Open Class with Kinder and Parents! (Lesson Plan)

So, here’s the thing, 2019 has been more than challenging and heart breaking for me in all its positive and negative ways. One of the contributing factors that literally brought me to tears more than once was my first Kinder class. Oh the joy and dread I felt when I was told that I had been assigned a class with children from 4 and 5 years old. Very sweet and charming children, beaming with joy at the start of a new year and a new English class. After all, even though their parents already send them to bilingual schools, they also want them to learn English at a private institute. That is where I pop in.

You may wonder why I was in such a fright over some little kids. Well, it was my first time teaching children of that young and tender age and, even though I had been trained for this and I was aware of all the theory, I still felt insecure. I wasn’t that mistaken, though, since I had one issue after another with them. They’d cry for no reason, they wouldn’t sing nor dance, they would even refuse to play games sometimes (they were usually a bit tired by that time). They would, however, colour and craft. They loved it and they were always chafing at the bit (some more than others) to complete their colour books and stick the stickers. We did lots of paintings that I proudly displayed on the walls of the class and show the parents. I can’t really complain about that, they were so cooperative in that regard.

There was one particular boy whom I’ll always remember. His name is Tomás and he was the sourest pain in the neck. I still loved him, you know. He was, as it usually is, the funniest of the group, but I would lie if I said I wasn’t overjoyed whenever he was absent. He’d not only refuse most of the times to do absolutely everything (I mean, why would you not play the games), he’d also bother the others, push them, through things at them, chase them with the scissors or the pins he took from the cardboard, he’d harass the only girl we had and call them by offensive names he’d invent. Whenever things didn’t go his way, he’d cry and call me the worst teacher in the world. He’d add that he didn’t want to have me as a teacher and that he hated me. The other students would defend me lol. But, what I absolutely loved about him and children in general is that, even if they hate you now, two seconds later they’ll forget all about it and they’ll happily hug you as if nothing had happened. We should seriously learn from that haha

By now you might imagine that on my last class with that group of adorable children I was as happy as a clam, rapturous, over the moon. Mainly because I had intended to quit several times that year because I felt overwhelmed and I believed I wouldn’t make it till the end of the year. But I’m so thrilled to say that I made it through!! I can’t stress how important pushing through your boundaries is for your self-esteem. Had I not continued, or had the class been much easier to handle, I wouldn’t have felt as delighted as I am now. Surely, more experienced teachers would laugh at my story and at the other Tommies that I will encounter in my career. But, nonetheless, I have to celebrate this small but significant victory. I have done well and I hope it will be the start of many others.

On my last day with this class, I had to brace myself for the ultimate challenge – mainly because I had never done it before and I was inexperienced, but it wasn’t that much of a big deal. We had an open class! The parents and the siblings were invited and, along with them, came my coordinator who would help, but also supervise me. I have to thank her, though, she’s encouraged me quite a lot, placing her vote of confidence on this young and junior teacher who made countless mistakes, but still tried hard. What I would like to do now is give you some tips for what you could do if you ever have an open class. These are not of my own invention, it was my coordinator the one who suggested them. I took the idea of the craft from Pinterest, as it appears in many blogs. I tried the ideas I gathered from this lovely and extremely helpful blog. I must warn you that my craft doesn’t remotely look as cool as hers, but I tried and will continue perfecting it for maybe next year.

The class started with our routine, those two songs I repeatedly drilled over the past month with hopes that they would learn them and sing them in front of their parents (it didn’t happen). I’m sure they learnt the gist of it, but certainly not the dance lol. My favourites from the ones we listened to were the lovely Hello! song by the amazing Super Simple Songs channel and also their Mr. Sunshine songs for the weather – they’re simply adorable, you can check them out down below. I absolutely swear by this channel, I listen to them just cause I love them hahaha

After that, we played Hopscotch, but without tossing stones. I cut rectangles of coloured paper and stuck them on the floor. Next to each rectangle, I placed flashcards of the vocabulary they had seen. THANK GOODNESS they remembered it well hahaha. They only had to jump on each square and say the name of the object that appeared in the image. Each student had one chance and they all wanted to do it alone to impress their parents ^^ I didn’t take pictures of that since I was too busy monitoring 😦 Did I mention they are super cute and cuddly?

After that, I gave them some simple puzzles related to animals. They only had to put the pieces in place with the aid of their parents. The family that managed to do it first won our claps 🙂

These are some of the jigsaw puzzles I bought. They’re cuute.

Each student had to say the name of the animal they had as soon as they finished putting it together.

