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February 2005
Hello from sunny, if a little chilly, Spain. I hope things are going well
where you are and that you had a nice Valentine's Day yesterday. Work is
coming on nicely here for the next set of Genki English themes, one of
which is ready and on the site for you right now...
Genki English Easter Theme: New Song, A4 Flashcards & Minicards
Until now there hasn't been a Genki English Easter theme. This is because
Genki English is mainly used in elementary schools, where in most countries
Easter is a holiday. But I've had many requests from teachers who teach
English privately for something a little special for this time of year!
Ever willing to help people out, here it is!
As this theme is more likely to be used with younger and smaller groups
of kids I've slowed it right down, and made it a little lighter than the
other songs. This song also tells a story of looking for an Easter Egg
in various different places and has a nice little twist at the end which
younger kids should find amusing! It's a great starting point for learning
garden and around the house words, and it's a great springboard to getting
the kids to either make up their own versions of the song or indeed a real
Easter Egg Hunt.
This theme was added to the site at the request of teachers like yourself,
so if you have any comments, feedback, or other requests then please let me know!
Not quite a new game, but here are a list of activites that can be fun
for Easter Lessons, starting with some of the classics.
Colouring Easter Eggs:
Either real eggs or drawn on a piece of paper, shout out the colours to
put on the egg. Also good for names of shapes e.g. "Draw a red square",
"Draw an orange circle" etc.
Prepositions Easter Egg Hunt:
Hide a real Easter egg somewhere in the classroom. You ask the kids "Where's
the Easter egg?". The kids reply with "Is it under/on/near/next
to the ....". You reply with "Warmer or Colder" depending
on how near they are. The winner gets to keep the egg ( and share with
their friends of course!).
Do you have a pink egg?
Try the "Do you have ...?" game ( http://genkienglish.net/DoUHave.htm ) but have the kids collect different coloured Easter eggs.
How many eggs?: Fill a big jar with mini Easter eggs and ask the kids how many are in the
jar. Great for big numbers! Or you could use it for practising weights
and measures, e.g. "How many grams do you think it is?"
The Genki English picture cards obviously help with the new vocab introduced
in the song, but it can also be useful to write up on the board the main
question as well. This isn't reading practice, but simply a memory aid
for the kids. To make this a little easier for you, on the site there are
now A4 flashcards of all the words used in all the songs. Simply print
them out and pop them on the board. The good thing about using cards is
that it makes it easier for the kids to recognise some of the words that
come up in many songs, e.g. "What", "How" etc. This
is a key skill, showing kids how different blocks of Englsh can be used
and rebuilt to make new sentences. As many of these words are some of the
most often used words in English and often cannot be learnt through phonics,
they are great to use as flashcards in the games. http://genkienglish.net/flashcards.htm
Presentations in Kyoto ( March 12th) & Fukuoka (March 13th)
I'll be back in Japan in March doing presentations in Kyoto and Fukuoka
as part of the Maruzen Kids Club Tour. I'll be going through lots of new
stuff, and also some of the brand new CD5 themes and songs.
The Kyoto event has a fee of 500 yen and you need to register ( in Japanese
) in advance for both presentations.
The contact number for Kyoto is: "Yosho Floor" 075-241-2169
And for Fukuoka: "Yosho Floor" 092-731-9042
See what's new straight away!
If any of you use the new Firefox web browser ( http://www.firefox.com ) you can now add a button to the menu bar that shows you what's new on
GenkiEnglish.com without having to visit the site
It's really useful and is dead simple to set up:
1. Go to http://www.GenkiEnglish.com . In the bottom right hand corner of the screen you'll see an orange icon.
2. Click on it.
3. Select "subscribe to RSS"
4. Set the "create in" option to be "Bookmarks Toolbar folder"
5. Click on OK.
Now when you load up your browser you can simply click on the GenkiEnglish
button and a list will drop down with all the updates on the site! So you
don't need to actually visit the site to see if there is anything new.
You can also add this RSS feed to your "My Yahoo" so you can
see what's new on the site from there. The address of the feed is http://genkienglish.net/rss.xml
I'm sure this will help people out, and if any of you would like to add
this RSS feed to your own website ( to always have some changing content,
for example) then please feel free to do so.
And Finally,
Right, that's it for this month, hopefully there's enough material to keep
you going for another couple of weeks.
Good luck with the Easter Theme, it is a lot of fun!
Richard J. Graham
Primary School English Games, Songs and Activities
Email: newsletter@genkienglish.net
http://www.GenkiEnglish.com
=====================
"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that
is where they should be.
Now put the foundations under them."
--Henry David Thoreau
Oh, and if you like the ideas in this newsletter, please feel free to pass
it along to your friends!
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