Teaching... again

If you are not a teacher, or are completely bored by the whole idea of teaching, you might want to stop reading. However, if you are a teacher, have a passion for teaching, or are my mom, you might be interested... so read on.

Today I taught a brilliant lesson (I feel ok about bragging right now because I don't often make this claim) to my little guys- 1st through 3rd graders.

We 'travel' to different Spanish speaking countries. First was Spain, and now we are in Chile. We started our trip by talking about the season and weather of Chile right now which made them excited to learn weather and seasons vocabulary. Then we made a packing list and studied clothing vocabulary.

We had a short and sweet 14 hour plane ride and I showed them pictures of what they would see as we landed in Santiago. We then got to our hostel and as we went to each new place throughout the first day we saw pictures of the actual place and found it on a city map I printed from the internet. They marked their maps and the route we would take throughout the day.

When it was lunchtime we went to an outdoor market with artisan souvenirs and restaurants. I showed them pictures of typical Chilean meals, described them, and told them how much they would cost. I had given them a budget of 10,000 pesos at the beginning of the day... the equivalent of $20. So with lunch they got to learn numbers in the hundreds and thousands, as well as some Spanish food.

Then came souvenir shopping. Luckily I served my mission in Chile so I had plenty of 'realia'... jewelry, stuffed toys, bookmark, mate bombilla and straw, change purses, collector's spoon, keychain. I had the name of each souvenir printed on one side and the price on the other. I showed them the item, said its name, had them look for it in the cards laid out, and had them say the price in Spanish. When all the realia was out with its label and price on it they got to 'go shopping'. They wrote their purchases on the back of their packing lists so they could keep track of their budget.

It's amazing how much more exciting the students are about learning when it's real life situations. And it's so much more fun to teach. Basically, I plan on teaching any new vocabulary while we're on a trip to one of these new countries. And hopefully figuring out how to include grammar in our travels.

Love days like these. I felt like I had them more often in the last couple of years in Virginia and have just been trying to find my groove at this new school and with my new age groups and teaching environment... maybe finding the groove is just around the corner:)