Winter Camps at Chopyeong

So my school days at Chopyeong were officially over on December 18th but I still had three days of winter camps from Dec 26~28th with the kids. Chopyeong is very easy going with my winter camps and I have full control over what I can do so I usually try to make it more fun rather than academic since they kids don't necessarily have to attend but they do because their families are busy or they have nowhere else to go during winter break.

I decided to focus on a winter/Christmas/New Years theme since the holidays were just over and the new year was just around the corner.

Christmas is one of my favourite holidays so we started by going over Christmas vocabulary and key phrases and launched into making Christmas cards:

Making the cards.

Writing a Christmas greeting.

Finished cards.

 Then we made a Christmas decoration that I remember making in elementary school and absolutely loving: Christmas stained glass windows!

Cutting out the stencils.

Cutting and pasting on cellophane.

Finished product looks great held up to the window!

For my summer camps last year we made french toast and pasta and it was loads of fun, so I definitely wanted a cooking component to winter camp as well. I decided on making a traditional winter drink for them: apple cider! Hot, spicy, just the right thing for a cold day. I had planned to make it together as a whole class and go over ingredients and a recipe in English but the stained glass took a lot longer than expected so I made it for them on the side and served it:

Setting up.

Slicing up the apples, ginger and orange.

Infusing fruit and cinnamon with apple juice.

They liked it!

Then we had our New Year's class. I taught them some vocabulary and phrases related to New Year's Eve and then we got ready to have a mock new year's eve party. We made paper plate party hats, toilet paper roll noise makers and balloon poppers. After everything was made we had our countdown!

 

Overall, it was a great way to end my year at Chopyeong. I will really miss these kids whom I've gotten to know on a first name basis and would love to run into one of them years later and see how they've gotten along.