How Do You Like Your Neighbors?

I try to start out my class with some kind of warm up activity before we get into the actual lesson. Yesterday's lesson included a review of adjectives from last semester and more on directions and maps, so our warm up activity was “How Do You Like Your Neighbor”.  I had them give me words to describe their neighbors and I put them on the board in two columns, Like and Dislike.  The likes were things like friendly, helpful, kind, etc.  The dislikes were noisy, messy, obnoxious, etc. I had them each take a chair out into the hall and make a circle around me (with no chair) and I explained the activity.  The person in the middle points to someone and asks “Who are your neighbors?” They all know each other so naming the two sitting next to you was the easy part. (This activity can be a name game when people first meet).  The second question was “how do you like your neighbors?” If the answer was one of the likes (such as they are nice) everyone moves one chair to the left.  If the answer is negative (I think they stink) everyone moves one chair to the right.  The third possible answer is “I think they should get out of town” and everyone moves to a chair across the circle. The person in the middle is always trying to get a chair, and the person left without one becomes the one asking questions.  At first they only wanted to say nice things, but that didn’t last. Sometimes someone in the circle would not be sure if the thing said was good or bad (and whether to move left or right), so someone else would shout good or bad. “Get out of town” became “get out of house”, but that’s okay.  We practiced asking and answering questions and left-right directions and it was fun.

After class I met Alicia, another English teacher, and Miwako, the textiles art student, for lunch and a project.  We each started a beaded ornament.

After they got going on the pattern, they were able to talk again.  It does take a bit of concentration at first, until you figure out the repeat of the pattern.

 

We talked and worked for a couple of hours and plan to get together next week to finish the ornament.