My first lesson!

My first lesson went so much better than i ever expected. Of course, there were bumps... but it went fairly smooth. The class was so open to everything that I wanted to teach them.
I started out by showing them pictures of an American Elementary school in Columbia. They were amazed, and had soooo many questions for me. Then, I passed around pictures of activities that american kids do... like rising bikes, playing video games, dancing, and different kinds of sports. I have noticed that Italian kids do all of these things too, so I think it helped them identify and connect to me (us). Then, I passed around pictures of the Mizzou campus and they loved them... again, LOTS of questions... The funniest was when a picture of memorial union was being passed around and they saw everyone's laptop out while they were eating. and a little boy said, "you are rich because you eat and have computer at the same time!" and i just said, "no, we are always studying... we don't have time between classes to just sit and eat, we have to always be studying."
Next, I worked on normal English conversations. They loved this. They struggled only with the phrase "How are you today?" They answered with things like "I am fun." or "I am Wednesday." But we worked it out together. :)
Then, I had them write Enlgish animal names on the board one by one, then say the word outloud to the class and spell it... they LOVED this!

They added to my lesson by incorporating questions... a boy stood up and said..."What animals swim", then another said "What has four legs" This was so great. They were so engaged.
Then, I asked them..." Which animals live on a farm... we circled the answers together, and then I taught them "Old McDonald had a farm". Surprisingly they already knew the tune in Italian so it was farely easy to teach them the song in English. I had little groups at a time come forward and pick an animal. We would talk about the sound first, then sing it with the class.
After this, I had them all complete the sentence ...."My favorite animal is...." and then draw a picture... There were many fun answers and interesting pictures!!! As they were coloring I walked around and asked them questions relating to their pictures... like about colors and shapes. They are very smart!
They loved being creative.

I was trying to hit all points of learning styles, and I think I succeeded.
The two Pakistani kids THRIVED during my lesson, it was so amazing to see them LOVING it. My teacher told me that they spoke English growing up so this was very exciting for them. It made me happy.

At the end they sang for me the Italian version of Old McDonald, and had me repeat the Italian words! :)
Here's a vid..