Illustrating a Summer Song

I am sorry for the sporadic posts! I've had some internet problems and my new job is sapping a lot of my time.

I wanted to quickly share this video my friend's students made over the summer! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfFmBKkHXYo is the link since this YouTube video can only be played from the main YouTube site in some countries.



I know I've discussed making videos with students before, and I've also discussed illustrating them. This is an easy way to have student visualize vocabulary, get used to syntax, and really make them understand a song that they probably have had in their head for ages (instead of using Google translate)!

Plus, the pride they get from knowing that they've made something real that people around the world watch is incredible!

If you have a moment PLEASE check it out and leave a comment. I know students appreciate feedback so much.

If you have a video your students made that you'd like me to comment on just leave a link in the comments and I'll get to it as soon as I can!

Baby Shower Games in the EFL class?

No I am not expecting! I was planning a wedding shower for a friend a while back and I mainly fell back on my teaching knowledge of random games to amuse the guests. So when I was scrolling through free kindle books and found this I thought, "You know, I bet baby shower games would be great in some EFL classes!" Some of them were, and others... not so much. Here are a few of the ones I think I could use in class.

Feed the baby: Great for beginning EFL students (I'd say A1 or A2) learning about food. Think of it as a specified Simon Says. One student volunteers to be the baby (or the teacher starts). The baby starts shouting out random vocabulary. For example, the baby says: "Broccoli" The parents, the rest of the students, have to decide if it is edible or not edible. If it is edible they clap twice. If it is inedible they cover their mouth.

Baby: Broccoli
Parents: Clap twice
Baby: Bread
Parents: Clap twice
Baby: Shoes
Parents: Hands over their mouth

If a parent messes up and does the wrong motion they are "out" and should sit down. Start out slowly but speed up eventually. This should help students recognize food words. The last student standing becomes the baby.

This can also be done with flash cards! While I think this works well with food, you could easily lose the baby and parent scenario and use it for colors or rooms in a house. For example the topic could be "Things we find in a kitchen" Two claps would be: Knives, Drawers, Microwaves. Hands on your mouth would be: bed, toilet, etc.


What animal is it? Take a shoe box and put a hole in it. Put an animal cracker in it. Have the student put their hand in and describe it. Can they guess the animal? Great for adjectives (rough, tiny, bumpy, etc.) and animals! You can use a puzzle piece or small toy if you want to avoid food (or have to because of allergies or school regulations. Alternatively put things in plastic Easter eggs and have them describe and guess. Probably best for Primary or Pre-K.

Who is it? Finally an easy ice breaker. Hand each student a post it and have them write three facts about themselves on it. Put a number on it and place them around the classroom. Have students go around with a student roster and guess who is what number.

Name Game! Probably the hardest (I think). Either give all the students a name (your name, a mascot name a celebrity name, a main character's name, an author's name, etc.) or let them use their own. Have them make a sentence with each letter starting a different word, so: Carissa Create Awesome Relics Inviting Super Stars Around. To make it easier have each letter start a sentence: Clearly you are special As such you should be careful. Really think before you decide to do something. If you do that, then your life should be awesome. Should you not follow those directions, things may end badly. So you've been warned. Act cautiously and you'll love life!

So those are just a few ideas from this book. Have you ever been to a baby shower? What's your favorite game? Would you use it in the classroom or keep it away from EFL?

House (Learning the rooms)

Sample House

OK, last post for a while about these boxes I PROMISE, but this is by far my FAVORITE way to use them in class and the one all my teacher friends always LOVE.

I did in this Korea with my 3rd and 4th grade EFL students, and in Spain with my EFL students (preschool and first grade loved it). Of course, I have adapted the activity a bit each time to best suit the students but the basic steps are the same.

Step 1: Hand out a piece of paper that looks like the picture below. The four middle squares should be different from one another to assure students can easily see the differences (with higher level classes you could probably just give them a blank piece of paper)..

A basic Template for the House

Step 2: Follow the steps from http://eslcarissa.blogspot.com/2013/06/opposites-origami-added-pictures.html or http://eslcarissa.blogspot.mx/2012/06/organized-opposites-orgami.html and have your students make their own box.

Step 3: Have them unfold the box and show them your sample "house." They usually get pretty excited at this point (or at least the younger ones do).

Step 4: Let them draw their own additions to make each room its own. I teach: Bedroom, Bathroom, Kitchen, Living Room.

Step 4: (Alternative) If your students shy away from drawing give them a page of household idtems and let them cut and paste those objects into whatever room they like. I don't suggest using catalogs for this as they will probably have items that are too big. This free download includes a sheet of objects they can cut and paste which I've made sure are the right size..

Step 4: (Alternative) Make this a listening activity. "Put a refrigerator in the room with squares on the floor," "Put a cupboard next to the refrigerator," etc.

