Amazing Animal Winter Camps

The cupid shuffle video was a preview of the last two weeks at Dun Won Elementary School's English Winter Camp. The first week was spent with about twenty 3rd and 4th graders and with about twenty 5th graders the second week.  I wish that I could spend this kind of time with all of my students.  By the end of the week I could tell that the kids felt a lot more comfortable around me.  Unfortunately, time and money just don't permit it.  Camp required a lot more work and preparation than a normal school day, but it was a lot of fun and I'm really sad to see it go.  I could do those kind of lesson's everyday.

So with winter camp finished I have a lot of free time. I'm among the few teachers that don't have to desk warm during winter vacation.  From now until March 2nd, I will essentially spend one week in school.  I feel really fortunate to not be sitting at my desk, at school, in an empty office, watching movies, but, at the same time, this leaves me far too much time on my hands- a lot of time that I have been asked by my principle to spend in Daejeon (no traveling for me :( .  That is, apart from the 2 weeks of vacation I have coming up.  Not long now until I leave for Thailand!  Sure enough, this week I'm having no trouble filling my time planning for my trip. 

I think the best way to tell you about camp is to show you what came from it.  I "borrowed" the guts (so to speak) of the lesson from another EPIK teacher. I remember the first week of orientation we were encouraged to be "an unrepentant thief" when coming up with lesson plans.  We have this really invaluable site called waygook.com (waygooken means "foriegner" in Korean... I hear that word a lot.. it's feels like an alias) EPIK teachers share their lessons here.  I have a girl on waygook to thank for the idea of "Amazing Animals Winter Camp."  I used her powerpoint (which was well done) and some of her print offs (Animal Bingo, practice writing sheets, coloring sheets, etc) to make workbooks for the week.  The rest I kind of adapted to suite my style (i.e.  painting, a food craft, making masks for a play, acting in a play, and some games) of course this was broken up by a scavenger hunt, the cupid shuffle, winter Olympics, roasting marshmallows, cutting snow flakes, and much much more.  It was a four day camp: Savanna Animals and Descriptors, Forest Animals and what they Eat, Jungle Animals and Colors, Arctic Animals and Review.

Here are some of the Highlights:

Making Animal Hand Stamps

The 3rd and 4th Graders just made an animal and had to be able to tell me what the name of the animal was in English.

The 5th Graders created a pet that they had to be able to describe to the class: kind of animal, what kind of food it likes/dislikes, it's hobbies, male/female

Day 2: Forest Animals and what they Eat: 3rd and 4th Graders presenting their skit: This is the Wide Mouthed Frog skit. Where essentially the Wide Mouth Frog asks it's forest friends what they like to eat. The punch line of the skit comes when the Frog asks the last animal (Fox, Snake, etc.) what animal they like to eat and he/she answers, "Wide Mouthed Frogs!"

Wide Mouthed Frog Skit

This was a funny one: we placed posted notes on parts of the body. Then music started playing and they jumped around (like they were dancing to the music) and tried to get the posted notes to come off (without using their hands!).  At the end of 30 seconds they named the parts of the body that still had posted notes.

The 5th Graders came up with their English name for the week.

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Winter Olympics: This is a traditional Korean game: try to throw small stones into cups

Winter Olympics: Wrestling or Arm Wrestling: as you can see, this little girl is about to wipe out all of the boys in arm wrestling. .. as is par for the course at this age. The girls seem to develop sooner. It was so funny to watch though. 

Jella thought it would be funny to make a game where the kids had to line up their clothes. The team with the longest line, won. It started with just socks and jackets. Then the first brave boy took off his shirt to expose his mickey mouse undershirt (which he received hell for) but then shirts and pants (!) were coming off everywhere!

Pancake animals: I brought in 20 pancakes, the kids brought in fruit, chocolate, crackers, even hard boiled eggs (!) to decorate them to look like animals

Pancake Animal:  I think he told us this was an owl. That's an egg for eyes. Pancake + syrup + eggs = yummy? hmmm... 

Pancake Animal: Bear

Pancake Animal: Mouse

Pancake Animal: Cat

We then sat in a circle with our animals and they told everyone what their pancake animal was and what materials they used to make the eyes, nose, mouth, ears, whiskers, etc.

They made an advertisement for Korean Food: Did you know that Bulgogi is the best dish in the Univers?  (I didn't get to that error in time)