Halloween fun

Halloween is one of those special days young learners love in the English classroom.  Following some of the popular Halloween traditions (coming to the class disguised as zombies, skeletons, witches, spiders etc or playing trick or treat) is always fun for both teachers and students. Decorating the class with Halloween stuff is also another good option. This year I decided to ......excitement by having students  do some crafting while listening to Halloween songs. Below you can see some of our crafts which turned into beautiful decorations.

Halloween treats

Bat decorations

    

Jack o' Lanterns

http://englishflashgames.blogspot.gr/2010/10/halloween-game.html

Learning the digraphs

This is  a very nice poster I use with junior classes after I have introduced the consonant digraphs /ch/,  /ph/, /sh/, /th/. Students need a lot of practice  in recognizing these letter combinations in the new words they learn and in pronouncing them correctly. What I've done is  divide the poster into five different columns so that I have one column for each consonant digraph.  The students' task is simple. Every time they learn a new word containing the digraphs, they have to write it under the correct column. For example, chair goes under the /ch/ column.
Students just love rushing to the board  to add to the list everytime we come accross a new word  in the book. Discovery raises motivation. However, if you don't want the students moving around continuously, you can ask one of them or a group of them (in case of a large class) to go through the pages you have covered from the book at the end of the lesson and make a list of the words with digraphs. He or she can dictate the words to another student to locate them into the correct column.

A similar poster can be used for vowel digraphs.

P.S  Don't forget to use different colours for different vowel and consonant dipthongs. Colours always help categorization.

Star system for rewarding students

The idea of rewarding students (especially the younger ones) with stickers is not new. However, I've recently discovered those lovely grids which can be perfectly used as reward cards. Each student has his/her own card and he/she gets one star for doing homework. Whoever fills the grid in first is the lucky winner!

Reward cards

Tips for shy students

Every class has students who play certain roles.  You have your class clown, your queen bee - the one everyone wants to be friends with, a rebel without a cause, shy students, plus a few other roles.  When I went through my training in undergrad, I was taught strategies to use with discipline problems,  gifted students,  English as a Second Language Learners, but I don't remember having a professor discuss ways to meet the needs of shy children.

Shy students were always a welcome addition to my class.  Probably because I had plenty of Chatty Cathy's in my class, so a few quiet ones help balance out the noise level.  There are a few things I've found through the years that helped my shy students come out of their shell:

*BEGINNING OF THE DAY:  Greet them when they come in the room with a simple, "Good Morning!"  Do not ask them questions, get in their personal space, or push them to talk to you.  For very shy children, it will be baby steps.  They may acknowledge your greeting by shaking their head, smiling at you, making eye contact, and eventually whispering hello.  It is a slow process.  Give them time to warm up to you.

*COOPERATIVE LEARNING: During cooperative learning activities, pair shy students with students who are a little bit more outgoing.  But do not pair them with a student who is over-the-top outgoing.  These students will overwhelm your shy ones. 

*FOSTERING FRIENDSHIPS:  Ask shy students to run errands for you at the beginning of the year and send them with a buddy.  These quick trips give them a few minutes to get to know a buddy and hopefully make a new friend. 

*LUNCH & RECESS:  With primary grades, the first few weeks of school, we draw names out of the bucket.  I have a bucket of boy names and a bucket of girl names. I draw 2 names out at a time. These 2 students are buddies for 2 days.  They sit by each other at lunch and play together at recess.  They can play with other buddy pairs, but they have to stay together for 2 days.  Every other day I would draw names again.  By the end of two weeks, each student has been a buddy with 5 students.  Hopefully, they will "click" with  one of the five students that they have been paired with.  **Please note:  I draw two names, I do not draw one name and let a student choose a buddy.  We've all had an experience once or twice in our life when we were the last one chosen.  Why give your students that experience? 

*INSTRUCTION TIME:  Call on shy students when they either raise their hand or when you know the subject is their strength.  Overtime, they will build confidence by sharing when they have the correct answer and take more risks to share during other lessons.

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