Job Discussion Forums

[e.alice]

Well.. thanks in part to some of the great advice I have gotten on the forum I have settled on a job teaching at a bilingual private school. I will be teaching 5-year olds and I am told that the school will be providing all of the material that I need but.. I feel strange coming empty handed and I was wondering if there is anything that anyone might recommend that I bring with me from the states. If I remember right some strange things were kind of expensive in Mexico like markers, paper etc. or maybe I am remembering incorrectly. So.. anything that you think would make my life easier to bring I would love to hear about.

[moonraven]

I have never taught tiny children, so am surely no expert, but maybe you could bring some games? We made some games for 4 and 5 year olds for use in Harmon Hall's summer program a number of years ago--and the kids soon had good recognition of letters and numbers....and said them in English.

[Gringo Greg]

I taught young children(3,4,5) for two years before moving up to primary school students. I teach in Thailand, but these are items are universal.Here are some things that I wish I had.

1) Flashcards, a good variety depicting vocabulary words. Great for games. They have them here in Thailand, but the price and variety is cheaper back home.

2) Children's music, it is very easy to find in the states, but the quality and availablity is poor outside of the US.

3) Reading and Writing books for k,1,2,3 aged students...you know those books that are used after school. Just one of each because you can make copies of them.

4) Little golden books. It is fun to read stories to the students but finding good English children's stories can be difficult at times.

I don't know how many of these items your school has, but the truth is that unless it is an international school/wellfunded, they can never have enough of these materials.

I wish I could offer Mexico specific advice, but I hope this helps.

Greg

[saraswati]

With small children, you are usually given more latitude as to what you can include in your curriculum. A resource book I found invaluable is 365 Days of Creative Play. It has a number of ideas for hands-on activities that you can combine with language acquisition.

Good luck!

[amelie]

I've pondered the same question since I will be teaching kinder this fall in Puebla. I am an early childhood teacher here in Canada, so I'm having trouble limiting the things I'm bringing because I don't want a whole suitcase of books. This year, I subscribed to a website called readingatoz. They have leveled readers (mini books) to print out. The books range from level a= pre kinder to z= grade 5 level. It also has running records for assessment. I decided that if my school does not have access to leveled readers or if english stories are in short supply, at least I will have the ability to print off these high quality books (and my suitcase won't be crammed). The membership is $30 for 6 mo. or $50 for a year. But you can save the books to a disk, so the 6mo. would be plenty. I DO know I have access to a computer and printer. Aside from this, I'm bringing a couple teaching resources that I can't part with.

The director at my school said that there is a textbook for kinder, which I thought was odd, so I guess I just have to wait and see what they want me to teach. I can also find a tonne of thematic stuff on the Internet.

Good luck!

Amelie

[MELEE]

In addition to the other good suggestions,

Bring Blu-Tak The re-useable sticky stuff for putting things on the walls.

A Kitchen timer with a loud buzzer, great for turning any activity into a game. The wind up ones don't take batteries, but tend to be difficult to set for short periods of time, some of the digital ones can be set for less than a minute.

If you aren't going to be provided with a computer and a printer, I'd seriously consider bringing one. There are LOADS of printable activities for kids on the internet, my favorite site is ReadingA-Z.com which has printable little books that the kids can put to gether and color and then learn to read. The start from just vocabulary through about the third grade level and they have Spanish ones as well as English. There are several "free" books for each level, but maybe you could talk to the school about paying for a subcription to give the whole school access to hundreds of printable books.

[MixtecaMike]

I'll second the vote for Blutack and kids music. And if you have space, a handful of Little Golden Books.

You can easily download popular songs off the internet, but straight out kiddies songs can be very difficult to find.

And Oreo cookies, the Mexican Oreos are several percent thinner than the gringo ones.