Family Shields & Castle Points

Throwback to Winter Camp, here are the awesome 3rd and 4th Grade family or team shields:

 

I was so impressed with how well each team worked together - truly collaborated - on their team shield. I've actually never seen anything like it. Each team did, but Team Student in particular spent a good half an hour in the planning stage. They had several sketches and and kept testing out different swatches of colored paper. I'm not positive but I guessed that they were inspired by the shield shape to turn make their shield into a pencil. It is a very clever design. 

Team Eagle chose their best drawer and, boy, was he talented. A third grader, he spent a lot of time on the beak. Getting the shape right was very important. His fellow teammates watched every stroke and discussed ways to improve the drawing the whole way through. Perfection was their goal. 

Team Dragon also chose their best drawer. They decided to work off of a picture, two of the boys holding the Samsung phone in the optimal position. A flurry of conversation occurred throughout the drawing process. The six of them then colored it in at the same time. I dunno why, but seeing them all hunched over their shield, coloring it in, made me feel really happy. 

Team Hamburger took a little prompting. They got stuck up on their team name. So, I asked them, "What do you like?" "Hamburger, Teacher." So they divvied up the shield and made it into what I thought was a food themed team shield. The man with his head cut off throws me. "Knife, Teacher, knife!" Yeah, they were particularly proud about the blood, which is red. 

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Finally, I wanted to talk about "Castle Points." Basically, a sticker was awarded for project completion and to the winners of the various games we played. This points system really helped them stay motivated and provided a  physical measure of all the work they did. And they really liked choosing the stickers to put on their team castles. The team with the most points would win a prize at the end of the week I promised. 

Of course, I stressed about what the prizes should be, because I just don't know what

kids like these days, especially Korean kids. Seriously, I did some looking online and ended up getting the following:

1. Small lego sets (1,500 won each)
2. Sticker sheets (1,500 won each)
3. Big eraser that had "MELON" written on it (1,400 won)
4. BIC wite-out pen (2,000 won)
5. Individually wrapped chocolate cakes

They went crazy for the legos and stationary stuff. I wasn't sure they'd like any of it, but they were all about the legos. There was a moment of hesitation for one student who couldn't decide between a lego set or the BIC whit-out pen, but he went with the legos. They opened the sets and put them together immediately. And the class was small enough that I allowed the other teams to choose the leftover prizes, which was fine by them. "Teacher, very very thank you!" Worth every penny, or won. The chocolate cakes were the only prize left untouched. //

Winter Camp 2014

As part of my contract, I am required to teach a two-week English Winter and Summer Camp. What does this mean? Basically, it means anything I want it to mean. No Korean co-teacher and no guidelines whatsoever from the school, I have three hours with 17 to 20 students each day. My camps are divided by grade: the first week I had the 5th and 6th graders and the second week I had the 3rd and 4th graders. 

My main goal for Winter Camp was for the kids to have fun. They are here on their winter break and my perspective on this whole situation is that they will be learning English through the need to communicate with me. I'm really pushing them to speak in complete sentences when asking me for something (bathroom, more tape, teacher snack!). My other goals revolve around trying as many games/activities as I can, seeing what they like. One of my friends blogged that her co-teacher saw games as an opportunity for the students to learn about American culture - what games do they play in America? I liked that a lot. 

When brainstorming ideas for my Winter Camp, I thought back to my elementary school days and legitimately got excited when I remembered: castles. ALL of the kids play minecraft and the new animated film Frozen has been screenshotted on phones like crazy. Theme decided!

Camp Theme: Castles (What is a castle? / Castle Parts / Who lives in a castle?)

Camp Grades: 5th-6th (Week One), 3rd-4th (Week Two)

Camp Schedule:

9:30AM-10:15AM – Warm Up Activity & Intro PPT’s

10:30AM-11:15AM – Snack & Main Project

11:30AM-12:15PM – Game

Main Projects

1. Family Shields

2. Make your own Castle

3. Make you own Catapult
4. Protect the Princess (Egg Drop)

Notes: The level of collaboration on the family shields was amazing. They really worked well together, coming up with shield designs and dishing out who would do what. I started them with, "What to you like?" to give them ideas (favorite animal, color, food, sport, game). We started the castle building making a paper tower together as a class. This got them past the "how" phase and the motivation was impressive. Materials included paper, lightweight cardboard, and other recyclables. The catapults (built from chopsticks, rubber bands, and paper) brought some technical frustrations but they loved shooting things across the room. The egg drop designs were really innovative and a lot of tape was used.

Warm Up Activities

1. Paper Airplane Name Game

2. Hidden Picture Game

3. Zip-Zap-Zop Game

4. Balloon Man (Hangman) VocabGame

5. Make a Thunderstorm (rub hands together, snap fingers, hit thighs, bang tables)

6. Human Knot (don't hold hands with the person next to you, untangle)

7. Penguin Race (ball between knees, tag-team race)

8. Blind Obstacle Course (giving directions vocab)

Notes: The hidden picture game was a huge success. A powerpoint game (PPT), an image is slowly revealed and they have to guess what it is (vocabulary review). 

Games

1. Touch and Go Game - Two teams start at opposite ends naming vocab; when they meet, "kawi-bawi-bo" or "rock, paper, scissors"! (See below) 

2. Bomb Games

3. Zombie Tag

4. Blind Pictionary - vocab practice (draw without looking)

5. Game board – review (make your own game pieces, roll a dice and move)

6. Scrabble/Bananagrams – spell as many English words as you can

7. 3-6-9 (numbers and counting game

Notes: They went absolutely bananas for the touch and go game and the bomb games.

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All of the main projects and games (especially the touch and go game -- they didn't want to stop playing) took 20 minutes longer than I thought. I put them to work the first four days, crafting all they did, so I felt like a Friday Movie Day was justified. We went with Disney-Pixar's Brave. Teaching them some basic film vocabulary (characters, setting, plot), I was happy with the small discussion. The sixth graders had learned about Scotland during the year ("In Scotland, men wear kilts on special days."), so that was a nice tie in for them. 

Winter Camp 2014

Finished!