Journal Entry #14

Itoman Gakken

Saturday Dec 9, 2006



M&M game (again)


There is power in candy! This activity was a big hit with these students as well. I cannot thank Sarah enough. These students too were reluctant to place their M&Ms in the colors (they thought it would make the candy taste bad). This group had an easier time graphing their M&Ms because I didn’t give out as many.

I had more fun with the numbers with this group. I would ask them for example “What is one M&M plus 1 M&M?” They would quickly respond and then I let them eat that many M&Ms. I started making the terms higher and then switch the operator. “What is 10….minus 9.” This tended to relax the excitement.

Then I started to ask individuals in turn and even started using multiplication. Of course the students were then allowed to “eat the answer.” Everyone laughed (then sighed) when I asked, “What is 2 times…………..0?”


After all the “What is…?” and “How many….?” questions I asked, the most interesting response came when I asked, “How many M&Ms do you want?” They all looked at me as if they had no idea what I was asking. “Do you want is Hoshii desuka?” I told them. I then repeated, “How many M&Ms do you want?” They kept looking in their little cups as if I were asking them to count something again.

One student finally shouted out, “2!” so I gave her two M&Ms. Even when the rest of the students caught on to my question and though we had practiced numbers up to a thousand, the most that anyone ever requested from me was 10!

Journal Entry #13

Itoman Gakken

Saturday, Dec 9, 2006

How much Money do you Have?

This was a natural segue from the previous activity. Since the students were given random amounts of yen value (5 yen to 500 yen coins) for their markers, each obtained a different sum of money that they had to report to me in English.

The real math lesson however came when I asked them to add up everything. What did they begin doing first? They began sorting and grouping. All 500 yen went in one pile, all 100 yen in another. It was then interesting how even though there were eight students, one student insisted that he be the counter. He then grabbed a calculator and began to confuse the matter even more. Everyone began disagreeing with him. So I then asked, “Well, how many 100 yens are there?” They quickly understood that 8 100 yens was 800 yen.

When all was said and done, there turned out to be 7,460 yen. This was a good activity for grouping, sorting, counting and adding.

Journal Entry #12

Itoman Gakken

Saturday, Dec 9, 2006


Shape Bingo with Money Markers


This was the same activity I used (courtesy of Mrs. LaMontagne) last week with the Wakasa group. With this group however, I used a set of yen picture cards (that I had made years ago) for markers. The students first needed to review their shapes in English, because they had not the previous week. I then went around and asked each student to name the play card and everyone else listened and watched their own bingo sheet for a match. The first person to reach bingo then became the announcer until the next person reached bingo. The end of this activity actually lead into the next activity, for I then asked each student to tell me how much money they had on heir bingo sheet.

Journal Entry #11

Saturday, Dec 9, 2006

M&M candy count


I never realized what power there was in a bag of M&Ms!!! Sarah, I want to thank you for bringing in this exercise. Firstly I blew it big time by forgetting to make more copies for everyone. I had four of each sheet (grouping and graphing). Since I had eight students it still worked. Some of the boys did not want to color, but the four sheets were colored in the matter of minutes.

I don’t think they knew what exactly was coming next. I was in such a hurry to surprise the students with the M&Ms that I filled some of the cups with more M&Ms than the graph could handle. The students were at first very reluctant to put their M&Ms on the colored circles. Some students actually lined their corresponding colored M&M around the circle so it wouldn’t be “in the crayon.” So I asked questions like “How many red ones do you have, red ones and blue ones, etc.” The student able to answer the question first got to eat one.

From this point there was a counting frenzy and I soon felt like Skinner himself. The more reinforcements I allowed (the M&Ms of course), the more the students were jumping out of their seats to answer my questions.

Journal Entry #10

Saturday, Dec 9, 2006

Shapes from the real world

Another activity given to me by a fellow student (Vita). By asking the students what shape or shapes they could find in each picture, taught them not only to rely on the different shape names they had learned but also reinforced their knowledge of the items that contained the shapes.

Journal Entry #9

Saturday, Dec 9, 2006

Clip On Numbers

This activity was given to me by one of my classmates in CDEC 2307 and although very simple for the children in my ESL class, proved ideal for reinforcing simple addition and subtraction. The students understood the concept of clipping on as many clothes pins as the card indicated. But then I started combining the cards and asking each student what was this card (2 card) plus this card (3 card). They seemed very excited about this and immediately started answering me in Japanese. When I insisted that they answer me in English, I could almost see their thought process changing.

Journal Entry #8

Patterning Match-up Cards

This was perhaps the best activity of the day since it combined everything from the curriculum of the day: number, shape and color. As soon as I took the match-up cards out of the box (again so graciously loaned to me by Mrs. LaMontagne), the students knew exactly what to do with them even though I had not yet explained what we were going to do with them. They started putting the piece together and collecting the finished product. Akihiko (7 years old) only put together one and as expected the older students put together more. I then went around and asked each student to tell me what one of their finished examples had on it. What I thought would be rather simple for them turned out to be rather difficult. “One green circle, two yellow squares…” I would have them read each card and if they hesitated or told me the wrong color, number or shape, I went on to the next student. They began practicing. When I reached Akihiko for the second time, he was able to tell me what was on his card and since the hour was up I told him he was free to go. After this, a frenzy of panic spread as each student wanted to tell me what was on all of his or her card and thus be free to go. This activity proved important because I could tell that after a few tries, the students realized they did not have to “read” each shape. Each card had a specific pattern and they could finish telling me what was on their card faster by remembering the pattern on their card.

