Over the last month I have done a few Summer Schools which are extended Summer holiday lessons for kids revolving around a certain topic different from the regular lessons. This year I was teaching Lower Elementary level students on the theme of ‘Sea-Life’ which, with a fair bit of planning on my behalf, was something I actually came quite close to enjoying!

The children in the three schools (including my standby day when I was called up and sent to another district to do the two hour lesson at the drop of a hat) seemed to really enjoy it too and it was nice to create a bit of atmosphere for them by giving the illusion that we were actually at sea with alphabet alphamats being used as islands with shark flashcards in between representing the infested waters which would lead to the kids losing a life (and thus sinking their raft on the whiteboard) if they stepped off the islands or dropped a ball in the sea for example. Of course most of you reading this (presumably all adults) will not be able to suspend such belief!!

 

In addition to my regular games were ‘School of underwater rock’ (basically using the lego box as a drum and playing an umbrella as a guitar while singing some naff tune that I made up on the spot heavily influenced by ‘wheels on the bus’), ‘blindfold swimming’ (sea creature cards given out with students swimming round the circle of other kids asking if they have a crab or starfish card for example) and the grand finale of ‘magnetic fishing’ using a makeshift rod (a paintbrush with a shoe-lace attached with a magnet taped to the other end) to fish for the creature word cards which had a paperclip taped to the back providing the magnetism. If you don’t understand any of the above then maybe the pictures will give you some idea.