Fun Group Project Ideas
Hello! So I am back with another post to share some classroom activities that have gone well for me and my classes. As a reminder I work at a high school but I am certain that these games and projects will work for middle school as well. Recently, I have been doing group projects with my kids as well as playing lots of games. For some classes, it goes remarkably well; then for some others, it’s a bit slow and drags on. But those tend to always be my quiet and lazy classes that never want to do anything at all except sleep.
In my experience, group projects have gone well because the kids get embarrassed with anything that has to do with speaking English. So if they are in a group, they feel less alone and don’t have to make English mistakes by themselves. What I do is: give an assignment and have them create posters or power points, then present as a group to the class on a predetermined day.
Over the course of the 10 months I have been here, I have done three different group projects. Last semester I gave the same project for both 1st and 2nd graders. This semester I gave different projects to the different grades.
Anti-campaigns
The lesson focus was advertisement and certain messages that are presented to the public. I showed them different video and print ads and had them come up with what they thought the ad was trying to say. Then I put them into groups and had them come up with a problem they wanted to speak out against and create an ad for it. I did not limit them on what problems they could choose. I had groups speak out against abortion, global warming, bullying, domestic violence, and many more.
Create your own music group or music Entertainment Company
This one is by far my favorite of the three. I did a short and fun lesson on music and the different types of genres then compared what the music industry in Korea is like compared to the USA. For timing, this was not completely in depth but the point was able to get across. Most kids decided to create their own Kpop group but a few groups came up with their own Entertainment Company.
It was so much fun to see what they came up with and the posters they designed for it. Music is huge in Korea and the kids at my school are always listening to it. They scream-sing in the hallways, belt out notes when they enter the class, blast it from the computers between class times; school life is seriously just a never ending musical here.
Create your own summer festival
In similar fashion to the music lesson, I did a short, fun lesson on festivals around the world. Korea has tons of festivals in the Summer time and since the weather has warmed up, many festivals have been happening all over Korea already. I put the students into groups and had them come up with a brand new festival.
I wanted them to try and create something that does not exist in Korea. If they could celebrate anything at all, what would it be? I had groups create a cheese festival, a tangerine festival, a dragon fruit festival, a space festival, a heat hunting festival (which is basically one huge water fight to beat the heat in the Summer time), and many more.
I really enjoyed these projects because it gave the kids creative freedom while I didn’t have to do much talking. Of all the lessons and assignments I’ve given the students, group presentations are my favorite 🙂