Teaching Children: Survival Tips

http://teacherbootcamp.edublogs.org/2010/10/13/survival-tips-for-teaching-kids-english-30-tips-resources/

My Survival Tips

1. Channel in your inner child!- Can you identify the 2 members of our personal learning network in this slide?
   • Have the ability to act silly – I often dress-up when reading books, play charades, make silly voices and faces, and sing and dance!
2. Wear the right gear! Don’t dress to impress! Dress for a mess!
3. Children love to play pretend games!
4. Have lively music that is easy for the children to understand and that you will enjoy singing very loudly to!
5. TPR- Total physical response is a must for every lesson. Find out more by reading this post.
6. Puppets are great for children, especially when you incorporate the puppet in every lesson.
7. Play board games, physical games, and online games- We play Twister, bingo, English Raven’s games, and more!
8. Include stories from great children’s authors and make the reading time fun. Check out my class wiki for various books and the themes they support.
9. Use colorful flashcards and play games with the flash cards.
10. Color with a purpose! Give children a task to see if they can follow directions, such as telling a child to draw a circle and color it yellow. Without direction, I’ve had children color on the wall and on me!
11. Incorporate drama activities such as mime and improvisation games.
12. Felt boards are great for having children piece together what happened in a story or to learn new vocabulary.
13. Finger plays like the Itsy Bitsy Spider work wonders. Read this post on how to digitalize your finger plays using Blabberize.
14. Trust kids with technology! My five year-old students complete online activities each week which I put in a wiki. Kids love technology and will repeat what they learn.
15. Explore the outdoors with scavenger hunts.
16. Use realia- My students play Bingo with pennies from the USA. Introduce real world objects to students from an English speaking culture. Play Show-and-Tell!
17. When all else fails, have fun!