Play-Doh

I have spent too much time over this past school year working on letters with my kids, and now I'm finally focusing on some real English basics. I think this has been an okay decision in two ways:

1) Now that my kids have heard English and have, by themselves, picked up English words through class usage, I feel that they're listening more intently and repeating better.
2) Sadly, we have less kids during the summer. This is sad because this means some kids won't get these English lessons. However, this means that the kids I do have focus more easily and it's a little more fun to do activities with them (not as much classroom management).

At the end of last week I was teaching the kids "my name is _____", but I know that they can't simply repeat it a couple of times and have it memorized. I had to think of some activities to help them cement it in their brain. So, we did a few fun things.

*On the first day that I taught them the phrase, I gave them a piece of paper that said "Hi! My name is ______". I filled in the blank and gave them a circle for them to draw their own face. I made my own example of "My name is Meghan" and drew my own face.
*On the second day, when we reviewed, I found little paperdoll-esque cut outs and had the kids color in the figures as themselves. When they were done, they attached these to a popsicle stick, and I had them practice with their "puppets", saying "my name is ____".
*Then, in their first lesson this week I had them work with play-doh. We needed something to break the monotony of paper and crayon. I instructed them to make a little person out of their play-doh, a model of themselves. When they did that, I asked "What would your person say? They would say 'my name is____'."

I can see now how these lessons have really helped to make the phrase stick in their heads, and given them ample opportunity to see it used. Also, by giving them a lot of positive reinforcement (even if their speaking wasn't that good), I've given them the courage to try even more things, as I had a class today try to say "What's your name?" and have someone give an answer.

I didn't take many play-doh pictures, but I got a few from my oldest class. This was one of my examples for making a version of yourself. I'm pretty impressed with myself and how the hair turned out. I know I impressed my kids.

 Oh yeah. Hard at work.

 At least Martha is hard at work.

 Rodrigo's rendering. I told him it had big muscles, and he said "Yeah - like Kevin!" Kevin is our super tall intern.

 Two more little people. Sorry they're not upright!