The Longest Summer Camp Ever

I know somewhere in South Korea, someplace young elementary students at their summer English summer camp are having a good ol' time singing songs, doing arts and crafts, taking field trips to the zoo and local water park -- those kids just aren't at Sang-in Elementary.

Before summer vacation, I was asked to planned for the upcoming summer camp and being the planner that I am, I planned a three week summer camp extravaganza! Tie-dye, nature walks, theatre day, build a camp newspaper, every summer camp activity you could think of I had planned. Well on the last day of school I was sent a late night e-mail explaining "there's no summer camp budget, so no activities"; basically keep it simple.

What was I to do? I was bound for Thailand to enjoy my vacation and once I got back from my break, I was going to need an additional break, I had absolutely no euasthism for summer camp. I follow directions and keep it simple teach the kids grammar, pronunciation and phonics for a few hours and that be it. Right? Wrong?

10 - 12 kids a day who would rather be outside out running and playing. Good luck on attempt to stick to the textbook.

So I tapped into my own pocket, like most teachers do and I footed the bill for most of my activities so the kids could enjoy some bit of camp, at least while they were with me. And I did just that, we made lemonade, painted t-shirts instead of tie dying, we've had movie day with snacks yet payday has come and gone, bills must be paid, and now we're returned back to the basics -- amazingly the kids are enjoying it.

It's true you don't need flashy activities to keep 3rd, 4th, 5th and some 6th graders occupied, it helps, but you don't need them. A stick in a ball worked wonders back in the day, and it still does now.

Today's lesson was all about compound words. I had the kids play a guessing game, we watched some spongebob via youtube.com and pointed out all the compound words, they made a role play using key compound words and phrase and they even drew their own compound words pictures.

It was a good 3 hours worth of compound word fun! Take a look at some of their drawings below.

Peace n blessings.

Derek