Summer Camp 2014

Summer Camp is a Korean education term of art. It is really just half-days of class that extend into the vacation period, for kids that have a strong interest in a subject, like English, or more likely, for parents who don't want to spring for a paid daycare service. I'm doing two weeks. For older students, a grammar and music camp called "Schoolhouse Rock" which combines a part of speech and a style of music; for younger ones, an "Around the World" camp, with topics like kids' games from around the world, world amusement parks, making a toy.

One of the games we played was "three penny hockey", for which 50 wons make a good stand-in:


We made an arcade toy from an empty water bottle, which the kids enjoyed. I was too busy helping to get pictures, but you take a water bottle, peel off the label, and pry off the ring under the cap. Pop the ring inside, roll up a paper tube about three inches long, glue the tube into the neck and screw on the cap. Now you invert the bottle and try to shake it so you ring the ring around the tube. We also made paper footballs and played flick football with them:


Yesterday's lesson was about world landmarks. After watching a ppt, I showed them some paper models I assembled, from the website papertoys.com:


I wanted them to have the choice of Mt. Rushmore and the Eiffel Tower, but the tower took me about 45 minutes, and turned out to be a bit too fiddly, so everyone did the American presidents:


Tomorrow, we will explore Africa by way of scenes and songs from The Lion King; meanwhile, the rockers will be exposed to some love songs, from Greensleeves to Donny Osmond's Puppy Love, and wrap up the week with a quiz game.

See you in August!