Semester Mid-point

The University students are half-way through the semester.  I wanted to do a review of what we’ve covered so far, but I didn’t want it to be boring.  I came up with an idea to review and incorporate something from this week’s lesson (future, using will + verb) and our weekly topic for discussion – the London Olympics.  I divided the class into two groups – one who will camp at Tonebetsu Forest and one who will go to London to see the Olympics. I brought a suitcase for the London group and a backpack for the campers and about 25 travel items (think vocabulary list).  I made up review questions and wrote them out on cards. I alternated asking each group questions.  Answering correctly allowed the team to choose an item to pack for the trip it was taking. The person choosing made up a future sentence about the item, such as I will pack (item) or we will need (item) or I will bring (item).  Most things could be used on either trip, but some were more appropriate for one trip than the other, such as pancake mix and a compass for the camping trip, and a London street map and a Japanese-English dictionary for the London trip. I had to throw out one question because I accidently said the answer (oops) and there was only one question that neither group could answer. Some of the students picked up the items and looked at them carefully before making a decision on what to bring.  At the time I thought they were looking for the most appropriate item for their trip, but thinking back, they were probably just looking for the item that they were able to name in English. Both teams did very well, but the London group had two more items in their suitcase than the campers had in their backpack at the end of the activity.

Beaded canvas progress
I've put a few more rows of beads in. I do like how the beads are looking.

I did two other small Lee canvases with thread a few years ago and put them into the tops of these little jewelry boxes.