paper airplanes

paper airplanes
Originally uploaded by Jason In Japan.

Do you remember when you got to make paper airplanes in class and it was an educational activity!? :)

Last year I introduced a game where the kids write their name and something they like (ie - "My name is Jason. I like pizza.") on a sheet of paper and then we folded it into a paper airplane and launched them all at once. Every kid picked a new one up and then one at a time they introduced their classmates: "This is Jason. He likes Pizza." Went over really well.

So this 3rd grade teacher morphed my idea and had the kids draw vegetables (the day's vocab topic) on their paper, fold and launch them as paper airplanes, and then they had to come up to me and I'd ask, "What do you want?" and they'd look at their paper and say "I like carrot." (The Japanese almost never pluralize nouns - it's a tough thing to get them used to)

Went over pretty well. Of course there were some vegetables they drew that I couldn't recognize and/or I had no idea how to translate the name of a few - still don't know the Japanese word for eggplant.
And you say "Oh, that's an eggplant" to a kid and he looks at you like you're crazy - It's not an "egg" it's a vegetable you silly person.