All sorts!

Hi everyone! It’s been a fun packed term so far at Saturday English Speaking Club. Zom and I have thought of lots of exciting topics and activities for our students to take part in.  We’ve been up to all sorts! Our students have invented fantasy animals, made up fantastic stories, explored the world, learnt about the environment, celebrated Christmas, talked about stories and learnt some new Actions English. Scroll down to see highlights of what we’ve been doing. Don’t forget to check out the archives on the right hand side too. There’s years worth of posts for you to explore. →

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Our students in P3, P4, P5 and P6 learnt about the islands of Borneo and Sumatra and how the cultivation of palm oil is leading to habitat loss and threatening orangutans and tigers as well as many other species. They contributed their case study to a BrainGym video called “Start With One Thing.” Start With One Thing is about the different ways we reduce, reuse and recycle at school.

Check it out below! Fast forward to 4:08 to see our ESC students. 

They made some informative posters too.

Our P1 and P2 students have been learning English using actions. Its a really fun and creative way for them to learn conversation questions and vocabulary. Below you can see some of the videos we made so far this year. 

In this game our students stood in a circle outside. Someone called out a sentence… For example –

“A strong wind blows for everyone who has a pet cat.” All the people that had pet cats swapped places!

“A strong wind blows for the students who are wearing shorts!” Everyone who had on shorts swapped places.

“A strong wind blows for everyone who has an older sister.” Everyone who has an older sister swapped places. 

It was a great listening game. 

The students looked and talked about Flanimals. Flanimals are funny animals/monsters created by the British comedian Ricky Gervais. Take a look at some examples below. Arn’t they bizarre!?

Our students thought of names for the Flanimals and wondered where they live and what they eat. 

They made up and wrote about their own fantasy animals. Take a look! 

Our P5 and P6 students used story dice to make up their own stories. They thought of some weird and fantastical ideas using the different elements from the dice. It was very funny to hear the end results. One told story was about a happy bee who lived on the planet Mars and another was about a pirate who went on a round the world adventure in a hot air balloon!!

 

We played a game of Square Ball.

It’s kind of a mix of tennis (without the rackets) and volleyball (without the nets)! The students bounced the ball to each other from square to square. If a student hit the ball outside of the boundary line then they were OUT! If a student missed the ball then they were OUT too. The winner was the person who remained IN for the longest.

It’s a pretty difficult game. You need a lot of hand-eye cordination to win.

It’s certainly been an action packed term so far! See you next time! 

 

 

Join us this weekend

Hi parents and students,

It’s a new term at SorBorOr and we’re looking forward to welcoming new groups of students to our English Speaking Club this Saturday. Join us to learn English whilst playing games, learning interesting  things, exploring the world and collaborating on amazing projects.

All of the students at our school from P1 to P6 are welcome to join us! Kru Zom and I can’t wait to see you all!

Here are some photos I found from the last few weeks of term 1. We have soooo much fun at ESC!

Olympic Games and much more!

This year the Olympic Games were held in Rio De Janeiro. Rio is the capital city of Brazil. We spent two weeks learning all about the Olympic Games.

We talked about the ancient and modern Olympic Games. We played Olympic sports and learnt about Olympic mascots. We even looked at ancient Greek gods!

Our younger students learnt the names of Olympic sports and did some Olympic themed colouring!

The first Olympic sport we tried is called ‘javelin’. This event was first performed in ancient Greece over 2000 years ago.

Zom, and I had a go!

Ready, steady, throw!

We tried ‘shot put’ too. In the real Olympic Games, the ball is much heavier!

We also had a go at a running event called ‘hurdles’.

The hurdles were quite low, so to make the event more difficult we challenged the students to do a 360°  spin as they jumped. Cool!

The students also tried an event called ‘triple jump’. In this event the students hopped, skipped, and  jumped as far as they could!

They were almost as good as this guy! ↓↓↓↓↓

We learnt about the ancient Olympics and the pantheon of Greek gods. Below are some of the gods we looked at. Which one would you like to meet?! Why?

