Flyin' and Soaring High

We resumed classes on the 2nd week of January, 2015.  I wondered, "What activity will I let the students do  for the first class of the new year?"  I wanted something that will allow them to talk freely (in English, of course) and at the same time , something that will be  interesting for them.

Well, I prayed about this as I wrote my lesson plans.  Somehow God allowed me to 'wander'  through some teaching sites on the internet. In one of them, I found a photo of bulletin board tacked with colored  hot air balloons.  Aha!  Got it, good idea....this would be my activity .  So I printed out several coloring pages of hot air balloons for kids .

Then, I thought I had to buy an egg-timer for the speaking round.  So happy was I  to find a very pretty strawberry timer at our local Daie (second flr) where the non-food items are displayed.

And so, we did the Talk and Color Activity for the first lesson of the year.  I set the timer for 1 minute, and the students had to color their hot air balloon picture.  When the timer beeps, they all had to put down their colored pencils and we did a round of speaking .  Another round of 1-minute coloring and so on with another round of talking .

For the more advanced classes like the Elem Hannah group and the Junior High School groups, I let them talk about their wishes, dreams, goals, resolutions for 2015.  It was such a delight to know that some of them can now articulate their thoughts well in English.

I let the kids draw themselves or characters  on the picture. Some kids were so creative, they were able to draw faces of animals in the lines or curves of the picture.

When the coloring of the picture was  done, I let them cut around it and tape it to the classroom wall.

I labeled the display "Soaring HIGH in 2015".