Advanced English Club

For the month of April, the English club did a unit on Nature and Natural Disasters.  My favorite projects that we did in April were the earthquakes and the plants classes. 

On earthquake day the kids learned about the Richter Scale and then I gave them a challenge: They had to build the highest building they could that could also withstand the biggest earthquake.  They loved working in teams to construct the buildings (with building blocks I borrowed from the 1st grade classroom) and seeing them topple over with a swift shake of their desks. 


For the plant lesson we focused on Earth Day and plants.  We used empty yogurt containers that I had been saving for months in expectation of this project.  They used colorful mosaic squares to cover the yogurt and then they put in potting soil and planted edible grass seeds.  Some students left theirs in the classroom so we could see it grow.  It's been just one week now and 3 of the 4 plants are seeing sprouts. It's exciting! 


This month the English Club is learning about music.  Today's class was just the intro day which is always a little bit on the boring side.  I let them listen to a bunch of different styles of music and then fill in the sentence: "When I listen to _______ I feel _______.  It makes me think of ________." 

Here are some of my favorite responses:

When I listen to surf rock I feel happy.  It makes me think of someone who is going [on a] picnic. 

When I listen to hard rock I feel dangerous.  It makes me think of gorilla and lion. 

When I listen to big band I feel excited.  It makes me think of Mary Poppins.  

When I listen to Hawaiian music I feel I want to go to swimming pool, or beach in Hawaii.  I feel it's summer in here because this song's feel is summer.  It makes me think of afternoon and I think I'm eating very expensive food in very good restaurant.  

When I listen to hard rock I feel crazy fantastic.  It makes me think of HeSun because she is a very crazy friend.  

Next week we are doing Pop music (which they are all very excited about) and a little bit of hip-hop (which I am very excited about).

The final week in May we will do a music video critique.