Step 5: Give them small toys (like Lego people) and let them play. They are little; they like to play! Let them use their English. Every few minutes shout, "FREEZE" and call on a student to say where his friend's toy is, "In the kitchen."

Step 5: (Alternative) You can also do another listening activity (with prepositions too if you like!) "Put your finger in the kitchen," "Put your finger on the toilet" and listen to them shout, "Ewwwwwwww."

FAST ALTERNATIVE

Complete House Template

If you want to get straight into the games and not bother with the making it, give them a "complete" house that you photocopied. Then they just need to fold and star having fun!

All of these templates and the house items (adjusted from http://openclipart.org/ are available for free download here: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Make-a-House-and-practice-Rooms-and-Prepositions-719846) but my art is really not that great, so you can probably make something better on your own :-)
If you have an alternative that you use when teaching about the house or try this with your class I'd love to know! Drop me a comment below!

Opposites Origami (added pictures!)

I've posted a few different ways I like to use origami in an EFL class (or pretty much any primary class). This is a fun one for primary students and I have found that it can be adapted to work with opposites quite well! (You could also do this with shapes, adjectives, rooms in the house etc.)

I posted about it a while ago at this link: http://eslcarissa.blogspot.com/2012/06/organized-opposites-orgami.html but some people had asked for a video. All the videos I've tried just haven't been very clear :( But I am still working on it.

Here is a graphic with pictures that may help.

Cootie Catcher - Speaking Activity

Step 16

Do you struggle getting your students to talk? This is a great activity that can be used for most vocabulary and grammar you want to practice. The example here was done with colors, and fruits. At the end you'll see one done with weather and emotions (so probably A1 or A2 on the CEFR scale). You can make this more complex for higher level students as well!

You can also use this to have students review listening (you verbally give directions and they have to listen and follow them). Depending on the age level and whether they have made these before, this takes between 5 to 20 minutes.


Follow steps 1-15 from the last post (or check out the video on this post).

Step 17 Draw the points

From there follow these directions (you can click on the pictures to make them bigger). NOTE: These are the simplified directions; with higher level students, feel free to omit what you feel can go unsaid:

16. Unfold the paper; it should look like the photo on the upper left (the colors have been added to make the creases stand out).

17. Have your students locate the 8 small triangles in the middle.
Each triangle will get one drawing.  Either a sad face, a happy face, a bomb, or star. There should be 3 sad faces, 3 happy faces, one bomb and one star in total. 

Step 21 draw a category

18. Fold the four bigger triangles to the center (making a square).

19. Flip the paper over.

20. Have your students find the four squares.

21. In each square have them draw one ________ (whatever you want them to practice: countries, toys, prepositions, school supplies, etc.). In this case fruits.

Step 24 Draw a different category

22. Flip the paper over again.

23. Have them find the 8 triangles.

24. Draw (or write) 8 different things. In this case colors.

Now your students are ready to play!

Rules of the game

Question 1

General Rules

1. ONLY ENGLISH may be spoken! Students found speaking a language other than English will lose all of their points.
2. Students should speak in grammatically correct COMPLETE sentences to play. If their partner catches a mistake they may say, "Can you repeat that?" or, "Come again?" or anything else they have learned so that their partner can restate the sentence.

How to Play

1. Find a partner
2. Ask the partner a question (For lower levels, "Do you like fruit?" For higher levels, "If you could ban one of these four fruits from the world which would it be?")

   

   Question 2

3. Listen to your partners answer, (For lower levels, "Yes, I like apples." For higher levels, "Oranges should be banned because they take forever to peel!")
4. Move the cootie catcher the number of syllables/ letters their answer has (app-les: two syllables, or a-p-p-l-e-s: 6 letters)
5. Ask them another question, (Again lower level, "What's best?" Higher level, "What color do you think is overused today?")
6. Listen to their answer (Lower level, "Yellow is best" Higher level, "Yellow is used far too much because companies think it makes us hungry. Think about it, Burger King, McDonald's, they all use yellow")
7. Open the

   

   Final Answer

   triangle flap to find a happy face, sad face, bomb or star.
8. Switch partners and repeat.
9. Find a new partner and repeat

SCORING

• A smiley face is worth 1 point
• A sad face is worth -1 point
• A bomb means you lose all your points
• A star means you get 5 points

The purpose of the game is to get 10 points!

SCORING VARIATIONS

Template

• I used to put the 6 faces, star and bomb on a piece of paper. Students cut them out and then put them on the cootie catcher. This made sure they got the number of each correct.
• Make a different scoring system (maybe the star is worth two and a sun is wroth 5)
• Make the goal to talk to everyone in the class, not get points (in this case it is usually better with higher level students as you can practice telling fortunes or giving proverbs instead of getting points).

