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Halloween parties and celebrations are becoming more common around the world, but not everyone is familiar with the Halloween traditions that are practiced in the U.S. and Canada. So, we thought we’d answer a few Halloween Frequently Asked Questions.
One way your school can celebrate Halloween is by having a Halloween Party. This is a great activity that can build a lot of excitement for the kids. Invite them to dress in costume and get together for a couple of hours of Halloween games, activities, songs, crafts and trick or treating. You can have... Read more »
So what are we celebrating? This week marks the 5th anniversary of our first YouTube video! Did you guess correctly? On September 8, 2006, we uploaded a video of Teaching Tips for “The Bath Song”, that features Devon, Tanja, and Jeremy-sensei demonstrating how to wash your hair, feet, knees and nose among other body parts.... Read more »
Whether at home or in a classroom, the right songs make learning fun. Best of all, songs stay with young learners long after their “lessons” are over. Please check out the review of Super Simple Songs in the latest issue of The Old Schoolhouse – The Magazine for Homeschool Families. My granddaughter loves these songs,... Read more »
Did you sing any Beatles songs when you were a kid? National Public Radio recently did a report on why toddlers like the Beatles so much. (Funniest line: “Beatlemania returns to America this week.” What? It left?) According to Dr. Deforia Lane, The Beatles have repetition, predictability and rhythm. And in certain cases, it literally... Read more »
Here are our top 10 picture books for kindergarten EFL classrooms: 10. Good Night, Gorilla 9. Ten Apples Up On Top! 8. Five Little Monkeys 7. Blue Hat, Green Hat 6. Go Away, Big Green Monster 5. No, David! 4. Ten Little Ladybugs 3. The Very Hungry Caterpillar 2. Where’s Spot? 1. Brown Bear Brown Bear What... Read more »
For a simple counting and color recognition activity, fill a clear plastic bottle with water, add some marbles, then some glitter and/or any other small shiny objects you can find. Repeat with a few different bottles. using a different color and a different number of marbles. Place the bottles in slots in a box labelled with corresponding numbers... Read more »
I sometimes do this thing at the end of my classes with 3 year-olds where I pretend to pop a piece of bubble gum in my mouth, start chewing away, blow a huge bubble, and then it pops all over my face. I pretend to pick it all off my face and start chewing it again. ... Read more »
Many classes, ESL or otherwise, have some set songs that are done in every class. Hello, Goodbye, etc. Here are some suggestions for simple changes to make them fresh and fun again. If you have been teaching children for a while, you’ve probably got most of these figured out already. If you are new to... Read more »
Teaching can be incredibly rewarding, and sometimes very tiring. It’s important every once in a while to remind yourself why you do what you do. For me, it can be summed up by a passage from Michael Lewis’s excellent book, The Lexical Approach. “…language is important and … language teaching is useful and valuable. A... Read more »
We frequently get asked about setting up classrooms for young learners. I’d like to share some photos from Brit’s English in Okayama, Japan. When owner Jamie Marden decided to build a new school, he set aside one classroom to be his “Super Simple Songs” room (thanks Jamie!) for children 2-6 years old. Notice how uncluttered... Read more »
We had a great time presenting at the Tokyo English Language Book Fair a couple of weeks ago. We were very happy to have our display right across from a display for “Signing Time“, an amazing resource for teaching American Sign Language (ASL) to young learners. By the end of the weekend, Troy and Tanja... Read more »
