Information about our activities on June 30

Today we talked about several things. First, we discussed possible search terms for finding lesson materials online. We talked about changing the Google language settings to English to search for more resources in English. We also shared ideas for search terms. For example, if you want to teach young children various verbs, you can search for

esl children verb
esl children verb song
esl children verb game

Or, if you want to search for a different age group, add a search term:

esl elementary children verb
esl elementary children verb song
esl elementary children verb worksheet


Then we looked at some ideas for teaching vocabulary for colors to young children. We looked at a video that introduces a song by Super Simple Learning: I See Something Blue...

Then we watched a video of a teacher using the song with young children:

It's a good, basic song that you can use to keep children active while they are learning the target language. Super Simple Learning also has another song in the same form that teaches more colors. Click to see the page about I See Something Pink

The concepts in these songs can be practiced in games outlined on this web page.

(The following information has been copied from the web page)

Color Game: This is a good one for teaching the names of colors to young children. Arrange various colors of construction paper in a circle. Play some music and have the children march around the circle. Stop the music and all the children must sit down next to a color. Pick a color and sing (to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"): 

Who's beside the color (insert name of color)? 

Please stand up, if it's you. 

At that point, the child next to the color mentioned stands up. Continue until all of the children get a turn.

Color Circles: A good activity for young kids.  Get some pieces of A3 paper and draw a large circle on each one.  Pin the circles on different walls in the classroom.  Model the activity: Say "Blue", take a blue crayon, walk over to one circle and color a small part of the circle.  Do this for each color you plan to teach.  Then, say a color ("Blue") to a S and s/he should pick up the blue crayon and go over to the circle you colored in blue.  Let him/her color it a little and then call him/her back.  Continue with other Ss.

Finally, for older children -- elementary school age, perhaps -- you can see a useful lesson plan on this web page. The writer does not include a sample handout / worksheet, so I made one that you can use and modify as you like. Click HERE to download the handout. You can change the handout to match the colors and shapes you wish to teach.

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Next Meetings

We decided that our next meeting will be July 14, and the last meeting before summer vacation will be July 28.

Links to activities from our meeting on June 16

It was great to see everyone today! We got into some ACTIONS and learned some games for teaching action verbs to children.

First I gave everyone a print that includes some useful verb cards. Click HERE to go to the website where that came from. As we discussed, pictures are a great way to communicate with children, especially those who cannot read yet.

We discussed 4 different activities to do with these cards #1, 2 and 3 are explained on the site with the verb cards):

1. The gesture game
2. Simon Says (the "Please" game that we talked about in our first meeting)
3. The timed race game
4. A song that uses several of the verbs found on the cards

You can see a video of the song on YouTube:

And, as it says below the video, you can get a free download of the song by clicking HERE to go to the Dream English Kids website.

See you next time -- June 30!

Links to activities introduced on June 2

Today we talked about activities that you enjoyed when you were first learning English. We talked about pop music songs... here is the CLEAN version of the song my daughter's teacher introduced in her English class:

We looked again at the Genki English website and heard a song for kids to use to learn the expressions "What's your name?" and "My name is ____". Click HERE to visit the Genki English page where you can hear a demo of the song and read the words.

We also watched a teacher in Argentina practice the expressions in the song using a play microphone, then do the song with the kids, including actions. Here is the video:

Finally, we watched a Genki English training video that introduces the stopwatch game, which can be used with these expressions or any others:

Next activity

I'm sorry for late information. As you know, we will have meetings on Mondays in the first and third week, and tomorrow is Monday in the first week! We have no homework, so see you then everyone!

Through the second meeting...

Hello everyone, my name is Yukie. I'm a third grade student, and it was nice to see you on May 19. We hold our second meeting on the day. Through this meeting, I learned a lot of things, for example,  how to teach useful phrases by using songs or games. I also learned that to repeat the phrases is so important. Children love to have fun! It is the same as us, isn't it?

The second meeting on May, 19

The second meeting was held on May 19, 2014.
Thanks for coming,everyone! Our leader Megumi was sick in bed though.

In this time, Ms. Provenzano taught us two songs and a game! Click here, and the people who couldn't join us the day can understand the lesson.