Hello,
Thanks for all the feedback on the stationery songs!
I think one of the reason they flopped so badly is that there was no story.
There was no “Why are we learning this?” reason behind it all.
You really need that in a lesson. (This is the reason the Let’s make a monster and Let’s make a snowman lessons are so popular – there’s a definite goal in the kids’ minds!)
For stationery, one good “reason” would be to make something really cool!
So, today’s question, and I’d love your ideas, is
What is your students’ no.1 favourite craft lesson?
Ideally something that can be made all year round, but seasonal things are also cool I guess.
Please do write them up in the comments (links to websites are also cool too) and let’s see if we can get a really amazing stationery lesson out of it!
(You might even win a GE CD as the comment competition deadline is coming soon!)
Be genki,
Richard
P.S. This “reason why” is also really important in all the other lessons too. Even if it’s just something silly like “I’ve lost my …. where is it?” or “Lady Gaga is coming to school next week, let’s ask her what she wants to do!” it makes all the difference from the “Why are we doing this?” to “OK, that’s a bit silly but let’s try it!”
P.P.S. Just in case the vocals were the problem with the “May I borrow your …?” song last time, here’s a proper version with decent singing! https://genkienglish.net/clipart/mayiborrowdemo.mp3 What do you think?
Earn More From Your Passion For Teaching English!
Hi Richard, I think that’s an awesome idea. A craft! A few ideas came to my mind…
1) a paper mache craft – glue, paper, scissors, pen, pencil,
2) making a kite – glue, scissors, paper, sticks, string, pen, ruler,
3) making a birthday card – paper, scissors, glue, pencil, pen, ruler, string, ribbon,
4) wrapping a present – paper, scissors, ribbon, glue, sticky tape,
5) masks – rubber bands, scissors, paper, stapler, ribbon, string, glue, sticky tape, pen, pencil
Hope this is helpful!
Hello Richard, My students love making castles, shields, villages with roads, passports and suitcases.
The castles we use boxes, turrets are kitchen-roll tubes flags, toothpicks with small flags attached.
The villages are houses made from strong paper or card. We make mountains out of paper-mache and paint them green to sit on a large piece of packing paper then glue on the roads and place the shops, houses onto this. This is used for learning directions as well ( left, right etc).
The suitcases are made out of shoe boxes covered with paper and then handles anything you can think of really ! the children decorate them with passport stamps (downloaded from the web), luggage labels etc. The passports I’ll try to find the wite I used and send to you. 99% of the kids here have never been outside the village so love the idea of pretending to go away.
Hi Richard,
How about a bunch of crafty kids making a mess?! “Free-style” art and crafts (painting their feet different colours and walking around leaving a trail of footprints on the floor, painted handprints on the wall). If you wanted to portray a particularly wild bunch of crafty kids in your story, you could show them cutting holes in cushions, gluing books together, stapling pictures onto curtains – the destructive possibilities are simply endless… wouldn’t all kids just love to have this much artistic freedom?
Bye for now from sunny Germany,
Niamh
I don’t have any crafts lessons for the moment, but just wanted to say that I really liked this new version of the “May I borrow” song! It’s a bit high pitched but….for the rest I love the idea and the melody!
I know you’re looking for ideas for the entire year but with it being so close to Easter I felt compelled to suggest Easter baskets for all the easter eggs! Every year I get my students to make an easter basket they can then use for the subsequent easter egg hunt!
I’m sure I actually enjoy it more than the students! Especially hiding the mini eggs which they ALWAYS find!
Otherwise, the majority of my craft time seems to be spent making the dice from your lessons.
I have used this site before but only with my 1:1 kids as they are very fiddly to make but the final product is fun. Especially the double decker bus and london taxi:
http://papertoys.com
Cheers, Ruth.
I agree with Ruth.
Just had one Easter lesson yesterday.
A basket, boiled and died easter eggs and a blown out easter egg to color and paint on. Also decoupage to glue on the eggs, etc.
The kids love it, first time they do it they are very “shocked” to write on “food” and are kind of resistant, but once they get used to they want more and more.
As I had just been through stationary with the expressions: I don’t have a/ I need a ,…/ …please. I asked them to use their English. For each time they used it they got a little candy to add to their easter basket (I usually don’T give out sweets, except for events).
They were soooooo good.
In the end we played RPS with their candies: They paired up greeting each other and saying “I have..(number) candies”. Then RPS and the looser had to give one candy away. Of course they had the chance to receive new ones from me.
Of course there are many Christmas crafts around the world, I think we have so many topics for winter now, that it would be fabulous if you could get something for Spring with this song
Just another idea:
How about
“How to make pancakes”:
stir the eggs (those are the ones the teacher will have blown out ahead of the lesson)
add some flower, and some milk, a little bit of sugar and some salt.
Then you could do a different one for the usage of the eggs(Let’s paint some eggs) where you could use all the crayons, and pens and paints and glues…
Sorry Richard~ this morning my blog comments don’T go through without signing up each time I click “Send comment”~anything wrong?
A collage is probably the most creative craft possible, with many stationary items being used at once.
The children also choose anything they like making each craft unique and in the end they have to work out what each picture resembles when they are finished.
Hi Richard!Hi everybody!
My favourite craft activities I’ve found on this site. Usually I change them a bit in order to make them suitable to my classroom situation. Hope the link will be useful.
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/papercrafts/
Hey there! One of the kids favorite craft is making a paper pac man. They must follow direction very closely to fold well. Then when it´s made we use scissors and glue to make eyes and sharp teeth- it´s a monster pac man now and they love it!