April 11th to 13th - Greetings - part 1

Usually teachers teach how to greet during the first weeks of the school year. I only taught them the basics (Good afternoon, Hi, Hello) and now decided to teach the other greetings, according to day time. I used the same class plan for 1st, 2nd and 3rd grades:

Of course there were variations. For the 3rd grade I finished the topic with one class and a half, only. With the 1st and 2nd grades, I continued the activity in the next week. For the 1st graders it was difficult to sing, because they really do not know much English as this is their first time they have this subject. But in the other grades many students already knew what Good morning, afternoon and night mean. I feel that the concept of "Good evening" is still not clear for most and, as I only speak English, I just said it was the same as "Good night". I actually did not say that, but I pointed to the moon and stars drawing I did. But when I said "Good night" I did like I was going to sleep and when I said "Good morning" I did like I was waking up. I took two pictures of the board, in different classes, but it disappeared. But it was something like this:

Good morning ----------- pic of the sun raising

Good afternoon ---------pic of a sun

Good evening -----------pic of the moon and stars

Good night ---------- idem Good evening

With 2nd and 3rd grades, it was possible to teach them the song previously, before playing the sound system. As half of the lyrics was already on the board, I asked everybody to take their imaginary microphones - their pencils, water bottles, etc. - and repeat after me. The imaginary mic only works with 1st and 2nd grades. I sang each verse and they repeated after me twice. I played the song, which already plays the same verses three times and some of them danced, just a few tried to sing along and some just listened. I always play again, explaining that I did not hear them singing or that they sang in a very low volume.

Holding the paper of the activity I said that we had three parts. One, complete the header; two, mark the X on the correct answer; three, color. As always, two students distributed the papers to their classmates. I reproduced the header on the board, using black marker, and filled it using red marker. I checked if everybody had filled it before we started. With 1st grade 7 I skipped the 2nd part, because they were so anxious to color, that I just let them color and collected their activities to finish in the next class. With 3rd grade, this part was easy, with few mistakes; with the 2nd grade, some mistakes; with the 1st grades, I had to check one by one after answering each question. But I was already expecting that things would work like that. I know that for 1st graders it is difficult to associate what is on the board with what is on the paper.

When it was time to choose the correct alternative, I folded my paper, to emphasize the picture I was talking about, and did the mimicry of the greeting, like stretching to show "Good morning!" or sleeping, to say "Good night". After explaining that and checking one by one, I let them color. Even when I leave them doing something like that, I can not rest. I have to go around the class all the time. Otherwise they stand up and start talking with someone else and forget the activity.