Grade 2 Unit 2 Are You Going to...?

Here's a simple activity sheet to get the kids using Are you going to.... It's nothing more than a list of activities that a junior high school student might do on a Saturday. The kids are to ask one another about their plans using the the grammar from Unit 2. If they get a yes answer to their question the person they've spoken to signs their name on the list. Doing it I noticed a tendency for some of the kids to drop the necessary verb and come out with sentences like Are you going to soccer Saturday. So that's something to watch out for. If it seems too many are making that mistake stop the activity and review the grammar again.

Grade 3 Unit 2 Present Perfect Interview Activity

The JTE for this class made something nice to practice the present perfect as it appears in Unit 2. Here's the activity sheet she used with some changes I made to eliminate some awkward English.

Every kid gets one of these sheets. Then they are told to choose one of the names on the list and to answer the questions directed to them with that character's information. Kids pair off and janken in the time-honored fashion. The winner of the janken asks questions first. The idea is to find out who their partner is. Let's say they do the interview three times. That should give them enough information to zero in on the correct identity. After the two partners have determined who each of them are they go and find new partners to interview.

It went off quite well and didn't take a long time to explain. Just one demonstration from the teachers.

Schwa

The phonics project has been moving along nicely. The more I get into it the more I see how really difficult this stuff is to teach. There are just too many ways to make the same sounds in English. I also see that I'm going to have to keep reminding the teacher to let me do it. She's got a lot of things to do and a lot to get across to the kids. However there was one ray of sunshine. One of the kids in 1kumi was able to read the word ham without a trace of and accent. At least not to my ears. When I do it again I'll have more teachable words prepared going in so there's no fumbling around thinking about what to do next. ...Actually next would be a fun word to have the kids read.

And schwa. I want to do schwa. I'm not going to explain schwa and I'm not going to point out it's appearance in the unaccented syllables of multisyllabic words. I do want them to hear it as it's pronounced in the consonant prior indefinite article. I want them to be able to make the distinct vowel sounds in a ham.

Of course I'm pretty sure that it's something that they would pick up naturally without my help but I like teaching the proper pronunciation of English sounds and hearing them improve.

So, anyway. I'll start calling atention to that sound when I have a chance.

Grade 2 Unit 1 You Look Strange

The teacher asked me for a worksheet for Grade 2 Unit 1 that has to do with the grammar point
subject looks adjective. It's such a small bit of grammmar to deal with it's hard to make something interesting. Especially given the amount of time I'm willing to spend on it... ahem.
But maybe this will catch the kid's interest. I'm just happy to be able to use some of those cool illustrations from .... I forgot the name of the website they came from, but if you search back in the postings you can find a link to it.

Grade 1 Unit 1 Are you Ms. Green ?

This activity lets the kids practice the second person interrogative present tense form of the verb to be. To do it you need to make some game sheets and another sheet that has the pictures and names of characters from the textbook.

I wasn't able to find any pictures of the New Horizon characters on the web so you'll have to make the game sheets by xeroxing images from the textbook. Paste them into this sheet that made. If it doesn't print out correctly you can just use it as a model to make your own. Teach the two convesations at the bottom of the page. One is used when you find the person you are looking for and the other is for the opposite case.

Pass out the game sheets and cards and tell the students that they are not to show the cards but are supposed to remember their own new name.

Chorally practice the question. Are you ~ using the names of the characters on the game sheet. and the two possible answers, Yes, I am. No I'm not.

The teachers and some volunteers demonstrate the game.
Now the children have to find as many of the people pictured on their game sheet as possible. If you want to you can put a time limit on the game. The students who find all the people or the most people on their game sheets are the winners.