Every time the Olympic Games is held, the hosting country chooses a mascot to represent their games. There have been many different mascots over the years. This year the Olympic mascots are called Tom and Vinicius.

Our P3 and P4 students made Tom and Vinicius masks.

Our older students made these super cute paper dolls.

P5 and P6 had a biology/English lesson all about food chains. Now they know the difference between a producer, a consumer and a decomposer!

They drew their own food chains.

This food chain even included a dinosaur wearing fancy red glasses!!!

They also played a food chain card game. The cards featured herbivores, carnivores and omnivores. Herbivores eat plants, carnivores eat meat and omnivores eat both!

Everyone had a great time playing Hopskotch.

Our older students learnt about the ancient wonders of the world. Do you know any of their names? Here’s a video to refresh your memory.

The students imagined that they had traveled back in time to visit one of the ancient wonders. They wrote postcards home to tell their families how amazing the wonders were. Below you can see a postcard from the Lighthouse of Alexandria and from the Great Pyramids of Giza.

See you on Saturdays! 

Doctor Doctor!

P1 and P2 have been learning conversation questions and vocabulary using actions. Check out the video below.

 

Our students had fun playing different board games.

P1 and P2 played ‘Snakes and Ladders’. When they landed on a place they had to say a vocabulary word or answer a question. They tried to avoid sliding down the snakes and aimed to climb up the ladders. Who were the winners?

Celebrations!!! We are the winners!!

Our P3 and P4 class played a board game that had loads of difficult conversation questions. They did a good job answering the questions.

P5 and P6 practiced answering the question ‘How often???’ For example – How often do you go to the cinema? How often do you look in the mirror!? How often do you wash the dishes? The students answered the questions using adverbs of frequency.

We played a game outside. Our students were crabs and had to swim from island to island without getting caught by the giant octopus!

Yim was a speedy octopus!

Do you know what the word ‘fantasy’ means? Fantasies are the things that spring from our imaginations, like mythical animals, otherworldly places and wild stories.

P3 and 4 completed a fantasy crossword.

They created fantasy animals too. This has got the head and feet of a bird and the body of a lion!

We played a game of sport the dragon. The children listened to a description then identified the correct dragon.

P5 and 6 read about famous mythical animals.

Have you heard of a Minotaur? It was a big monster with the body of a man and the head of a bull! According to a Greek myth the Minotaur lived in the middle of a vast labyrinth. Every seven years the king sent seven boys and seven girls into the maze to be eaten by the Minotaur!! One day a man called Theseus went into the maze to kill the Minotaur.

Our students designed a labyrinth (maze) for the Minotaur to live in!

Some of our students from P5 and P6 took part in this TV program called “Good morning Vocab King.” Amazing! You can watch the full program above. Look out for Naboon, Top and Klooy How many of the words can you spell?

We watched some of the show during class.

P1 and 2 learnt about body parts. They decorated, coloured and labelled a body template!

Gee’s picture is quite scary! Is it a zombie?

Time for a board game!

Our older students talked about sickness and health. They learnt how to answer the question “What’s wrong?” They also learnt about remedies and what they should do if they get sick.

We created a doctor’s office in the classroom, complete with a waiting room. The kids really enjoyed the role play.

Nung consulting doctor Mudmee.

Sick patients in the waiting room. I think Yim had a stomach ache!

When their was an emergency, the doctor called an ambulance. Paramedic Zom arrived, sirens wailing and took the patients to hospital.

We played a game of twister outside. It was really funny.

That’s all folks! See you next time!

Oh ar me hearties!

A new school term means new groups of students for Kru Zom and I to teach at SorBorOr ESC.

It’s nice to see so many new faces!

This year we’ve opened a ESC class for students from P1 and P2. How exciting! Now everyone at SorBorOr school gets the opportunity to learn with us on Saturdays.

Our P1 and P2 students have been learning English using actions. Stay tuned for an Actions English video. Coming soon!

During the first week of ESC our students got to know each other better.

