i LOVE italian children

Today was my first day of camp and it was amazing! I was having so much fun by 9:30 AM.

I had to get to my school (which is literally a 2 minute walk from my apartment) by 8 AM in order to go through all of our materials and do some planning for the day. The kids arrived at 9 AM and me, Bethany and Liz each led a warm-up. My favorite is of course the one I led. You sing "hip hop english camp rocks" and the kids repeat. Then "let me see your ...(i.e. left/right hand) drop" and the kids repeat. Then I throw my hand or whatever I used to the ground and scream "BOOM shake it up shake it up" while shaking it up to the sky. The kids repeat and we do this line twice. The best part is when I yell "let me see your bottom drop."

Next we divided into our classes and I took my 11 kids into our room. I spent a good amount of time introducing myself and then prompting them with questions of the same topic - where they are from, how many brothers or sisters they have, etc. Then I moved on to my first lesson of body parts but the kids knew all of them. I didn't have to teach any of them in English. They were even shouting to me ones I hadn't mentioned like back, elbow, and neck.



After this lesson we had our first break outside so the kids can have a snack and run around for a bit. Next I went over basic prepositions with the kids, which again, they already knew. At this point though I realized one little girl named Silvia was a lot further behind the other kids in her English abilities. I tried to work with her individually as much as possible but it's hard because then the other kids would finish and get rowdy. I'm a little worried how I am going to help her because I don't want her to just not getting anything out of the week. So hopefully I can find a solution - suggestions welcome!

Since the kids knew prepositions so well it did not take as long as I thought it would. So luckily I had made food flashcards before I left home and pulled those out to test them...just in time for lunch. But first we played the "one potato, two potato, three potato, four...." game and they LOVED it, so they kept asking to play. It's a good filler/distractor. At lunch time the kids made my heart absolutely melt (and not just because it was scorching hot outside). Silvia, the little girl who is struggling, grabbed my hand as we were walking outside and wanted to sit with me. Then four others of my eleven students wanted to sit with me. They were asking me about my favorite movie, actor, song, artist, etc. So it was really good to keep them practicing English even during their down time. One little boy even brought me one of his sandwiches (because their mothers pack them a minimum of three usually) and wouldn't take no for an answer. Silvia even offered me gum after I was finished eating! They had about another 30 minutes to themselves to play or do whatever but the five kids wanted to hang out with me the whole time. We were talking about music so I was playing different songs from my iPod for them.

After lunch we broke the kids up into their Olympic teams. The teams were mixed of different ages and abilities to make sure they were fair. I am in charge of team one and my Italian sister Graziella is on it! The kids had to come up with a name, chant, and pose for their team. Our theme for the week is sports so the kids for some reason chose horse back riding and picked the name "the winning horses." Riccardo had been singing Womanizer during lunch so we put "we are the winning horses" to the tune of the Womanizer chorus. For the pose during our song the kids were either the horse or the jockey so it was really funny. The number on our team is uneven so I had to be a horse too. Unfortunately our judge Greta did not pick my team as the winner. For the next activity the kids had to make a poster depicting their sport, but it was more of a relay race. They had to make a line in their teams and the first person had to run to the poster and draw for 15 seconds and then switch with the next person until everyone had gone twice. My kids made the horse look more like a cow and spelt horses "hourses" so it was funny for me. And again we did not win this competition.

After this activity we had another break and then went back into our classrooms. For the next hour I had to talk with my kids about the show they will be performing for their families on Friday. After an hour they decided their show would be a movie about basketball in which the two teams are Harry Potter or Twilight characters. I pretty much have to write the script so that should be interesting.

Finally the day was almost over but not until after I led the "hip hop english camp rocks" song again. Bethany, Liz and I had to talk about our schedule for the next day too but I was home again by 5:30.

In the morning during my first lesson I needed a minute to flip through our books so I put on music and told the kids to dance. They loved it so much it's all they want to do. We also have "camp dollars" that are given to kids at our discretion - whether they are well behaved, know an answer first, or whatever. So when I had the kids dance I told them I would give whoever danced the best one camp dollar. So I think that's why they want to keep dancing. They also expect a camp dollar after everything. That or a gold star sticker. In regular Italian school kids do not receive rewards or anything of the sort for doing well. They just sit at their desks all day and are lectured. So for the lack of a better word, they went apeshit over the gold stars.

It was an amazing day and I hope the rest of the week is the same!