This semester I was lucky enough to choose the primary lesson I will be teaching. As you can see from my previous post, my school is mainly a field trip destination for elementary school students. This semester I wanted to teach about something I knew and thoroughly enjoyed = Tailgating Culture (no, not the kind involving cars).
I was really surprised (and excited) when my supervisor and mentor agreed to the topic and was completely on-board with us ordering cornhole (aka bags) boards from the US. I couldn’t believe I was going to get paid to teach students about one of the best parties in America!
Although I’m still trying to get a video made of my entire class, here’s a brief rundown of what we do in each 30min class:
First, I greet the students and we watch a quick video about tailgating. Students are then encouraged to tell me what they saw in the video and try to guess the topic. I then teach them the basic concept of tailgating (or sports picnic for the lower level kids) and some of the things we do: eat, play games, and watch football.
Afterwards, I break the kids in to 3 groups, assign them a team (Bears, Cowboys or Bengals), and they complete a quiz to see which team is best. The quiz is designed to give the students an opportunity to learn additional vocabulary through discussion in small groups.
After the quiz is finished and we determine the winner, we watch a short video explaining the rules of cornhole. I then reiterate the rules in the simplest form possible and go over a couple additional classroom rules. Then the game begins…. I’ve tweaked this part of the lesson several times due to my room being small and the boards being very very weak (they are prone to breaking if the kids lean on them). My current method is to divide the kids in to two teams and pit them against eachother = most points wins.
While they are playing cornhole (usually about 6-7min), we listen to some popular music played in football stadiums. Once the game is finished, and a winner is announced, I have the kids sit back down (to calm down) and watch sports highlights for the last 2-3min of class.
That’s it! I do this lesson between 16-20x a week and it hasn’t gotten old yet! I’m really having a great time with the kids and absolutely love to see their faces when they score their first points. I can’t believe I get paid to do this!
What an awesome lesson idea! I love it! And I love that you get to re-use this lesson with your students because they change every day. I’m sure all the kids who’ve done this lesson with you must have had a wonderful time.
Super creative, well done 🙂
Thanks so much!! I’ve had a blast so far 🙂
Wow! This is impressive. The classroom looks great, and it looks like a whole lot of fun. As a fellow American and sports fan, it definitely stirred up some memories of tailgating and having a great time with friends. This is a unique and interesting topic for the students.You deserve to be paid for this. Amazing job!
Thanks so much ^^ It’s been a ton of fun this semester!
OMG THATS PRETTY FANTASTIC!!! Do you work at one of those Korean all-year round camps? If I were to do EPIK, that’s the job placement I would dream of! So sad to admit this as a fellow american but I’ve never been to a proper tailgate before! Will have to do that the moment I get back home 😛 And I can’t believe they let you order cornhole boards from the US. That’s pretty freaking rad! Cornhole set-ups were really popular at bars in Boston right before I left! Thanks for sharing this really unique concept and kudos to your school for letting that fly 😉
Thank you ^^ It’s been so much fun this semester! I’m very lucky to have a sizable budget ’cause those things weren’t remotely cheap!! Thanks again for reading!