Is this for a public school or private academy? I taught 6 year olds at a kindergarten for 2 years and we got to the alphabet on day 1. I can't imagine why they would put that off for a couple years.

Think of something basic like answering "What's your name?" or "How are you?" and limit the options to a short list. I'm happy, sad, angry, sad, sleepy, sick, hungry. Make some flash cards, do a matching game. I gave them a paper with 2 blank monkey faces and had them draw two facial expressions. Stuff you can post on your wall or bulletin board.

Songs are a big part of kindergarten. A hello song, a goodbye song, a clean up time song. You will be surprised how well they can pick songs up. Work out a routine early.

Look up TPR games, they are pretty useful too.

You might be working with a basic math textbook too. I know my school had a curriculum in place, you might want to ask about that rather than shooting blindly.

It's sad that they master this greeting in kindergarten and don't deviate from it ever. That's the same way I interact with my middle school students.

http://genkienglish.net/curriculum.htm

Without a doubt, you should go to the GENKI page and check out the way they suggest using songs in the classroom. It'll take longer to get the kids in Kinder to do the stuff in the vids, but the way they write about the songs and what games to do with them will help you for sure.

Start with a review song, or a hello song. Intro the vocab for the new topic and build students confidence with it. Teach the song by doing the vocab and sentences in order. THEN play the song and have the kids sing it. End with a game before a goodbye song.

You might want to have the song after the vocab and then teach it, but the kids do get excited when they learn the song components first and then put it together at the end. Depends on your kids though.

If you need a lesson demo. Pick something really interactive that you can play Simon says with. It's super simple, it's fun and easy and kids love it.

And if you want your lesson plan to look the business. Use a decent looking lesson plan layout and fill in all the boxes. Even a "playtime" lesson can have quite a bulk of business going down inside of it. Fun and games are just the most suitable way to get the language points across to the younger learners. No worries. The main point is that you look at your aims and try to make sure each activity is someway aimed to get you towards your teaching goal for the day.

i.e.

Grade: 1
Level: Elementary
Topic: Weather
Vocab: sunny, cloudy, windy, snowy etc.
Structures: How's the weather?
                   It's _______
Resources: Flash cards, match the picture wksheet, "How's the weather" song.
Activities: TPR build. Simon says. Interactive dancing.


I've attached a decent lesson plan template that I've modified for my own use and should be suitable for you.

No problem, Gaby, and good luck!

Sometime I think that you enjoy giving people crap advice just so that you can imagine them going through with it and failing.

Ah.

They told me they were hiring me to teach English (this is actually an after school program as well) but they said the alphabet was too advanced and I didn't know where to go from there. From what everyone is telling me (both on this site and off) it seems that they do, in fact, teach the alphabet as soon as kindergarten so they don't understand why I was told otherwise.

Often what goes down paperwork wise doesn't match reality.

If the regulations say they cant teach the ABC's until 3rd grade then your paperwork (application and lesson plan) has to match that.

There are a lot of weird regulations because they try and control everything.

I have an unusual kindergarten schedule which is two twenty minute classes every Monday afternoon. One with the younger class and one with the older. Since each class only has 20 minutes a week there's only so much we can do, but I'm making my own (very rough) sort of syllabus this year and keeping detailed records of what I'm teaching and when, so next year I can re-use everything and not have to be making plans every Sunday night. The main things I've done with the younger kids this year have been;

The alphabet (sounds and writing)
How are you 1 (I'm happy/sad/fine/so-so)
Words 1 (girl, boy, teacher, pencil, bag, book)
Numbers 1-10
What's your name? my name is _____
Animals 1 (cat, dog, pig, fish)
Colours 1 (the 7 rainbow colours)

The alphabet is an ongoing thing but I'll sometimes give them a worksheet with five letters to copy (a to e for example) with some little Mario pictures on the sheet to colour in if they finish. Now and then I'll get out the alphabet powerpoint and have them say the letters as they appear- that sort of thing.

They also know a few songs, like ABC songs, number songs, head, shoulder, knees and toes etc. Sometimes I just show a song with no actual learning the words, just watching and taking it in. When we were learning the animal words I'd show an animal song every week.

With the older class they all learned the list of topics above, and so far this year they've done:

The alphabet
How are you 2 (I'm sick/tired/hot/cold/angry/hungry)
Animals 2 (snake, elephant, rabbit, something else)
Colours 2 (black, white, grey, brown, gold, silver)
How's the weather? It's _____ (sunny, windy, rainy, cloudy, snowy)
Food 1 (too many to remember)
Food 2 (too many to remember)
I like ____ (with food words in the blank)

...and of course a bunch of songs.

I also show Alphablocks videos every second week, ostensibly for the phonics but mostly because they like them. They're about 2-3 minutes long and there are loads of them on Youtube. The last one we watched was episode 11

A typical 20 minute class might be:

1. Alphablocks video

2. Short chat
How are you? I'm ____
How's the weather? It's ____
What foods do you like? I like _____

3. Song (singing a song they already know)

4. Review what they're currently learning and/or introduce new words with a powerpoint

5. Activity (this could be a game, a worksheet, a new song to learn etc.)

Usually the first part of the class will take 10 minutes or more, and the activity will run until the end of the lesson or until they all finish. Often my classes take 30 minutes or more because the kids want to finish a game or finish their writing/colouring in. It doesn't really matter at my school because those classes are at the end of my day and the kids just run off and play or get picked up by their parents when they're done

tldr; name, feelings, animals, colours, weather, food, phonics, songs, miscellaneous words

Find another school.  They are already asking too much.  They will make life hell when you arrive if they are asking so much for a kindy class.  My kindy classes usually consist of some easy songs, basic lessons on colors, weather, numbers, etc.  One letter a week to learn and write.  Nothing difficult.  How the class runs depends a lot on the assistants.  Some are totally useless and kids dont pay attention.  Others are great and kids sit and listen.  Just keep looking.

Seriously kindergarten can be fun when you figure out how to direct all their energy productively. When I taught Kindergarten, I provided the school with Main topics and sub-topics for each week during the semester and that was enough.  By the end of the semester after stretching and counting each class, they could all count to 15 and back down to zero. Each week I taught them shapes or body parts that they incoporated into a new stretch, always building off a previous area of focus. I coached sports for a few years and I prefer a more kinesthetic teaching style. Incorporating physical actions with the words you want them to communicate was very effective in my experience. Some weeks we sang about zoo animals or animal action words, others reading a story about foods, even sight reading where words appeared in an obvious and repeated pattern. Wear them out and the kinder teachers will be grateful, get them excited and the parents will be happy. If you want any of the materials I used just ask (don't currently need them for high school).

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Kindergarten is very tiring. Like I said, I do two 20 minute classes a week (back to back) and preparing for and teaching those classes is the most draining obligation I have all week.

I also found kindergarten to be mostly a waste of time. Yeah, I taught some of them their ABCs, and when I got them in first grade, it was easier on a whole. But mostly I was trying to find ways to kill time. Their attetnion span is too short for 40 minutes I was forced to teach them, and me, being tall, intimidated many of them until probably the sixth or seventh month when, if I crouched by them, they'd probably crawl over me.

I only had to teach that grade one year, however, and would never look forward to teaching it again.

I completely understand not wanting to do it again. I practically always come away from my kindergarten classes in a good mood (which I can't say for many of my other classes) but very tired. It's difficult to prepare for too, given you can't assume they already know anything and it seems there are so few good materials out there for Korean kids of that age.

I haven't really experienced the kids being intimidated by me. I've always been their first male teacher and I'm tall too, but there have always been a few bold ones who start climbing on me right from the beginning, which seems to break the ice