by passing the ball to a random student. The teacher then rolls the die. If it comes up 1 or 2 they have to give the base form. If it comes up 3 or 4 they have to give the simple past. If it comes up 5 or 6 they have to give the past participle. The teacher calls out a verb and the student with the ball has to give the form dictated by the die. Obviously the teacher should say a form other than the one the student should give. If the student is wrong, then have the class figure out what the correct answer is. Then the student with the ball tosses it to another student and the game continues.

Simple, less. But much more fun than drilling.

I’ve also found that many students can go in one direction easily (eat – ate – eaten, for example), but given the past tense, they can’t get to the past participle without going through the all three. In other words, given ate, they’ll think ate – eat – ate – eaten. Part of the point of this game is to make the associate between word and form more solid.

If anyone tries this, please let me know how it goes. I think the throwing the ball around part is the most fun for the kids. In fact, I’ve found that doing any sort of drill this way makes it a lot more fun for the kids.

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Fun things,Games,Grammar,Teaching,Teaching Resources and have No Comments

Dec

Snowman Sock Puppet

Sorry folks, life has been hectic.

It’s December, thus the snow on the blog and the snowman puppets. I post this only because I feel so proud of Spring Class. OK, I really feel proud of myself. When I started in July, one of my first art classes with Spring was the snail sock puppet. It left me in tears and questioning my ability to teach at MapleSquare. I swear, they looked liked lumpy socks with eyes. Not so with the snowmen. Granted, I’ve learned a thing or two over the last few months (like always make a sample so you know how to do it).

So I proudly present Spring Class and their sock snowmen.

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Arts and Crafts,Holidays,Maple Square,Pictures,Students and have No Comments

Oct

Apple Print Shirts

Last week’s minitheme for Summer Class was apples. We looked at the parts of the apple in science. They learned about Johnny Appleseed in social studies. They made puffy apple pancakes in cooking. And finally, we made apple print tee-shirts in arts & crafts. I had a lot of fun with this one. The kids enjoyed it too. It’s one of those crafts that is super easy, but super stunning when done. Some fabric paint and fabric markers and a few apples later, we had awesome shirts. I hope they’ll wear them to school.

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Arts and Crafts,Fun things,Maple Square,Pictures,Students,Teaching and have No Comments

Sep

Pre-Chuseok Party

Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) is next week. Since we’re on vacation next week, we had our party today. Yay for parties!

The kids wore their hanbok (traditonal Korean clothing). We made songpyong (rice cakes stuffed with sesame seeds). We played yootnori (a game played with four sticks) and jaegi (kind of like hackysack). The kids did the ganggangsullae (a traditional dance).

The kids looked wonderful in their hanbok. The songpyong were delicious. I think a good time was had by all.

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Celebrations,Food and Drink,Fun things,Games,Holidays,Korean Vocabulary,Maple Square,Pictures,Staff,Students and have No Comments

Sep

Fall Photo Frame

This was last week’s craft for Summer Class. The overriding theme for the month is Thanksgiving. This year, Chuseok, the Korean thanksgiving celebration, is in September. Last week’s minitheme for Summer Class was “I’m thankful for my family”. I had all the students bring in a picture of their families and we made picture frame. I got the idea from two different sites. The foam board frame idea came from Enchanted Learning. The mosaic idea came from Kaboose.

Enjoy the pics. I think the frames the kids did came out fabulous.

posted by Kathryn in Activites,Arts and Crafts,Maple Square,Pictures,Students,Teaching and have No Comments

Aug

Airplane From a Box

It’s amazing what you can find on the internet. First let me say, this wasn’t my idea. Second, let me say, it turned out quite good.

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m not artistically or creatively inclined in the least. I had to drop the art class I decided to take in high school because I was flunking it. No, not getting a C flunking, but actually getting an F flunking.

So rather than have the kids bring in a box, my boss decides we should use the giganitc box we have in our storeroom. After work on that Tuesday, I stayed late to paint the entire box white along with random other pieces of cardboard for the wings and tail.

On Wednesday I dragged the box upstairs (yay for elevators!) and got all sorts of questions from the kids. It’s a good thing we had library time right after arts & crafts because we certainly needed the time.

I’ll leave the blow by blow description of how to make this thing to the folk at the Family Fun website. I’ll leave you with the pictures, including a bonus one with my face in it.