For my last lesson of the year, I asked the teachers what they would like to do, and one of them expressed interest in me teaching the students birthdays. While I only had two classes left for the year, I figured I would give it a try, and fit it in.
For the first class, I focused on numbers. Almost all the students knew 1-10 which worked out great, but very few of them knew 10-30, which is what I figured. I spent the class explaining the teens, and which ones sounded different than just adding "teen" to the end of the word. I also explained the difference between thirteen and thirty.
Then we played a Grouping game, which I thought might end up being fun, but turned out to be a bit boring. My favorite class did very well grouping together, but other classes got a little bored.
For the next class, we reviewed all the numbers again, and then I worked in the months. One student knew everything perfect, which was a little surprising. Other students didn't, so it was a little difficult for them. The games were designed for listening, rather than repeating to make it easy on them.
Really, I think I needed another two classes to fully flesh out their birthdays and allow them to repeat everything, so I plan on continuing this lesson into the next year with a few tweaks.
Students loved the Seven Steps song, and performing the gestures made things challenging for them.
I just reused the months flash cards from the ６年生 lesson, which might've been a little confusing for the students.
Again, I definitely needed more time to fully flesh out the contents of the lesson. A few more classes, and a slow build up would definitely allow them to internalize the material better, and give them a chance to use it, too.
I'll definitely expand on this next time. ^_^