I was going to name this blog post 'Due to unforeseen circumstances...' as so many things went wrong today: the weather, access to the building we were in, the Open Day causing chaos on campus, a tutor dropping out last-minute... But life is like that, and as everyone had an enjoyable time anyway, there's no point in dwelling on temporary setbacks. Let it suffice to point out that classes were inside today, which of course impacted on the kids' class.
Working inside with the children made teaching more challenging, especially as I now have 12 in the class! They were rowdier, less focused, and for the first time, I actually had to keep order. At the danger of sounding repetitive, the less active activities (e.g. linking English and Latin words) were again their least favourite - I could easily call the kids' class "Learning Latin through parachute" as it has become our main pedagogic tool: the children learned 8 new words today: these were quite a lot harder than the first words they learned, and the derivatives were more challenging too (e.g. president from sede, as the words don't start with the same letters and the vowel in the root is different too). However, by exploring the words with the parachute and the ball, they soon got the hang of them.
However, the activity I was most pleasantly surprised by was the Latin yoga! They absolutely loved the sun salutation in Latin - I added silly elements like wiggling our bums when we were in downward facing dog and making noises like monkeys, and even though we did the routine more than 10 times, they didn't get bored with it, and two of them even led the routine themselves at the end.
We ended the session by drawing outlines of two of the children on long white paper and painting them with finger paints. This is when all mayhem broke loose and the children and I were soon covered in paint! It was great fun though, and we wrote the Latin names of the body parts they had learned on them.
By now, I'm used to changing the lesson plan at very short notice to suit the children's mood. Ultimately, they learned the new vocabulary and orders without much effort and two of them (ages 4 and 6!) whose parents were listening to the talk afterwards were already doing their homework half an hour later.
Next Saturday: adjectives and more imperatives - hopefully in nicer weather :-)
Written by Evelien Bracke, Project Coordinator, 28 June 2014
Working inside with the children made teaching more challenging, especially as I now have 12 in the class! They were rowdier, less focused, and for the first time, I actually had to keep order. At the danger of sounding repetitive, the less active activities (e.g. linking English and Latin words) were again their least favourite - I could easily call the kids' class "Learning Latin through parachute" as it has become our main pedagogic tool: the children learned 8 new words today: these were quite a lot harder than the first words they learned, and the derivatives were more challenging too (e.g. president from sede, as the words don't start with the same letters and the vowel in the root is different too). However, by exploring the words with the parachute and the ball, they soon got the hang of them.
However, the activity I was most pleasantly surprised by was the Latin yoga! They absolutely loved the sun salutation in Latin - I added silly elements like wiggling our bums when we were in downward facing dog and making noises like monkeys, and even though we did the routine more than 10 times, they didn't get bored with it, and two of them even led the routine themselves at the end.
We ended the session by drawing outlines of two of the children on long white paper and painting them with finger paints. This is when all mayhem broke loose and the children and I were soon covered in paint! It was great fun though, and we wrote the Latin names of the body parts they had learned on them.
By now, I'm used to changing the lesson plan at very short notice to suit the children's mood. Ultimately, they learned the new vocabulary and orders without much effort and two of them (ages 4 and 6!) whose parents were listening to the talk afterwards were already doing their homework half an hour later.
Next Saturday: adjectives and more imperatives - hopefully in nicer weather :-)
Written by Evelien Bracke, Project Coordinator, 28 June 2014