High School Camp Ideas

[zachmokpo]

I'm trying to plan for my winter classes and I have a few ideas. I'm wondering what some of you have done in the past for your winter classes??

[Brian]

Can you be more specific?  Is it an actual camp with a theme for your lesson, or are you having to plan the whole week or two yourself? 

I'm guessing high school, right?  What level?  I was in a pinch last summer for a week's worth of materials, so I just went by the "My English Ability" worksheet, using activities, board games, articles, etc., built around three statements or so per day.   Did that for five days, four hours per.

Not very helpful, I know, but doable on no budget.  I'm curious to see what other people turn up. We can use these ideas not only for camps but also for these after school English club classes we often get.

[zachmokpo]

Brian,

I should have mentioned I do the planning myself. I was thinking of doing a cooking class (baking cookies or what not). For one of the days. Talking about dreams and showing them Waking Life, and have them build their own girl band maybe. I was looking for other ideas.

[expat2001]

 This is my first year teaching high school.
They just told me that I have to come up with a lesson plan for grade 1 and 2.
Any ideas or samples would be great!

[kasain]

Do you have to do all day long events with teh students?  Or just 1 or two classes for the whole day?

If you like, and it is 1-2 classes, I have made lessons for the books "What a World 1 & 2.  They are one page stories, that I add a powerpoint or small video or two with.

Then I let students debate after.

Some topics would be:

Korean wedding celebrations.
Boys and Girls day around the world
Why are sumo wrestlers fat?

Theres 36 stories.  If you like you can PM me and I can add the files for you.

[kaymac]

Does anyone have any fun camp game ideas? Most of my favourite games to play with my kids can get a bit loud and I was indirectly told to make sure my camp does not disturb other classes...

[incognito84]

Here are a couple I use every year. Both are very straightforward, require little prep and work very, very, very well.

I got them both online a long time ago. Every teacher should have these in their "bag of tricks".

I've altered them a bit so I'll just post the version that I used. The first one is originally from the Internet TESL Journal website, its really old and well known for its effectiveness and simplicity.

The second one is pretty common so I'll post the version I use as well.

____________________________________________________________________________________
Activity #1

Original source: http://iteslj.org/games/

This is the way I use it. I find its the most effective in the Korean classroom:

Basically, put two chairs in front of the class facing away from the board. Break the students up into two teams, regardless of how many are in your class. Put one member of each team in the chairs up front so they can't see the board. Depending on how your class is arranged, you might want to make a third or fourth team, but I've never tried this before.

Write a word on the board. The two students in the front can't see it but the students on their teams can.

The teams must describe the word to their team mate up front.

-They can't say the word. If they do, their team forfeits.
-They can't spell the word.
-They can't say how many letters.
-They can't speak Korean, only English.
-They can't use actions, sounds or body language.
-They can say how many words and syllables there are (for example, "President Obama" is two words and six syllables).

What I usually do is give the same word to two teams. They have a time limit (1:00 minute is good). One team goes first, if they can't get it in one minute the same word is passed to the next team. If they get it, the next team gets a different word and if they miss it, it is passed back (making it easier for their point to be stolen).

You can probably change the rules around, I just find this way to be the most successful (played it with 10-15 different classes).

For words, you can either prepare words before class (depending on the level) or write categories on the board and have the students choose (People/Animals/Countries/Foods etc.)

You can give them some grammar beforehand if you want but you don't have to.

____________________________________________________________________________________
Activity #2

Make two teams. Make one team leave the room, show the other team a video. Allow the team outside to come in. Have the team who watched the video describe it to the team that was outside. Once they're finished describing it (only in English), then have the Team who was outside answer questions (make questions for each video, such as "how many people are there?" "What are they doing?" "What is something strange about this video", I usually cut them up with scissors). Don't give them the questions until the inside team has finished describing the video to the outside team.

I don't really have a point system for that but rewards would help. Its very easy to change/alter.

Here are some example videos:

http://www.youtube.com/v/GT86iWiH2mI

http://www.youtube.com/v/MtbQ4J3RfQ8

http://www.youtube.com/v/Mo8ej1ZVtgA

[zachmokpo]

I've never had to teach a summer camp class as long as I've been in Korea. This summer will be my first time. I'm teaching at an all boys high school and while I'm short on details of the actual class, I know it will include 10-15 kids and 2 hours a day.

I'm short on ideas at the moment and wondered what some of you have done in the past for high school summer camps?

[spauld]

eat your kimchi has an entire summer camp lesson plan on their site with the powerpoints. its a good place to start.

http://www.eatyourkimchi.com/esl_resources/