I am constantly trying to supplement the Grade 5 textbook. I generally skip all the activities that are linguistically incorrect, racist or just plain wrong (like pointing to a dining room and calling it a living room). I never do the chants or the songs, and my students only take about 2 minutes to write the Grade 2 level words (like "grapes" or "apple") that are in the book.

Here is an example of something I've done recently:

1. Ask the students about the rooms in their house. How many bedrooms? Who sleeps there?

2. Write "Dream Bedroom Design" on the board. Words like "dream" and "design" have been konglishized, so they should understand. Use this website to further introduce the idea of designing your own bedroom, and get them excited about the prospect:
http://www.oyunlar1.com/online.php?flash=11

3. Give them a worksheet, but tell them not to write on it until you have told them to. Then, question by question, brainstorm answers. Example: What is your favorite color? And write all the colours that they shout out to you on the board. It greats a great energy. Do this for all 6 questions. You're just reviewing basic vocabulary here... colours, sports, animals... so it shouldn't be a problem. Write them on the board, and stick appropriate magnets/flashcards next to them for your visual learners.

4. Explain/translate "theme"... in Korean: 주제 or 제목 (ju-jae or jae-mok). Essentially, they choose one of their answers (or a combination of them) and make up their theme.

5. Each student draws out their dream bedroom. Again, you may want to show the website flash game again. You can also go over vocab like bed, dresser, carpet...

6. The 2nd part is more difficult. Basically, once they colour in their picture, they have to tell you about it, using "There is..." and "There are...". Illustrate the difference between these two. This part takes a lot of teacher support... and you'll end up with similar sentences (There is a blue dresser)... but hey... it's a lot better than singing a decontextualized song about a future house that makes no sense to anyone....

Thanks!

I'm going to upload more of my elementary lessons... Those of us who never have co-teachers in the room while we're teaching (ahem), should start deviating more from the textbook.

If I could get my hands on the people who wrote the more racist bits of the book....

two powerpoints from my coteacher. enjoy!

Two songs that relate to rooms. 

Much love for The House Song, especially "kitchen, not chicken, it's kitchen."  I've been looking forward to using this song since March!

More house related songs.

House song by Peter Weatherall http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUkTW0pBg2U&feature=related

The house song(wearebusybeavers) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR5qPNPGCmY&feature=related

Rooms in the home http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ6jP4RndkU&feature=channel

Part of the house http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOsLw7vtEWI&feature=related

Here's a simple watch and answer questions activity. They have learnt the rooms of the house an items before hand. Discuss answers and talk after.

Watch this simpsons house tour once discuss what you see and get students to tell you what they see, then hand out the worksheet and play a few more times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IL2WHdRwlJ4

As Halloween is approaching, these house cards are great:

http://bogglesworldesl.com/house_flashcards.htm

Hi!

Sorry, I think this family feud game looks really fun! However, I am a bit confused.

So I divide the students into three groups. Then group one gets to pick a question at the top is the correct? When click the question a name of a room appears. But when I click the number an x shows up and not the answer. If you could please explain that would be terrific!

Thanks again for your help!

Hello everyone. I have stolen so much from here already, it has really got me through the first few weeks here. Now I offer my first original work back to you!

I made a guessing game for this one with pictures of rooms in the house. The premise is that they see the pictures extremely zoomed in at first and can gamble and guess for higher points before the picture becomes clearer and they can see what room it is.

We always have our class divided into 6 teams and they played in their teams. After each slide, we asked if any team wanted to 'play' and if they did, they had to tell the c-t what their guess was. We kept it secret so they wouldn't all just guess the same thing.

My kids seemed to enjoy this a lot, hope it might be of use to someone.