It has been nearly a month since the New Year began and everyone is hopefully settled back into their regular schedules after an exciting and worthwhile Spring Festival break. It is time again to break up the routine, bring some smiles, and spread some knowledge, in another edition of the now famed JESIE Open Day. This time, three JESIE teachers, Amber, Tom, and Matthew brought what can only be described as an innate talent for teaching to two of Nanjing's premier schools, Nanjing Number 1 Experimental Middle School and You Fu Xi Jie Primary School. This month's JESIE Open Day was all about Easter and the students couldn't have been more excited to be graced by the presence of JESIE's staff.

The first stop of the day was once again Nanjing Number 1 Experiemtnal Middle School. Amber and Tom taught two well thought out and outstanding lessons to two 7th grade classes. After a brief introduction of herself, and a fun warm up to get the students settled, Amber jumped right into introducing some necessary Easter vocabulary words. After some drilling to get the class to produce the correct pronunciation of the words, Amber played a game that the class was extremely excited to participate in. She played some Easter music and had the class pass around a soft ball. When she stopped the music the student holding the ball needed correctly say the flashcard that she was pointing at on the board. If they were able to say the word correclty they earned a point for their team. The chance of being the unlucky student holding the ball when the music paused had the students laughing and smiling as well as trying to quickly dish off the ball to the next student as quickly as possible. Once the game was completed, Amber used a PPT to explain Easter in a little bit more depth and show the students what an American and Canadian Easter celebration is all about. Next came a game that I think the students will not soon forget, the egg spoon race. Using real uncooked eggs the students from 3 different teams had to balance an egg on a spoon and sprint to the front of the room when Amber said "Go". Once they arrived at the front they were tasked with answering an Easter question related to the PPT she previously taught. Once a nice sweat was worked up, and the students were good and tired, Amber distributed paper and had the students create Easter cards.  

In the class next door to Amber, Tom was teaching a very well planned and thought out lesson. Tom began with a brief introduction of himself then went over some vocabulary related to Easter.  After a quick missing card game to test the memory of this smart 7th grade class, he had the class do a quick brainstorm to find out what, if any, previous knowledge the students possessed about Easter. Next Tom passed out a text related to Easter and instructed the class to underline any words they weren't familiar with. After going over any new and unknown vocabulary, Tom split the class into teams of 5-7 students and had them answer some questions. The class was extrmemly competitive with this task and eventually a winning team was recognized for their efforts. In order to cement this new knowledge into their long-term memory Tom employed a clever game of tic-tac-toe to bring another element into the already competitive environement.

The second and final stop of the day was to You Fu Xi Jie Primary School. Tasked with exciting and enlightening two 1st grade classes were Matthew and Tom. Matthew began his class by throwing a soft toy to each student and asking them "What's your name?" , "How and you?", or "How old are you?". Once they all had a chance to answer a question, Matthew introduced some Easter vocabulary to the class. Each new word was placed on the board with a number written above them. After drilling the words as a class, Matthew split the class into two teams and brought up students from each team to participate in a quick competition. Matthew instructed the class that if he were to say a vocabulary word the students needed to say the number written above the word, but if he said the number then the students needed to say the corresponding vocabulary word. After most of the class had a go at this game, Matthew explained the rules of the next game which was greeted with obvious enthusiasm. EGG SPOON RACE! Except instead of real eggs, ping pong balls were used to avoid 10 minutes of clean up and the inevitable sacrifice of several dozen eggs. The class was split down the middle and 6-7 students from each team participated in a relay race with a single spoon and ping pong ball.  Students needed to walk carefully from one end of the class to the other balancing the "eggs" in their spoons. Once they completed the cource they had to pass the spoon to the next student on their team. The first team to have all their team members complete the task were awarded with 5 points. The second place was only awarded 3 points. Once the class was good and tired out from this game, Matthew distributed paper and had the class design and color their own Easter cards. A thoughtful message was written on the board for them to copy into their cards.

In the class next door Tom began by introducing himself and tossing a soft ball to a student. The student then needed to answer the question and pass the ball to the next student and ask them the question.  Once all the students had passed the ball, Tom said 1, 2, 3, a, b, c and the students who were the quietest were given a sticker for their obedience. After the class was good and settled Tom introduced the class to the essential Easter vocabulary and played a quick missing card game. Tom would instruct the class to put their heads down and he would remove a card from the board. If the selected student could identify the missing card they were awarded a point for their team. The class was eager to be the student picked for this game and after Tom felt that they were good and familiar with the new words he began the next game.  He had both teams line up side by side and handed the students in the front of the lines a ball. The students were instructed to throw the ball at the vocabulary word that Tom called out. The student who could accurately throw their ball at the spoken vocabulary word was awarded a point for their team. This game brought the level of excitement in the classroom to a fever pitch, and after each student had a chance to go, Tom had the class settle back into their seats to make Easter cards.  After a quick explanation, Tom distributed paper and the students quietly drew and colored their Easter cards.  

In Western cultures Easter is representative of the Spring season. A season which is associated with rebirth, starting anew, and hope. This JESIE Open day left everyone involved with an optimism toward this new year and the a real sense of hope that the state of JESIE is certainly on a trajectory even higher than it was in the previous years. HAPPY EASTER!