OTHER VARIATIONS

• When I did something like this with my really little ones (3 years old) I pre-folded all of them.
• Give them a pre-printed cootie catcher to start. When they have the folds "pre-written" on a piece of paper they tend to fold faster. For example the template to the right could be used to review emotions and the weather.
• Often to start the class we brainstorm as much of the relevant vocabulary as we can think of drawing pictures on the board. This gives them a visual to look at later when they are designing their cootie catcher.
• Bring magazines in and have them put pictures of celebrities on it. This can work with questions like, "If you had to become a celebrity which one would you become?" or just, "Who do you like?"
• It can help to draw a sample on the board, but you risk students copying it directly so I like to draw it with some blanks (like above) to encourage creativity.
• If you make them generic enough this is a great filler game. Just plug in whatever new grammar topic you learned and have them use it at the end of class. For example: If you just learned relative phrases ask, "What do you think is Paris Hilton's favorite weather?" "Paris Hilton, who loves to tan, likes it sunny."

Would you ever use cootie catchers in class? How do you use cootie catchers in class?

Cootie Catchers and Fortune Tellers- Listening Activity (A step by step guide on how-to make a cootie catcher)

1. Any piece of paper

2. Even recycled paper

Making a cootie catcher or a fortune teller can be a fun activity for an EFL class to practice many grammar points and vocabulary.

This is also a great activity because it can use recycled paper (and who doesn't have tons of old worksheets, lesson plans and memos that are begging to be recycled?)!

You may remember making these when you were younger. Since students may already know how to do this to make this a really effective listening activity don't tell them what you are going to do, just walk them through the steps.

2. Fold a triangle

3. Cut off the extra paper

 1. You'll need a piece of paper. It can be any size, but your standard 8.5 by 11 seems to be fine. If it is too big or too small it becomes a bit cumbersome to make and play with. If you are giving them a square piece of paper then you can go straight to step 4 skipping steps 2 and 3.

2. To make a perfect (or almost perfect) square instruct your students to "Take the bottom right corner and fold it to the upper left. Make sure that the sides are ever. This means the corner won't match the other corner. That's OK" A perfect square makes things easier, but "nearly perfect" squares will be fine.

4. Unfold the paper

5. Fold another triangle.

3. "Take your scissors and cut off the extra paper that is not covered by your triangle"

4."Unfold the paper" This should now be a perfect square with a crease going from the bottom left to the upper right. I marked the crease with pink so you can see it more easily.

5.  "Now take the bottom left corner and fold it to meet the upper right corner." If your students did steps 2-4 correctly the corners should match perfectly, if not that's OK. Some students who are perfectionists may want to re-cut and fold their paper now. If you have time allow it, otherwise insist it will be fine and move to step 6.

6. Unfold the paper.

7. Fold a corner to the center

6. "Unfold the paper." Now your creases should have made a big X on the paper. The second crease has been highlighted in orange to make it clearer.

7. "Now we can see where the lines meet in the middle. Take the bottom right corner and fold it to the middle." With younger students I go around and put a big dot in the middle so they can find it without a problem.

8.  "Now take the bottom left corner and fold it to the middle." By now your students get it and steps 9 and 10 are a snap.

8. Fold a 2nd corner

9. Fold a 3rd corner

9. "Take another corner and fold it to the center." If you want to be specific walk them through the corners "upper right, upper left, etc." again, but at this point it usually isn't needed.

10. "Take the last corner and fold it to the center." In a perfect world if you have done everything right then all of the triangles should meet in the center without overlapping or seeing the lower layer. That's the ideal to be aiming for. However, if that doesn't happen it will be fine.

11. "Now we have a square so flip it over and do the same thing."

10. All the corners!

11. Flip it over.

12. "Take the bottom right corner and fold it to the center."

13- 15.  "Fold all of the corners to the middle." This is a little harder that the last few steps since the paper is thicker now and a bit more difficult to fold. Be sure to get them to fold it well. Creases make it easier later.

16. "Fold the paper in half vertically so that all of the triangles are on the inside and you can see squares"

12. Fold to the center.

13. Fold to the center

17. "Unfold and fold it in half again this time horizontally"


18. This part takes a little finesse. At this point the best you can do is try to explain and then help the students that are struggling. "Put your fingers inside the squares" Some people do this differently. I've always had each finger get its own compartment except for the pinky which shares with the ring finger. It's easier to do this with their dominant hand.

19. "Now, spread your fingers out and get the paper to open a bit" This part can be tricky, but once students see others doing it they can usually find a method that works for them. If not, assign helpers.

14. Fold to the center.

15. Fold to the center.

20. "Enjoy making the paper move" Especially with younger students making the paper open and close is a tough motor skill. Have them practice and enjoy their handmade toy.