P3 and P4 completed an ‘about me’ worksheet.

Then made some crazy, modernist, line art.

Each picture was a collaboration between all of our students! They sat in a circle and had 3 seconds to leave a mark on a piece of paper, before passing  to the person on their right! The results were brill!

Hi Kru Zom!!

P5 and P6 played a game of truth of lie. They had to write down three statements, one of which was a lie. The other students had to guess the lie. Some were obvious and some were more difficult to spot.

Next they wrote about themselves, screwed up the paper to make snowballs, and went outside to have a snowball fight! At the end of the fight the students picked up a snowball and opened it. They had to locate the correct person by reading the paper. It was a challenging task.

Our first topic this term was pirates!

Are students learnt all about pirates and then made some pirate hats.

The students drew a skull and cross bones on their hats.  The skull and cross bones symbol appears on the Jolly Roger flag.

We played a game of ‘Port and Starboard’. Row, row, row your boat!

Captain Ahoy!

Scrub the deck!

Dance!

Turtles!

Kru Zom asked the students difficult quiz questions.

They had to give an answer before time ran out and the bomb exploded! (Don’t worry! It wasn’t a real bomb!)

Our students learnt all about the creatures that live under the sea.

The younger children cut out the sea creatures’ names and matched them up with the correct pictures.

Well done everyone!

The older children completed a gap fill exercise. The song they listened to is called ‘Under the sea’ from the movie ‘The little mermaid’.

It was hard to hear the individual words because the song was soooo fast, but everyone managed to fill in the gaps.

At the end of the class we played a game of Shark Attack!!

See you next time

 

 

ESC : Photo update

We’ve been up to lots of fun things since the New Year at English Speaking Club. We’ve  had a big quiz, played sports, learnt about art, made up tongue twister, played ‘Family Fortunes’,talked about the time, created ‘about me’ booklets, learnt a new story, and made lovely Valentine’s Day cards.

Below are some photos of our lesson highlights. Are you ready!?

The students worked in teams to answer quiz questions. For example – Can you name five flowers? Name a word that begins with ‘P’ and ends in ‘N’. Can you draw a ladder? Name five activities you can do in the winter? Name three animals that live in the desert.

Relaxing with a cold drink after the big quiz!

At the end of one of our lessons, we took the students outside to play some exciting sport related games. The children bowled, played under and over and had a game of musical chairs (dance off style!)

 

We played a game of Family Fortunes. Family Fortunes is a popular quiz show in England. The students worked in teams. The aim of the game is to think of the most commonly given answers to a series of questions. For example – Name a sport you play with a small ball. Name something you do in the bathroom. Name a popular candy bar. Name a European capital city.

 

The students did a craft activity where they had to make booklets all about themselves.They wrote about themselves, their families, and their homes. Our children are very artistically talented! They created some beautiful booklets.

We learnt how to tell the time in English.

We taught the students Valentine’s vocabulary, and they made Valentine’s day cards to give to their loved ones. Do you have a sweetheart?

See you next time!

 

Happy New Year!

It’s almost the New Year. For the teachers and students at SorBorOr it’s time to have a short break, go on holiday, visit family, see friends and relax. Zom and I hope you all have a wonderful time, and we look forward to seeing you in 2016.

Are you wondering what we’ve been up to for the past month at ESC? Well… wait no longer! It’s time for an update. During December we have been looking at two different topics – Comics and superheroes, and Christmas and New Year.

December is an exciting month. On the 25th of December we celebrate Christmas and on the 31st of December we celebrate New Year. The kids enjoyed talking and learning about both of these important holidays.

During these two weeks we – played a word association game, learned vocabulary, played a Christmas board game, watched a video about Christmas and New Year, chatted about the December holidays, completed a worksheet about New Years Resolutions and even attempted to sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’!! It’s a traditional song which people sing at midnight on New Year’s Eve.

 

Have you made any resolutions for the new year yet?

Check out this website to see how we can make small, positive changes in our lives. Little things matter. If we all did something, no matter how small, together  we could change the world!

