Lesson Plans

As we approach our 3^rd break, it’s a good time to reflect on how teaching has been going and how lesson plans have been working out. In this blog post, I’m going to be writing about a great class that I had recently. The CM1 and CM2 class (4^th and 5^th grade) at St. Arnoult is always a delightful group of kids. They are energetic, enthusiastic, and fun.

We started off the class doing our rituals. For this, we have flashcards that represent different questions (like “what’s your name,” “how are you,” and “where do you live”). The kids raise their hand and say the question, and once they get the question right they can come up to the front of the class and ask their peers to answer it. This usually takes 5-10 minutes. After we did our rituals, the kids had the floor to ask me any questions they had about schools in America. They were very curious about it, and we discussed differences between the US and France, like how in some schools in America and England the students wear uniforms, the different names of each grade level, and what happens at graduation. The class was especially interested to hear about the tradition of throwing your cap up when you graduate!

After that, the teacher for the class had found a short video of what elementary school is like in England, so we watched that. In it, they talked about what time different things start during the school day, what classes they take, and what recess and lunch are like. When it was finished, we reviewed a little of what happened in the video and then learned the poem “Come in Please” with motions. It goes like this:

Come in Please  

1, 2, 3, 4

Come in please

and shut the door.

5, 6, 7, 8,

It’s time for school,

You’re very late.

9, 10, 9, 10

Don’t be late

for school again!

 

After that, we reviewed school materials like a backpack, pencil, pen, notebook, glue, etc. We played a game where I put the flashcards on the board, they closed their eyes, and then I removed one and mixed up the remaining flashcards. They then had to figure out which flashcard was missing.

At this point, class was almost over, but they really wanted to do Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, so we did that. They then requested we do the Hokey Pokey, so we got in a circle in the room and did that too! They really enjoyed being silly and shaking their arms, legs, hair, and tongue, and it was super fun. Plus, the whole song was in English, so they got to practice their vocabulary! The class period was a hoot and I think that they learned a lot.

Until next time!