Towards the end of last year, when we were learning body part vocabulary in our Kinder Classes, I came up with the idea of using a dice to introduce some fun to the vocab learning.

  I'm not sure what was more fun, rolling the dice and saying the body part name, or the children laughing while I was trying to draw on the dice!

  You can find a fail-safe dice template here:

   http://www.englishpool.net/images/pdf/dice_blank.pdf

Do you know what this is?

Yes, it's a cow. Or more specifically, it's a liquorice cow. And it became one of the best teaching aids I've ever encountered.

In our elementary classes （小学生B＆小学生C) they had the target of describing various items."It looks beautiful." "It looks soft." "It's loud." etc...

Well for the target "It tastes delicious" or "It tastes terrible" this little liquorice cow worked wonders.

I offered each student one of these little liquorice cows, and some students said "It looks delicious", some even went as far as to take an initial bite and say "It tastes delicious" but 100% of students finally said "It tastes terrible!" before spitting it out into the bin!

(For the record, I am yet to meet any Japanese that like liquorice. It must be an acquired taste!)

Thank you to my friend Mr.S who provided the liquorice after a business trip to Denmark.

  We used this idea at our Christmas Parties, and I thought I'd share it with you.

 I prepared a gingerbread man for each child and set a selection of different coloured 'chocopens' on each table. The children were then free to create their own designs.

 It was a lot of fun and something I can see us doing again.

 (Apologies for the picture, the sharp eyed will notice I only used one colour! It was a test! )

  Forgot to post this before the Christmas/ New Year break but the photos taken at the Christmas Parties are online.

  As usual, you'll need a password to access them, check inside your child's bag...or contact me direct.

  Thank you to all the students who attended the Christmas Parties, they were a lot of fun and I hope you enjoyed the gingerbread men!