Hello everyone!

This week was fun but wet. Class time was a lot longer due to rain and the kids were not able to have breaks outside as they usually do, so it was challenging to help them release energy and concentrate in a small space. I decided them to have more games to practice what we’ve learned so far and fewer new concepts, that way the kids had more fun and felt less pressured.

Monday we celebrated Valentines Day. I told them that in Chile it is friendship day. We talked about popular gifts and played charades practicing with the vocabulary (eg: A chimpanzee giving a card to a giraffe). We also drew Valentines vocabulary, labeled them and then answered questions, comparing the objects with the descriptive vocabulary we learned last week. I also want to thank J.J.’s family for bringing us delicious cupcakes!

On Tuesday  we played. During circle time, we talked about likes and dislikes. I taught the kids Gracias, a game similar to Go fish, in which players ask for the card that matches the one they have. Once it is given to them, they must say gracias, if not, the rest of the players can accuse them of forgetting to be polite by saying ¡no dijo gracias! (you didn’t say thank you!). We also played guess the object, a game the kids really enjoy in which they have to ask certain questions in order for the group to give them answers on which they will base their guesses and recognize the secret object. We finished the day with a story two kids, who followed the sun and the moon. They were lonely but during an eclipse they met and became friends.

On Wednesday, we played Guess the character, similar to Guess the object, but with different questions. We did a short Ms. Cata dice (Simon says). The best game was Bingo, with a twist. We practiced the past weeks’ vocabulary but, instead of saying sentences with the vocabulary, one student took them out of the bag, acted them out and had the rest of the group call out loud the vocabulary word. While they looked for them on their cards, I asked questions.

On Thursday I brought my mom into class to meet the kids. It’s her first time in San Francisco and the perfect occasion for the kids to practice spontaneous speech. I introduced them to my mom and told them they would have time to interview her. I brought written questions on cards for them to read if they didn’t feel comfortable asking on their own. The 8 minutes I had allotted to the activity quickly doubled. I was so proud hearing them asking questions, many of them I had not thought of myself. It was really cute to see them genuinely interested in asking and predicting what answers they were going to get. Afterward, we played Cranium. At the end of the class I gave them the end of the week notes. This time, I handed them out with the following dialogue:

Me: ¡Ha llegado carta! (A letter has arrived!)

Kids: ¿Para quién? (For who?)

Me: Para -name-. (For -name-)

Kids: ¿Qué dice? (What does it say?)

I read the short messages one at a time. We finished class with a story called Lili la gritona (Lily the loudmouth), about a young hippo who can’t keep her voice down and get grounded constantly for it. In the end, she realizes it’s sometimes ok to be loud: she is part of a theatre play and her talent is appreciated by her audience.

Have a great weekend.