So there you go how to make a cootie catcher in 20 easy-ish steps! I have done this project with students as young as 5 years old. They struggled a bit with nice creases and I had to re-do some of them, but overall they did pretty well. My high school students realized what we were doing right away and whipped through this in about 10 minutes.

16. Fold in half

17. Fold in half again

I advise that you fold along with the students so they have an example.

I also suggest that you go around as they are folding to be sure everyone is on task. It is easy to rescue one mishap, but if you miss it when it happened it can be hard to figure out where they went wrong.

As you can see this activity can be adjusted to use more ordinal numbers, transition words, etc. I kept it simple by mainly using directions (left, right center) and shape words they should know.

18. Put your fingers inside

19. Pop the squares!

 What to do now? If you want to go straight into another activity, check out the Cootie Catcher Speaking activity for several variations appropriate for ever English level.

If you only had enough time for this activity today tell your students to put their names on it and save it for later.

This is one of the items I can be found making at banks when there are rowdy children. After, we use them as puppets. You could do this too in your class and decorate the "face" to tell a story.

Optional: My creature!

20. Practice moving

If you are studying body parts tell them to add, "12 eyes, 3 ears and 2 noses" to their creature and see what they end up creating. To the right you can see my 6 eyed, two tongued, purple haired creature (with a green nose of course).

Below you can see a few more professional options. If you'd like a creature prettier than my creature on the right, check out the Fortune Wookiee! If your students are still into story time read them Arthur and the Cootie catcher. This is a great story about not believing everything they hear (and then they can make their own), or (just to prove I am not crazy) there's a book designed to teach vocabulary using cootie catchers!

The possibilities are endless and I'd love to know how you use them in class!

5 little Pumpkins (family version)

A family of pumpkins sitting on a gate.
The mommy said, "Oh, my it's late!"
The daddy said, "I don't care!"
The sister said, "There are witches in the air!"
The brother said, "Let's run away!"
And the baby said, "Boo! It's Halloween. Yay!"
Then Whoooooosh... went the wind,
And out went the light!
And the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.

I know the original version is different (and great for ordinal numbers), but this was my Halloween adaptation when I taught preschoolers English(EFL for some ESL for others) in Spain.

If you aren't interested in my version and only came here looking for the original there are several books you can look into

Some people consider this a song, others a poem, and still others a fingerplay. I like to think of it as a song, but really it doesn't matter what you call it! If you aren’t familiar with it check out the YouTube video above the hand motions are great, and they LOVE the Boo!

My students ADORED it, and it was a fun review of family members. You could teach it several different ways, but this is what I did.

1.      We started class normally with the Hello song, and we reviewed our emotions (happy, hungry, sleepy, etc.). I introduced a new emotion, scared!

2.      We did quick flashcards of the family to review and I showed them the pumpkins. I asked which pumpkin was the baby? Which pumpkin was the mommy? Etc. Then we quickly cut out each pumpkin (by quickly I mean we cut out the pumpkins as squares, not as circles). Each student wrote their name on the back so the pumpkins didn’t get confused later (and to get them to practice their letters again).

3.      I drew a gate and a witch on the board and we learned the words.

4.      I said the five little pumpkins song and each time I said a family member I held up my pumpkin and had them hold up theirs.

5.      Then we repeated the song, line by line. I sang it, they repeated.

6.      I selected 5 students to be the pumpkins they would come up with one pumpkin family member and we would sing the song. They would hold their family pumpkin in their air when we said their part. (Repeat until all students who want to can come up to the class and be a pumpkin)
7.   As long as they enjoy the song and you have fun keep going! It is really great practice and repetition is key at this age.

8.      Review colors (What color is the sky? What color is a pumpkin? What color is grass?)

9.      For older (my four and five year olds) students they colored their pumpkins and then pasted them to the gate paper. My younger students (the three year olds) were divided, some cut, and some just colored a pre-made page (the last one in this packet)

10.  For fast finishers I also put a witch, some bats, some grass and the phrase, “Happy Halloween” that they can cut out and paste to the picture

Here are some sample worksheets should you choose to use them.

Five Little Pumpkins

This is another easy example of how to use something that already exists and tweak it for your class. You could change this to review animals (5 different animals sitting on a gate, the bird said etc.), colors (the blue one said), adjectives (the small one said), jobs (the doctor said), and SO MUCH MORE! Get creative, and use this song for whatever works best for you.

Have you tweaked a song and had it work for you? Or do you have another activity you like for the 5 little pumpkins? Let us know in the comments

I had the honor to guest blog a Springtime version of this read more about that http://eslcarissa.blogspot.com/2013/03/carissa-guest-blogging-efl-preschool.html