More of the acctual teaching part

My classes really like Scattagories, the hot potato ball game, stock-characters, Simon says and that I am both silly and somewhat strict.

Scattagories is great, they are facinated with the dice.

A note on Stock characters ---- Use them sparingly or be prepared to create new ones. Also is a good review if you ask the class what they remember about the character they created. My current stock is Joe/johnny and Evil-pirate Bob and their girlfriends, ex, wives etc. The women don't tend to be stock, because my classes tend to believe that Joe/Johnny is my boyfriend. I asked about this, and it is apparently because if you introduce someone as "my friend" it translates to the students as "romantic boyfriend".
Poor Joe/Johnny has been killed many times over, and has even come back as a Zombie. I usually will ask the class what they remember about Joe or Johnny, because I can't remember which class had Joe married to a vampire and which class portrayed him as a bad-boy, and in which class Joe is nice, funny-basically everything your mother wants you to marry. This is also a good way to see what they remember and a quick warm up review in class.

We will be doing a unit on Australia because ANZAC day is coming up in 2 weeks. I usually combine ANZAC and Australia day, because it is too cold in Jan. to do usual activities.

Simon says is a good way to re-focus attention. If no one listens, then play Simon says for about 2 minutes, and they seem to be better able to listen and focus after they sit down.

Before Easter, the last day of classes before Spring Break was a Saturday. Why they would do that I don't know, because no student can focus on Sat. classes, and right before break is impossible. So I brought a secret weapon. Easter bunny ears. I whipped them out and taught the class the bunny-hop after discussing "What will you do?" and "What will I do?". After bunny-hopping (which surprisingly only 3 of my students declined doing) I asked them questions "Was this an easy dance?" "Was this a silly dance?" etc. The only thing that didn't quite go according to plan, was the cell phones. I don't allow cell phones in class, and if I see them I put them on my desk and call it my collection. However when the bunny ears were on my head, I turned around to see a sea of phones taking photos of me in the ears. Of course then others wanted their photos in the ears. If I were to do this again, I might have the students wait until after class to have their photo in the ears, but all in all their attention and attitude was fairly good for being Saturday class and almost spring break.