Thanksgiving.

Hi !

Happy Thanksgiving everyone !

Yesterday it was a holiday – Thanksgiving Day. This year for the first time I told to my students about this holiday. Well, I can’t say that didn’t know about this holiday at all, but this year we kinda celebrated it. Firstly, I asked them about the date – I wanted them to say something like “Oh! It’s a holiday today”. And they said that, but they couldn’t name it. So I remind them the name of the holiday. And we listened a song called The Turkey Song and we completed the text of the song.

Then, we tried to write a message for all the turkeys and apologize and prevent them. Next, we did a paper turkey and finally we sang a song from the cartoon Winnie the Pooh about friends. The lesson was friendly and nice.

At the end of the lesson we thanked each other.

And that you for reading me !

Famous disabled people.

Hello everyone!

Today with Challenges group we were talking about disabled people. And I brought some information about famous disabled people. It was exciting for them to know about Beethoven, Stevie Wonder and Walt Disney. And we listened to the music of Beethoven and songs of Stevie Wonder.

Now, I want you to listen.

Beethoven-Moonlight Sonata (Mvt. 1)





Beethoven is the great German composer and musician who was deaf at the later part of his life. In his early life he was famous as a pianist. He got the primary knowledge of music from his father, Johann van Beethoven who was a musician in the electoral court. He has some mysterious power which led him to create famous composes one after another. He went Vienna and learned many things from some of the prominent musicians. After his age of 28, he started becoming deaf and his personal life was not so peaceful. He composed many piano Sonatas such as Waldstein, Appassionata etc.

Stevland Hardaway Morris ( born May 13, 1950), known by his stage name Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and activist. Blind since shortly after birth, Wonder signed with Motown's Tamla label at the age of eleven, and continues to perform and record for Motown to this day.

Good evening!

Today I had an exciting lesson with Challenges! We celebrated Halloween. Some of kids are newcomers in our school, so I wanted to show them that in we have English traditions and we celebrate English holidays. I prepared a short text about Halloween that we have read. Then we did a quiz according to the test. After that we watched the presentation about the holiday and again we did a short vocabulary quiz. Next, we did some extra tasks, and we finished the lesson with watching The Halloween Tree and crafting witches and gargoyles. And! For the FIRST TIME in my life I did a Jack-o`-lantern! It was amazing! Now it’s protecting our classroom from the evil spirits.




The Halloween Tree (1993) Part 3

Good evening!

Today I had a lesson with Challenges. Last time we wrote a half of a teat. So today we were analyzing the mistakes, we wrote the second part of it. Then we started the first module of the book. This module is about challenges. I tried to explain to my students what a challenge is and I asked them what they can do. Well, I will tell you this Thursday if they understood me well.




Also, as it’s Halloween eve, we tried to watch The Halloween Tree, but there was something wrong with the Internet connection, so I hope to watch it next time.




Do you watch it with us?

Hi !

Yesterday, I had a lesson with Challenges. We were talking about appearance.
And! As Halloween is coming, we started to watch an old Halloween cartoon called The Halloween Tree (1993). Watch with us!


The Halloween Tree (1993) Part 1

Hello!

Today I had a lesson with Challenges. During the lesson we were revising classroom objects and determiners this, that, these, those.

We played a very easy, but useful game. I wrote the name of a school subject on the board – PHYSICAL EDUCATON. Students had to create as many words as they can from all the letters used in this word. Time – 5 min. Their list was quite short, so I added my words as well. Do you want to play? How many words will you create from PHYSICAL EDUCATION? I’ll write my words tomorrow ;)

As for determiners – we did the dialogues (e.g. what colour is that door? – that door is white); I just asked them to name as many objects that they see; we learned a small chant:

This, that, these, those.

Snap your fingers, touch your nose.

This, that, those, these.

Shrug your shoulders, bend your knees.

Are you sure you know how to use it? Test yourself online! That was easy? Try this one!

Have a great week! Anna K.

Hi !

Today I had a lesson with Challenge group. We had 2 newcomers – a boy and a girl.

Our topic was about school subjects, we were revising time and days of the week. We played time battleship game. It's the same game of battleship, but instead of letters and numbers we had days of week and time. On the top you write the time and on the left side - days of the week, and you play! E.g.: three o'clock on Monday? – Miss! / Hit! / Sunk!

You can revise you knowledge in telling time with this picture: 

Practice! What time is it? – It's …   

   

Answers: it's six o'clock; it's twenty four past ten; it's thirteen to six; it's twenty four past three; it's twenty seven to two; it's three past five; it's eight to seven; it's twenty eight to one; it's three past nine.

What are/were your three favorites subjects at school? Do you remember? Literature, physics and computer science were mine favorites. What about you?

Yours, Anna K.

Hello!

Сегодня я работала с двумя группами. Первая группа Challenges, где учатся дети от 8 до 11 лет. С некоторыми детьми я работаю второй год, но также в группе есть и новички – дети, которые только в этом году присоединились (и продолжают присоединяться) к нам. Основной состав группы – 6 человек, из которых трое уже второй год изучают английский в нашем центре.

So my lesson today was about classroom objects – we were revising last year's knowledge. Also we revised the countries and nationalities vocab and we played with prepositions of place. 

I don't want to be boring during the lesson, so I took a ball and stick the names of the countries on it. I throw a ball to one of my students and they pick a country and they have to tell its nationality; e.g. UK – British, Italy – Italian, etc. Then the student throws that ball to another one and so the game goes on. 

How do we play with classroom objects? We played 3 different games!

1. I name the classroom object and they have to touch it. It can be a competition (check who is faster), but I prefer my students just to move around the classroom. They have fun!
2. I keep a word of an object in my mind and they have to guess it using questions like “is it on the wall?” or “is it next to the window?”. They really like to read my mind!
3. It's kind of “snowball” game. First student starts with “there are 6 chairs in our classroom”, the next one says “there are 6 chairs and 2 big desks in our classroom”. Each student has to continue and I finish this activity by repeating all that they have said and adding my own object.

We did some more activities with naming classroom objects, but I want to mention one more about prepositions of place. I like moving my students. So I tell them “listen to me and do what I say”. And I start “under the table”, and the move under the table. “Behind the door” – and they go out of class. “In the classroom” – they come in. that way we revise propositions of place.

You can check your knowledge of classroom objects and/or prepositions of place.

Enjoy! Anna K.