Nov 1st today, so I think that means you’re going to be wanting new Christmas Ideas now!
I’m going to be updating the Christmas Ideas page as we go through the season, but I’d really love it if you could answer this quick question in the comments:
What Christmas ideas/materials do you need the most?
I’d love to get your feedback in the comments and you never know, IΒ mightΒ just be able to make them for you!
Thanks as always!
Be genki,
Richard
P.S. Β The Gingerbread Man is my favourite at this time of year! π
P.P.S. Β It’s a new month today, so that means a new comment competition. Β To win a chance to get a Genki English CD (or CD Download) of your choice, comment on as many posts as you can, the more you comment, the more chance you have to win!
I agree. I really like the Gingerbread Man. I have my students come up with their own characters. We have had omusubiman (riceball man), ramen man, kimchee stew man. They can get very creative.
Taking a quick look at the Christmas themes, it would be great to have something for the I can see a (shape) song. Maybe have a tree with different shapes and have different GE characters looking at the them. Someone gives hints, I can see 3 blue stars. etc and the other students guess by asking, “Are you Baby Monkey?”
Something to tie in shapes, colors, numbers, “I can see..” and “Are you…?”
too ambitious?
One more idea. How about having cards with different trees. Then you have a larger variety. You could play karuta (students race to get the picture you describe) or find your pair game.
“I can see…” “Me, too./ Not me”
cards don’t have to be identical, just the same (number/color) items on various trees.
“Can you see…?”
Sorry just brainstorming here.
I would like the candy cards (with or without the prices on)that you made but in the usual smaller format PLEASE!
ANY game ideas would be great as it will be my first Christmas teaching small private classes.
Thanks in advance…..
Thanks Gumby!
Here you go Jaynie:
How about Christmas food?
Thanks a lot!
I would like to get some Chritmas songs to represent with 4-5 years Old kids at school.
Thank you.
Maybe for a writing exercise something like a letter to Santa? Or a song about a letter to Santa?
Dear Santa
I’ve been good!
Could you bring me …
and then some vocabulary
Hey Richard,
The Halloween party was awesome,
the kids loved the Halloween dominoes for our party, we started off with them all in smaller groups but they ended up joining them all up!!
Photos will be up on Facebook soon (just calling parents for their permission of course..!)
As for Christmas, we were thinking of going with an Australian Christmas theme!
AND of course, lucky for us, Genki English has a whole theme relating to Under the Sea and an excellent beach theme!!
Thanks as always!
As for the necessary images, if you could make a Santa koala or kangaroo?? that would be awesome! lol jk
Leigh
Greetings from Ecuador Richard:
I would like you to make some of the most common traditional Christmas carols in a funnier way.
Carmen
Just another idea about Christmas tree mini cards. You could also tag it with What color is Christmas? but “What color is BM’s star?” (sneak the possessive in there….)
(There is a lot you can do with this. Maybe you might want to leave out the tree so that you can reach a wider audience and make it an activity to do year-round.)
I’d like any ideas for a Christmas event. Something different from making Christmas wreaths and stuff. Hey Richard, on a totally different subject, I was wondering if you ever have any plans to enable your songs to be purchased on a per song basis, kind of like on the app store or something. That way I could get only the songs I really need for my lessons (of course buying the whole CDs would be best, but when you run your own school and have a budget to consider…). Just a thought….
Something for older kids about shopping for Christmas presents. (with adjectives).
Do you like this sweater for Grandma? No, it’s too modern, or too big, or too expensive.
Also, maybe a song with Mary, joseph, Baby Jesus. Some Christian countries want this, and some non-Christian countries still want to hear our traditions and religion. It would be odd to study Japan and ignore their religion.
Hi
I would like to add a warning. If you teach in Islamic countries like SA or even semi Islamic countries like Turkey please be careful if you want to teach Christmas. Make sure that your school approves this. In some schools in Turkey for example it is not allowed. Teachers who were teaching it last year without asking permission even got fired
Hi! I will like ideas for the Christmas Program of my school for first, second, and third graders. Thank you!!!
Γ want to do two different lessons. One definately will include the Bible Christmas story as this is a Catholic country.
The other I wanted to do some sort of Christmas cookie theme. I may just do the gingerbread man and make gingerbread men cookies, or at least give them out. Any ideas will be wonderful! Thanks for asking.
@:It would be odd to study Japan and ignore their religion.
well~you would be surprised…
In the line of work we are in cultural sensitivity is a given. I can teach about Christmas here but Halloween is very puzzling to people I work with. I appreciate How GenkiEnglish works to give us all the materials and ideas we need for teaching a wide range of subjects. But everything must be filtered through our situation. There is the “okay” gesture that is offensive in Brasil which is in the How Are You song. I find another way to say “Okay”. We are ultimately responsible for all of our decisions. Thankfully my decisions with GenkiEnglish revolve around which lesson should I use rather than how do I create an exciting lesson. That is already done!
Grace,
great comment.
I also think teachers are responsible to decide~;it is one thing to care about the culture we are living / teaching in. And another thing to still “teach” global issues, which also involve different religions. It doesn’t mean to make propaganda for those.
Anyway, I think teachers who are having problems with these “cultural event topics” are very very well off with GE as there are the Karaoke versions of the songs.
Maybe in Brazil you could even change the Halloween song into a Karneval song?
I wondered about this a while ago, as being from a very katholic area in Germany I had nothing to do with halloween but was very into Karneval. But than I decided against it, as it would be too busy to bring in another season of year event to Japan. (Japanese people just love other Culture’s events and will go for anything sounding fun)
In the school where I work instead of proper theme parties (such as Halloween or Xmas) we organize labs + party.
The school consists in 3 large rooms and a large hall so we offer 3 different labs and food&drinks nicely set up in the hall.
The parents & children can take part to any of the three 20/30 mins labs (we repeat the labs twice), swap rooms or just stroll around, chat and enjoy the party.
One lab is always kinesthetic with action songs and games (hi Richard!)and the other two can vary according to season, trends etc. I’m looking for ideas, arts & crafts, read & act etc.. please write and share lots of ideas! Thank-you π
Thanks for all your great ideas.
I have to do a Christmas Story for the School’s Christmas Party. Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks
Have youself a Merry Christmas.
The Gingerbread Man is always popular!
http://genkienglish.net/gingerbreadman.htm