Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Summer experiences - back to teaching?


This post is week 5 of 8 in the 8 Weeks of Summer Blog Challenge for educators.

Summer is a wonderful time for both teachers and learners to rest, to unwind and to live new experiences in order to cope with the pressure of the school year.
What they do depends on a lot of things. Maybe they visit family in the country, maybe they travel, maybe they learn new things. Time is free and choices are unlimited for both.
Well, I have to say that maybe teachers do not rest that much since they have to plan for next year, maybe attend seminars and read to learn new things so that they can somehow "enhance" their teaching.
Summer will be over soon and we will get back to school.
Students will be full of energy and it will be weeks before they get used to their new schedule with school, extra curricular activities, studying and responsibilities.
So what better time for a new project?
Students can describe their holidays, not with the "traditional essay": how I spent my summer, but in a more advanced way.
What did they do during the summer?
Did they visit another place? Even another country? Did they take pictures or videos on their mobile phones? How about a project with information about this place and a power-point or a video presentation? (This could also be in collaboration with a geography, history or music teacher if you work at a school)
How about a new hobby or activity? This could actually be a group project "summer activities". (in collaboration with the gym teacher, again if you work at a school)
This way students can be engaged into something new, start the new school year with motivation and do something out of the ordinary.
( I don't really know if I am in the subject today, but it seemed like a good idea...)

1 comment:

Sheri Edwards said...

Great ideas here. I like using Slice of Life writing, so students can choose a topic, I learn about them, and we still get our "skills" in. More importantly, I learn about them and we build our learning community. We do collaborative projects -- short quick ones to review good collaboration skills. Thanks for your ideas. Have a great start of your year!

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