February 17th and 18th - numbers

 February 17th

This class started with a plan fail, because the copies I had asked to have for the activity were not done, because they were moving the Xerox place to another room, so I had to have an idea during the class to solve the lack of reading/writing I had prepared.

In this class I played a kids song called “Count with me”. I was a little afraid of using it, because maybe the 5th grade kids could think it was too childish. But then I thought: Wait, if I am referring to them as kids and they are 9-10 years old, so they cannot think the song is not for them, because yes, it is. I started asking them “Do you like music?” and some understood and translated to the others. When I took my sound system from the bag I think I created on them too much expectation, because the sound system is medium and has colorful lights when turned on. Some of them told me they wanted to listen to “sertanejo” (Brazilian country music), but I said that was an English class, so the song must be in English and they understood. But, when the song started playing I could see they became a little disappointed because of the music style. At the same time, when they noticed they could understand most of the song, they started to enjoy, little by little. I think I did not “loose” them because I kept the same energy, repeating that the song was nice and giving honest feedback, like  telling them that from 1-12 they counted really good, but not so good from 13 to 20. Also, as the counting in the song goes faster each time it is repeated, it becomes a challenge that excited many of them.



I wrote 11-20 numbers on the board and asked everybody to copy, while I was spelling and writing – that was enough to solve the lack of the activity I had prepared. Then we read together and I explained we were going to sing again three times – first calm, then a little faster, then very fast. And I was so happy when I saw a student repeating  the words “very fast”, like he had really understood every word I was speaking. That was one of the nicest moments of the class for me.

After singing the song twice or three times, with focus on the fastest part, as it seemed more fun, I kind of made a mistake. I wanted to have volunteers to sing it alone, so I had a real microphone to offer them to sing the song, but the mic had no connection with the sound system, it was something just visual. When the first kid had the mic on his hand, he was trying to hear his voice on the sound system, which was not working. I tried to explain, but he was a little frustrated and gave the mic to another one. Then, time was over and I had to leave the class, so noboby had time to sing.

I planned the same for 5th grade.


February 18th

On the next day, for the two groups of 4th grade, I repeated the same steps and in one group trying not to cause the frustration of the fake microphone, so as soon as I showed them the device, it was clear that it had no connection with the sound system – mainly because it stopped working in the very beginning of the class, due to lack of battery charge. Fortunately, with the door closed it was possible to hear it from my telephone. In one group I had six volunteers to sing and, on the other, three. They found funny when I called the game “The Voice Cempa”. I enjoyed today classes.

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