4ever Discovering
Semester 2 is Underway: I am Still Alive
Back at it again with the kiddies!
After a much needed 3 week vacation, it is safe to say we are getting back into a routine in the classroom. I was a little worried at first; after 3 weeks of no school, I wasn’t sure how the kids were going to be when they got back in the classroom. I was afraid they would forget all of our routines, and come back with a lot of energy. I’m not going to lie, I was a little nervous on the first day back. But don’t get me wrong, I was excited to see all of my students! I was coming back into the classroom refreshed, and with a new mindset. I have my goals I want to accomplish in the classroom this semester, and I feel like with a lot of hard work I will be able to make it happen. Perseverance is key!
Surprisingly enough, my first day back went flawlessly. I have never seen the students so well behaved. Maybe they were a little nervous coming back too; I had their undivided attention for the whole period. I was so impressed! Unfortunately, my friends, all good things come to an end. My amazing class lasted almost two full days until they started to remember their old ways. Let me just tell you, that was two days of PEACE. If everyday was like those ones, I wouldn’t have any stress in my life. But, that’s what makes my class so special; I love their little quirky ways. It would get boring if the class was perfect. I like to be kept on my toes (some days lol).
We all decided it was best if we kept the first week back as a review week. We don’t know how big these kids attention spans are (some days, I don’t even think they have any), so we wanted them to have an easy transition back into semester 2. Like I said before, the first couple of days were awesome. Then, I think the students began to realize they knew everything we were reviewing and became bored. The amount of times I heard students say ‘Miss L, we already know this!’ was ridiculous. I had to go over the word ‘review’ with them A LOT. The worst part about the first week back was the fact is was a 6 DAY WEEK. That’s right, when it rains, it pours. Because we were having another holiday at the end of the month, we needed to make up an extra day of work. It was all fine and dandy, but it didn’t necessarily make for the nicest way to return to work. Talk about easing our way back into things.
After our week of review, we finally began our fifth unit: My 5 Senses. This was a really interesting unit to teach because it let us take some of our learning outside the classroom. It’s hard to explain to an ESL student why we need our 5 senses. It was hard for the students to imagine what their lives would be like if they didn’t have their eyesight, or their hearing. One of the biggest struggles teaching these young kids is how to make a connection with your daily life. In Canada, most of our teaching is inquiry-based. We have the students explore for themselves, making their own connections to the curriculum. Here, I find the students are not always able to see the bigger picture of the lesson. They don’t make the connection between the content being taught and why it is important to learn about it. However, I need to cut them some slack because they are only 10 years old, trying to learn a new language. Once they master their basic English skills, then they can begin to make more meaningful connections. For now, I will still try to make them think about the content, but I cannot expect them to be geniuses. I will wait for the day where the light bulb finally goes off (hopefully soon!).
​
Teaching about our 5 senses really brought up some cool lesson plans. We spent about one week on each sense, mainly focusing on adjectives to describe how something looks, sounds, feels, tastes, and smells. I think this is probably the most new vocabulary the students have learned yet. They now use the word ‘delicious’ instead of ‘yummy’, and ‘disgusting’ instead of ‘yucky’. I told my students they aren’t in grade 1, I want them to use bigger words. It took about one day until they finally caught on. I don’t know about my students, but I know I’m tired of saying the word ‘describe’ (they are probably sick of hearing it). This whole unit was focused around describing using our senses. If we didn’t have one sense, how would we be able to know what something was using our other senses. For the most part, I think the students have mastered their new adjectives and can describe something like it’s their day job. They just wrote their test, and it has to be the most successful one yet for all of my students. THE IMPROVEMENTS ARE EVIDENT PEOPLE.
Some of the neat activities I got to do with my kids was take them on a ‘nature walk’ to the basketball court. I wasn’t venturing too far with them; when you give these kids an inch, they take a mile. I wanted them to describe something they saw, heard, tasted, touched, and smelled when they were outside. We focused on the past tense with this activity. It was awesome to see the students outside of the classroom, with all of their smiling faces. This is definitely a non-traditional Taiwanese way of teaching. The students probably didn’t even realize they were learning something; they were just so excited to get out of the classroom. The funniest part was when I told them they had to taste something. I told them to be adventurous, but not crazy. Most students opted to taste flowers and leaves. I’m not sure if they were edible or not, but none of my kids have been reported sick since then. There was actually one leaf that was called the ‘chicken’ leaf, and actually tasted like chicken. That was a revelation for my grade 3’s, and many of their papers said ‘I tasted a delicious, chicken leaf’. At least they still described it!
Along with our nature walk, the students created a ‘5 Senses’ book for their culminating task. They had to write about each of their senses and why they are important. Going back to the whole ‘making connections’ part of teaching, this is where I wanted to really test my kids. Of course I had the answers where they wrote ‘my eyes are important because they help me see’. Well, duh. But then, I had some students think a little harder and write ‘my eyes are important because they help me see my mom smile’. It just melts my heart. They are getting there, slowly but surely.
We also had two fun art projects this unit. The first one was cutting out their handprint and writing what 5 textures they like to feel. Emily and I went out shopping and bought different household items that feel bumpy, rough, smooth, soft, and hard. The students had to choose a different texture for each finger, and glue a piece of it on to make it look like a fingernail. The next one we did was choosing a food we like to eat and describing it using our 5 senses. What does the food look like, sound like, feel like, taste like, and smell like. I think the hardest part for this activity was deciding what a food sounds like. I haven’t finished marking them yet, but I’m curious to see what they wrote. Sometimes I find it best to let the students go wild with their art, and then I can see just how creative they can really be. You never want to limit your students’ creativity!
Coming back from the Chinese New Year vacation was really eye-opening to me as a teacher. With those 3 weeks off from school, I wasn’t sure how the students were going to react coming back into the classroom. I was afraid it was going to be just like the beginning of the school year; I thought I would need to reteach them the routines and rules. To my surprise, the students have a lot better memory than I expected they would have. After those 3 weeks holiday, I found I was able to take a step back and really see how much my students have improved. Since I wasn’t seeing them every day, I could really tell the difference in their abilities when we returned. It was like starting fresh; however, this time they were a little more advanced. Part of me wants to stay next year and continue with my students, just so I can continue to grow with them. I want to see each of my kids succeed; some may not excel this year, but I know their time is coming. Patience is so vital in the classroom. I hope to continue to see my kids improve, and hopefully I can learn more about myself as a teacher in the process. With only three more units left, we are really running out of time!