Journal Entry #7

Color Shape Bingo

This was an excellent way to review the shapes and colors while playing one of the children’s favorite games. Each of the eight students received their bingo card and was told to use eight of the cubes as markers. I then went around and had one student select and announce the shape card. This way each student practiced announcing the shape and all students practiced listening for it. This game was important in that it reinforced their previous practice with the shapes from the last meeting and combined it with the color recall from the previous and other activities. When the student saw the colored shape card I could almost see his mind working on the simultaneous translation of color and shape while he or she was saying “Ehto…ehto…” and I would say, “in English, “ehto” is “uh” or “uhm.”

Journal Entry #6

Cube Count Race

This activity was important to ESL learning as it required the students to use the phrase “How Many?” I lined the students up in two groups and placed the colored cubes (so graciously loaned to me by Mrs. LaMontagne) at the front of the line so that one member from each group was racing against each other. I would then shout out, “Two green four yellow and three black” the students would then race each other to put the cubes together in that sequence. “How many yellow?” the students kept asking or “One more time!” I would then ask them to add up all the cubes in the sequence and tell me the sum. The students loved this activity and the second in line often moved in front to help his or her teammate to put the cubes together.

Journal Entry #5

Counted Exercises.

This was a warm-up activity for my 7-10 year old ESL students at Wakasa Gakken. It was simple in theory, but was confusing for them in practice. I would shout out “12 jumping Jacks” or “5 push-ups” or “15 claps” and they would have to count out loud while they were doing the action. I thought this was important since the intention of the activity was to relay the idea of how much and one to one correspondence. I would not allow the children to count in Japanese and this would often interrupt the activity.

Journal Entry 4

Activity: Shape Game

Objective: Identifying and naming geometric shapes


Finding a book about shapes is difficult! There was one that the Foster Library had to offer and as the librarian and I searched for it, the final conclusion was that the book had become lost. Nevertheless, I made a series of shape cards and first went over the names of the shapes with the students. We then played the shinkensuigakku and I had to refresh their memory often, especially with pentagon and rhombus. One student (8 year old Mizuki) knew most of the shapes already and was very quick to answer the riddle game we played later when I gave hints like "This shape has four even sides."

Journal Entry 3

Activity: Fruit 123 Objective: Sorting and Grouping

I told the students to group the fruits by their kind and then to

order them from lowest to highest. I then asked them (individually) to give me a pair of cards, "three apples and one cherry" for example. The lesson worked okay but it was a little difficult to explain grouping to them in English. After I gave them an example of what I wanted, they understood and were able to group the fruits in no time. For them to digest the concept of "give me one banana, two strawberries and three watermelons" proved to be more challenging. I could see them trying to figure out what I wanted and think as fast as they could to get the correct cards to me. They enjoyed the challenge and asked to play again.

Journal Entry 2

On the second Saturday of each month I usually also travel to the Ahagon Gakken in Itoman. Because of travel plans to Nagasaki, the owner asked me to teach on the first Saturday of this month (Nov 4). The age group for this class is also 7-11. The size of this class is normally around six students, but this day it was double that amount. So the small banquet table that serves as our classroom was even more crowded than usual. The level of these students (English-wise) is varied and it can be difficult to stay within each student's ZPD. Fortunately they all get along rather well and help each other out when one another is stuck on a word.

I did the same activity with this group of students as with the Wakasa group. However, I decided to go up to twenty with this class. I also added a different twist to the activity by allowing each student to draw his or her written number from a container of chopsticks with a number (1-20) written on it. Then they were to select a monkey card and find a match (telling me in English what numbers they had chosen). Because the chopsticks were always scrambled, this activity soon became monotonous, slow and boring.

I decided to pick up the pace a bit by allowing each student to take a chopstick first, then have each student search for his number (on the chopstick) from the pile of monkeys. The pace improved a little but it came to the point where each was to choose two (and up to four) cards each turn to improve their chances on getting a match.

One student (Misaki) got a match three times in a row and amazed all of us.

The concept of one to one correspondence seemed to work best with numbers above ten, where although the word for the number was written on each monkey card, the students still found it easier to count the monkeys to determine if they had a match.

Journal Entry 1

On the first two Saturdays of each month I try my best to teach English at the Wakasa Gakken in Naha City. On this particular visit (Nov 4) I took the opportunity to try out the lesson plan (activity) from Ms. LaMontagne. The age group of this class is 7-11. Since we had a few new students this day, I decided to practice the one to one relationship with numbers only up to twelve. All the students know of this kind of matching activity and they call it shinkensuijaku. Today, I decided to use monkeys as the counting object (hoping we might have more fun than a barrel of monkeys). Although this activity appeared to be outside their ZPD, in that they could very easily recognize a multitude of monkeys up to twelve, it served as a valuable activity for pronunciation. The new students really did not have that much trouble with the activity other than needing the practice of making new sounds.