Over on our Christmas crafts page you'll find a few simple and quick ideas for use with your young learners.
I hadn't made the advent calendar (pictured above) for a few years, so thought last week I'd give it another go as some of my students hadn't seen it before. For the pictures behind the door I photocopied a page of Christmas vocabulary and pictures from the NEW Let's Sing Together SONG BOOK designed for another craft but which worked well in our advent calendar.
Although the cutting of each door is a pain in the neck, the result was well worth it. I'm looking forward to opening today's door with my students later.
I also found a great calendar on Sparkle Box that was pre-printed with the doors and pictures all lined up. You still have to cut the doors though!
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This is an idea created last year when we had the need for some cheap and cheerful decorations to liven up the function room we had booked for our Christmas party.
As you can see from the photo it's a Christmas Tree made from recycled cardboard packing cases. In this case from the Japanese stationery company Askul. The resulting tree was a great success and as it uses no glue or tape was easy to transport to the venue and could be flatpacked for re-use this year.
Full instructions for creating your own used cardboard carton Christmas Tree can be found on here.
Enjoy
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Using children's handprints in crafts is always a hit with the children and their parents alike. The children get to compare each others hand sizes so a great time to practice 'big' and 'small' and the parents get a keepsake of their child's hand. This simple autumn/fall craft uses the children's hands to create a tree in autumn colours.
Simply take sheets of autumnal coloured construction paper, trace the child's hand with a pencil and cut out. Of course depending on the age of the child they could do some of the tracing and cutting.
Take a large piece of paper, I used packing paper, draw a tree trunk and some branches. Get the children to glue their hand cut outs onto the tree.
And there you have it, a beautiful autumn tree.
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This Autumn/Fall craft could also make a good Thanksgiving related craft. The basic idea is really simple but the end result is quite beautiful.
Simple gather some attractive autumn/fall leaves from around the neighbourhood. I was up early and scouring our local park, Toyama Park, for a variety of leaves. There were some fantastic reds, yellows and mottled leaves to be had. Of course I would have loved to take my students on a walk to gather their own leaves but with only 45 minutes lesson time it isn't possible. Maybe next year I'll arrange a special extended lesson for this type of activity.
With your collected leaves simply arrange in a laminate pouch, making sure to leave a 5-10mm gap around each leaf for a good seal. Feed the pouch into the laminating machine taking care to keep the leaves in position. And there you have it, laminated leaves. I also sandwiched the child's name and date written on a piece of construction paper in the pouch as a kind of keepsake.
They last surprisingly well and leaves that we laminated last year still look good today.
WARNING: Using your laminating machine to laminate leaves is not recommended by the manufacturer. But it is fun!
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In some of my elementary classes using English Time we've recently started a unit on food, and although I've taught this this unit numerous times in the past I thought it was time to try something different. Now anybody living in Japan will know that this is a country obsessed with food, switch on the TV at anytime of the day and you'll find at least one channel airing a programme about food, but sometimes the food used in textbooks is difficult for children to relate to. Although English Time has fried rice, sushi and dumplings I often find it fails to grab the children's full attention. So...
As I'd just missed the paper recycling truck I was stuck with a bag of waste paper in my hands, mainly comprising of the Co-op's weekly home delivery catalogue. As I was mulling over the sheer mottainai of all this paper an idea popped into my head.
Why not turn the catalogue into a collage. Our target language is 'I like (food name)' and 'I don't like (food name)' so if we make a collage of food we like and don't like it should really reinforce the language.
So armed with scissors, a large sheet of A3, some glue and a pencil we set to work. The resulting lessons were fantastic, the children really enjoyed searching through the catalogues for pictures to cut out. Chocolate, ice cream and other snacks were the favourites but I was also surprised many children choose fish and vegetables to be on their 'Food I Like' poster. During the cutting stage I encouraged them to talk about the pictures they were cutting out and we had fun trying to explain various typically Japanese foods in English.
You can see some of the finished collages below:
All in all I thought the collage idea worked well because the children could really relate to the pictures of the food as it was the kind of stuff they ate daily.
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