STARTWITH1THING

Group work

PorPor broke his leg

It was great fun talking about cartoons and comics. We found out what the students favourite cartoons are, and we completed some matching activities on the smartboard. Unsurprisingly, the students knowledge of cartoons was very good!

Next, we chatted about superheroes and supervillains. What is the difference between the two, and could the students name some famous examples?  The students have seen different superhero movies, so they were able to name a lot of superheroes and supervillains.

We wanted to teach the students about superpowers too. You can see some example superpowers at the link below.

SUPERPOWERS

What superpowers do you want? I wish I could breathe under water and become invisible.

The students designed their own superheroes or supervillains and gave them superpowers. Everyone was really imaginative and the images they came up with were brilliant.

Click to access supers.pdf

Click to access supers.pdf

The following week, we wanted the students to make a comic book. We gave each student a writing prompt to help them.

For example – Aliens invade Earth. The sun explodes. A cat stuck in a tree! A woman in a burning building. Titans in New York….

The students had to base their comic books around the writing prompt and incorporate their superheroes/supervillains into their stories.

The kids also got to dress up as superheroes! We split them into teams and gave them some old newspapers. Each team created a superhero costume made entirely from newspaper. Everyone was very creative and they made some great costumes. You can see the fantastic results below.

See you next year!!

A new term at SorBorOr

ESC is back! Lots of our students from last term returned for another term of fun, and we have some new students joining us too. Welcome!!

We’re already three weeks into the new term (doesn’t time fly) and there are three Saturdays of English speaking behind us. It’s definitely time for an update!

On the first Saturday of term our students introduced themselves to one another, made cool name badges, and learnt about the spooky festival of Halloween. The kids played Halloween bingo and completed a role play where they had to assume the roles of scary monsters. Spooky!!

During the second week our we learnt all about our planet. We looked at climate change and how it is affecting our world. We talked about the weather, CO2, pollution, plastic, mosquitos and conservation.

What can we do to help protect our planet? Do you have any ideas?

Our students voted to have a sporty lesson the following week. The students discussed extreme sports like parachuting, snowboarding, caving and bungee jumping. They talked about what extreme sports they’d like to do and why. We watched an interactive story on the British Council website, played some great games and completed a worksheet or two!

Next Friday it is Sport’s day at SorBorOr. I am supporting team orange (Go team orange!!). I hope that all of the teams do well and that everyone has an amazing day.

See you next week!

 

 

 

See you next term :)

This term has gone soooo quickly. This week we threw a party for our ESC students. We played loads of fun party games. We played: find the object, king and treasure, Oreo challenge, flip the cups, blow the cups, pop the balloons and musical chairs. Some of the kids were scared of the balloons, but that didn’t stop them joining in and having a great time!!

See you all next term. Have a great holiday. 🙂

You can catch up with what we’ve been up to in previous lessons, below.

Weeks 8 and 9 – For two weeks our students learnt about geography. In week 8 we talked about countries and continents and in week 9 we learnt about oceans. Can you name all of the continents and oceans in the world?

The students learnt new vocabulary, played games, practiced their speaking skills and learnt all about our world, Planet Earth.

Can you sing along and name all of the countries in the world!?

Week 10 – It was library week at SorBorOr. We love reading books! This week our ESC students made up their own stories! We split the students into groups. Each group received an envelope containing different images.

First, the students had 10 minutes to write down words related to the images. Whichever group came up with the most words won!

Next, the students used the words and images to come up with stories. The more imaginative and silly the better.

Everyone did a great job and we ended up with some very wacky tales! One student from each group stood up and read out their story.

After, Kru Zom took the kids outside to play a game of rock, scissors, paper rounders. The kids loved it. When they returned to the classroom, they were hot and tired, but very very happy 🙂 🙂

Week 11 – This week our ESC lesson was all about music. The students learnt the names of different musical genres….Rock and roll, classical, folk, dance, jazz and many more! How many can you name? Which is your favourite?