Our third task was a craft, and this is what I prepared for the most and had high expectations for as well. We made a snowball, kind of. I had previously asked them to bring a glass jar, like one of those for marmalade. They also had to get some white, green, red and black dough. Glitter was optional. On my side, I had bought some small Christmas trees. It proved to be a challenge to find the smallest ones they stores would sell, but I somehow came across a few that I thought would do.

Basically, the idea was to stick with silicone the base of the tree to the lid of the jar. With the trees that I had bought, it was a bit hard because they were as large as the jar itself. I mean, they could indeed fit inside, but they would literally touch the roof (or bottom?) with the tip.

It had little bobbles on it and some snow as well 🙂

This one’s for reference. Aren’t they adorable?

I soon realised the trees wouldn’t do as they were, I had to do something quick about it. I said quick because I was just one or two hours away from starting the class. Yes, that’s me, always unprepared ^^ Thankfully, I had bought an extra tree for myself and what I decided to do with it was to trim it lol. Sadly, I didn’t take any closeups of the trimmed trees, but I will add down below some pictures we took of my students using them. With the trimming, I had to sacrifice the bobbles and the snow, but luckily, it still maintained its shape.

I gave one to each student and we glued them to the lids, just as instructed in the blog. Right next to it, we put our snowmen and some little dough presents under the tree. It looked adorable and, looking back, I wish I had ended it there, to be honest. Here are some pics of how they looked without the jar (I blurred my students’ faces). The result thus far was simply adorable and I would totally recommend maybe using a bigger jar to put more decorations on – perhaps another tree, or whatever you happen to come by that you think would fit.

Here’s the trimmed tree right next to the snowman. Sorry for the awful quality.

Then it was time for the snow. So, I had previously searched for, and bought, the ingredients necessary to make fake snow. Some websites recommended the mixture of cornflour, baking soda and water. It seemed easy enough, so I went on with it. My mistake was to prepare waaayyy too much of the mixture. Literally, I used about 400gr of both powders since I thought we’d need a lot and I didn’t want to run out of it. You also need the equal quantities of both products. Don’t go overboard with the water, though, it’s better to add it in drops than to make it too liquid. The snow turned out fine, no complaints at all there. I only wish I had used maybe 50 or utmost 100gr of it cause it was unnecessarily wasteful and quite expensive. You only need about a spoonful or two to fill the bottom of the jar. It should be enough to cover the base of the tree and part of the snowman. If you can put the snowman over some kind of foot, then all the better, so that it’s at the same level as the trunk of the tree. You can then adjust the lid on the jar and.. voilà, it’s snowing! Just make sure you don’t glue the tree right next to the bar of the lid, you need some space there to put the jar and close it.

Here’s one with the added snow. Bad quality is cause #phone and #cropped

Another, probably much more fun, alternative is using glitter instead of snow. I would probably go for silver glitter to give the snowy effect, but maybe you or your students would prefer purple or yellow snow falling from the glass sky – I’m certain it’d be just as pretty! Some people also add some water to the jar so that the glitter floats and descends much more gracefully. I tried it too and I liked it, although, as I mentioned before, it’d probably look much better with a smaller jar and less water! Here’s the end result. Unfortunately for you, my snow globe only has one tree and no snowman, as I hadn’t bought the dough. But I’ll get it soon and I’ll be uploading the pics of the final result for you to see how pretty it all looks. In the meantime, you can check out this:

wuuu falling snow. Thanks Google Photos for putting up the gif haha

I think, next time, I’ll skip the water, I’m afraid it may fall down and spill everywhere ^^ But I’m going to use more fake snow, or perhaps salt (?) for the bottom and glitter for the falling bits. I would also like to attach some snow on the upper walls of the lid so that it looks like clouds. I’ll let you know how it looks as I update this post.

Last but not least, while we waited for the silicone to harden, we played Bingo with both students and parents. I placed some flashcards with vocabulary on the board and the students had to run to it to see what options they had. They only had to choose six. Whenever I named an object in a flashcard, those who had it only needed to say “ME!!!”. By the end of the game, I would check their cards to make it more ‘oficial’ haha.

The institute also gave them some ‘certificates’ that showed they had ‘passed’ the level lol. I said a few word, my coordinator did as well, and they all took a little gift the institute had prepared. I posed with them for the pictures 

Receiving certificates and gifts 🙂

All in all, it was such a fun and enlightening experience for me that I believe I enjoyed it more than anyone there. I was beaming with joy and delight. I even got all emosh I almost cried :’) Well, it was lovely and I may or may not give it a go next year too lol.

#Kinder #SnowGlobe #Lessonplankids #snowman #OpenClass #Parentsinclass #LessonPlan #Christmastree