Friday: grammar lesson 5A

On Friday, I had the first hour off so I had time to print the worksheets and so on. There was only one problem, the copy machine wouldn't listen to me. In the end I had 10 boardgames instead of 5 :).
The 2nd period, I had English with the 7th grade. First they had their 'Fridaytalk'. Every pupil has to tell what he/she is going to do during the weekend.
Almost everyone was going to watch the final of X-Factor.
Then they had to do pairwork. One pupil had a page with the picture of a kitchen on it. The other pupil had almost the same picture but without the details. So they had to ask the other one where the broom was for example. They couldn't speak Danish, only English and they had to use the prepositions. I walked around, making sure they were talking English. When I saw that one group was finished, I asked them how many mistakes there were, what the mistake was and so on.

The 4th period, I had to teach the 5th grade myself. I was really excited about it, also because all the pupils were excited too. They had been asking for more than a week, when I would be teaching. The 3rd period, they had music class and the 4th period they came running to the classroom and looked very happy and they were waiting with great expectations.
I started the lesson with a story. I told them I wanted to tell them the story of how I got in Denmark. "So I started telling them that I got a letter: To Ms. Sonja Knaepen. Upper bedroom, Belgium. It was send by Sct. Severin Skole for witchcraft and wizardry. I had to take some train and I had to leave every time on platform 9 3/4. Once I got to the school, I talked with the Danish flag and he told me that I had to live in the house of 5A. ( which is the class). In the end I told them I learnt a spell to make things cosy: hygge."

They were all laughing because most of them recognized the details of the story. It wasn't my story but the story of Harry Potter. We had a sort conversation: Who likes Harry Potter? Who has read the books ? Who prefers the books and who the films? There was only one person who thought the books were better than the films so I told him, he could be my favourite today, just for fun. I also asked them in which language they have read the books. Most of the pupils have read them in Danish. I told the pupils I've read them in Dutch and English and that I've bought the first Harry Potter book in Danish. They then offered to teach me some Danish. I answered that that was fine with me if I could teach them Dutch. But they all answered: Ow but we can already speak Dutch. Apperently they thought that Dutch is the same as German, (Deutsch). It was so funny. Then I gave them some worksheets. It contained a short text about the writer, J.K. Rowling and one about Harry Potter. Two pupils read it out loud and then they had to answer the true/false questions.
Then it was time for some grammar. The point of the lesson was to learn them the difference between do/does. We started with some easy exercises and some rules. Every time they had to complete the rule themselves and there was a picture of professor Dumbledore next to it. The exercises and the explanation of the rules, didn't went very smoothly because it's still a bit difficult for 5th graders to get all the information in English. So Karin, helped me once in a while by explaining it shortly in Danish. One pupil said he didn't know what to do in an exercise. So I went standing next to him and we did the first 2 sentences together. Then he could do it on his own. I told him that he was doing a great job and he looked so happy !
I also used the names of the pupils in the exercises, which they found very funny.
When I asked a pupil to solve the exercise, sometimes he/she said she couldn' t do it. I just said she had to try and when she had tried it I gave them extra positive feedback: Good job ! See you can do it ! Super !
My production phase was a boardgame but we didn't have enough time so I will do that next lesson.
I told them the lesson was over and that they had done such a great job and that I was very proud of them. They were all smiling and it was such a nice feeling. I really felt great about this lesson. They understood most of it and they were behaving so well and you could see they really enjoyed this lesson. Some of them asked me when I would teach them again, and when I told them 'in 2 weeks', because next week, they have a project week, they looked disappointed. They wanted me next week as well. :)
Karin also said I did a great job and it was so nice to hear.
I left the classroom smiling and I was just so happy. I knew I did a good job and that they understood what I explained.

I was totally ready for my trip to Odense, which I will tell you about in my next message.