Next, we played a song by Adam Levine called ‘Lost stars’. The students listened to the lyrics carefully and completed a gap fill exercise. Once the students had completed the gap fill and were familiar with the song, we got them to stand up and sing. Everyone had a great singing voice (except for Mr James and Kru Zom!!! :D)

Week 12 – News flash, news flash. Read all about it!

Did you guess? This week our students learnt about the news. First we did some brainstorming. The students had to think of different things they associated with the word ‘news’. Next, we asked them to think of the names of different news papers and news programs.

Zom and I handed out pieces of card to the students. Each piece of coloured card had a different newspaper clipping attached. The students had to look at the clipping and think of a word to write down beside it. Each student got 10 seconds to write down a word before passing the clipping to the person sitting next to them. We continued until every student had seen every clipping and written down a word.

After, we discussed the students word choices as a group. Using the pictures and words we came up with a news story for each clipping.

The kids final task this week was to look at some newspaper headlines and fill in the blank spaces. The students came up with some really funny headlines. For example –

Aliens land in Bangkok

Save the teachers

Pigs can fly

Man eats his friends dog

Scientists discover buffalo on Mars

Can you think of some funny newspaper headlines??

And our survey says…….!

Week 7 – This week our younger students learnt all about the story of the three little pigs. The children read through a version of the story and then completed two worksheets. We also played an interactive games.

Have you heard of a famous T.V show called Family Fortunes?? It was a great English game show. Contestants had to guess the most popular answers to a range of different questions. For example “Name something you wear on your head!?” , “What is something you do every night?”  The answers were taken from a survey of one hundred people. You can watch a clip of Family Fortunes’ below –

Our older students played two different versions of the game. The first was online and the second was IRL (In Real Life!) The students were really good at guessing the top answers.

“And our survey says……..!!!”

Week 8 – The students had a short break from school this week  for Asarnha Bucha day. They had both Thursday and Friday off school! Zom, and I caught up with them on Saturday. We asked each student what they did during the two day holiday. The students all did different things. Some of them went shopping, some of the went to the temple and some visited their extended families. I went to the beach! What did you do??

When we’d finished talking about the beach and holidays, Zom took the children outside to play a game. The students sat in a big circle. One student played the role of a secret agent and another played the detective. The secret agent performed an action and the other student copied it. It was the detectives job to figure out which student was the secret agent!!

Week 9 – This week the students really got their noggins working! First, we split the students into pairs. Next, we gave the students a list of incomplete sentences and statements which they had to complete. The children worked in pairs. Each student was assigned either the letter ‘A’ or ‘B’.  They took it in turns to complete the sentences and read the results to the rest of the class. Student ‘A’ completed the first sentence, student ‘B’ the second, student ‘A’ the third…ETC ETC!  The children came up with lots of imaginative, interesting and funny sentence endings.

You can try to complete some of the sentences at home –

At the weekend I __________________.

I’ve never __________________.

Learning English is __________________.

People my age __________________.

For breakfast I __________________.

I listen to music when __________________.

All the A students had to stand on their chairs and read out their answers, followed by the B students. What a great way to build confidence in the classroom!

Week 10 – For the last couple of weeks we’ve been warming up our lessons by getting the kids to come up with rhyming words. This week we wanted to take it a step further, and get them to write poems. A tall order! But one we thought our students could deal with. We gave the students worksheets to help with the process, and read them a famous love poem as inspiration.

Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet,  so are you ❤

The younger students found this week’s lesson challenging. They did well at thinking of rhyming words for different colours, but they found using the words to create a complete poem difficult. I was really pleased with the effort they put in, and some of the students did write some great (rather humorous) love poems! The older children took this lesson in their stride! They wrote some brilliant poems. Our students are wordsmiths now!!!

I spy with my little eye something beginning with ‘M’ ……………MINGALABA!!!! ^^^^^^

Let’s take a selfie! Hi Kru Zom. Hi blurry Dell and smiley Toon! Who’s that in the background?? Is it Mr James, Neon and Oom?!