February 7th to 9th - getting to know everybody

 Here in Mariana, for the kids classes we still do not have a book or brochure to use with our students. Last year we had, but in 2022 not yet. But even if we had, I do not think it would be ok to use it in the first week. So I watched some youtube videos to give me some ideas of games or songs to use in the first week, to get to know each other. As I was expected to have 23 different groups of kids, I decided to have the same class plan for all of them, making small changes according to age.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prXvhy8hvFk

The first two days and a half of classes were really good and they seem to receive my approach well. In almost all groups they asked me where I was from or if I was from Brazil. One of them thought I was from China. It is funny how the very young look at me around the corridors or the canteen, like I was an E.T. I am trying to keep this magic, so, every time I need to talk to another teacher (in Portuguese, of course) I do it in a very low voice or far from my students.

Did I use English ALL the time? No, unfortunately. But, when I had to use Portuguese, I did it in a way that was not pronounced by me. I had planned a drawing activity for all groups. For 1st and 2nd grade, I asked them to draw what they wanted to learn in English along the year. For the 3rd, 4th and 5th, what they remember from the former years. They had to draw the vocabulary they remember. Those are very difficult to explain only in English and gestures. So I typed this instruction in Portuguese on Google Translate and clicked on the sound symbol, so everybody could understand the activity. For the next classes, I will try to plan activities that I would not need something like that to make them understand me. 

Check how I could work basically with the same class plan, making only small variations:





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