Korean Job Discussion Forums

[refikaM]

Hi..I've been asked (told) by my elementary school that I shall plan/implement its two weekend English camps. I've taught at a few (middle school) but have never had to put one together entirely by myself (who has?!). I'm trying to think of themes that would work well with elementary kids, so if someone has participated in a camp with a particular theme that was enjoyable/successful, could you please share? Thanks bunches!

[nomad-ish]

circus?

[politica]

International theme:
Have the students learn about different countries/continents. Learn about cuisine, dress, customs, holidays, etc. Have students do an imaginery country project in groups (they create their own country- people, laws, etc.)

Foods:
Learn about the food pyramid and different types of food- groups and ethnic foods. Learn food language (sweet, spicy, etc.). Do a restaurant and/or grocery store role-play.

Dr. Seuss:
Read "The Cat in the Hat" and learn about rhyming.
Read "One fish Two fish Red fish Blue fish" and learn about opposites.
(I have a lot of worksheets and games for this theme if you're interested)

Fairytales/Cinderella:
Read four versions of Cinderella in class- The American, The Korean, The Egyptian, and The Russian. (I have copies if you need them) Then break the students into groups and have each group role-play one of the stories. Vote on the best performance.

I have more ideas, these are just off the top of my head. PM me if you need anymore.

politica

[karri]

the superhero project went well at all my summercamps last year. We watched the incredaibles.

Talked about super powers

Then made our own superheros/villians.

your can get tonnes of stuff for it on www.mes-english.com

I think for winter we are going to make our own towns.

[sojourner1]

I just found out last Wednesday I needed to have a 2 week Winter camp curriculum completed by last Friday which I lacked information to be able to do it. I need to know how many students, ages, theme (if any yet), goal of camp,facility, and materials are available. I asked, but was given a contact email for the coordinator who fails to respond to my emails.

Just what exactly is submitting a curriculum on such short notice with insufficient info about the camp? I guess this means no support or information the coordinator should know and tell me about since he knows where it's going to be held, who's going, and what facility and materials are available. I was told it's 2 weeks in January for 4 hours a day.

I'm assuming it means I need to plan activities and lessons to fill the time, a theme, goals, and printed certificates, but I'm not sure what the facility has and what materials, if any, are there. My Summer camps already had curriculum, materials, and adequate facilities provided so I was clear on what to do. Plus, I was told details weeks before such as age, number, and schedules. Even the class scheduling was done by our English coordinator, whom now is asking me to develop a curriculum for this other camp in less than 2 days time with no support. I could use the currilum of that Summer camp, but it requires booths and materials as it's English village with booths along with outdoor games like badminton and basketball. I'm assuming, no snowman building and snow ball fights will be allowed for fear the kids will get cold and sick as Koreans are very cautious about excessively cold and hot weather.

Any ideas? Since I've never taught a Winter camp and never designed A curriculum for one, I don't have this in my inventory. I'd hate to have to reinvent the wheel. I'm not finding much on this forum other than people worried about getting jobs, airfare, and money subjects, except this thread talks about teaching about different nations, cultures, foods, etc. These great ideas, except the lack of materials availability. (Most useful things are available only in Seoul) Not sure if it's feasable or doable to get them do go on a shopping run to Seoul.

[Perceptioncheck]

Sojourner - I just typed out a MASSIVE reply and then somehow managed to delete it. So here's take two. . .

The lack of information certainly does suck. I was in the same position with my summer camp this year; I had no idea of numbers/budget/students level, all of which I feel are fairly important when making lesson plans.

Seeing as you don't know your budget, why not just rely on printed resources? There are heaps and heaps of these on the web. As another poster suggested www.mes-english.com is a great site. I also used the superhero project and it easily took up a whole day. Teach the vocab, play a few games to reinforce it and then get the kids to make their own superhero, name it and write a story about it. The lesson plan on mes-english can easily be tweaked to suit different levels and they have other projects which are basically print and go; Eigomon worked well for me last year, and the design-your-own themepark and design-your-own-restaurant look good; they can easily be adjusted to suit different levels and you only need a printer to make it work.

Crafts are another idea if you don't know/don't have a budget. http://www.kizclub.com has some easy to prepare crafts that are probably better suited to lower levels (the phonics worm is great for kids who are just beginning to suss out reading) but it also has a links page which is quite useful.

Good luck.

[some waygug-in]

Here's a site that looks useful for kid's craft ideas:

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/

I haven't decided what to do yet, I'm thinking of a different theme for each day, maybe day 1- native Americans day, making teepees, canoes etc.
Day 2 dinosaur day, learn about dinosaurs and then make a dinosaur park with aluminum-foil sculptures.

My co-teacher keeps changing things on me, so I don't know for sure what I'm going to finally come up with.