What do you Want?

I've already told you about the nightmare of an open class and I've already told you about the ease of my Thursdays, but you haven't heard the story of how the two were combined!  Yea! I know!  WtF?!



Last week my Principal decided, that despite her actions during our first open class, she was going to have Mrs. Jang and myself perform a special, random, done-to-impress second open class.  It was a bit.... "Are you f^@$*#& kidding me?!", but we could handle it.

All we had to do was: 

- pick a class

- plan a lesson

- make the lesson

pray it went ok.

Since it was going to be held on a Thursday (6/28), a day I have zero classes, we pulled one of the 4th grade classes we are scheduled to have on Fridays.

Pick a class - check!

As it turned out, this open class wasn't a real open class (not like my first one was either, with a certain head of school showing up at the very end and making noise the whole time), this open class was going to be for visiting ____ from Vietnam.  As always you know how much they tell me (5.92123/100%), so I was fully clued in as to what and why this special, random, done-to-impress second open class was being held.  Yup, no.  Not a clue.  Bring it!  

The current lesson we were doing with the 4th graders focused on asking and saying: "What do you want? / I want ..." and "How much is it? / It's ...".  We had covered items you could buy (doll, puppy, candy, bike, etc) and learned how to say two currencies in English - the Korean won and the American dollar.

So what to do during the open class?!

We had already done one shopping game using Korean won, so for our open class we were going to make a new shopping game using American dollars!  And what better shopping game is there than... Mall Madness!?  haha no, but that game was awesome!! Hello 90's, you rocked!!

We were going to play Monopoly!

Plan a lesson - check!

I thought the task of actually making the game would be the difficult part.  But with a co-teacher as awesome as Mrs. Jang, all I had to do was print out the money and laminate it.  She would take on the task of assembling the Monopoly boards (7!!) and cards.

Make the lesson - check!

All that was left was to pray it went ok.  

It did.  Sort of.  There was a lot more Korean being spoken than English, but the kids loved Monopoly.  They were mental for it!   Some even understood how to play the game, others... eeeee... not so much.  But they all worked out a way to play in their own fashion.

And the visiting ____ from Vietnam, they didn't show up.

Well, that's a lie.  They did show up.  They came after the lesson was over, after the kids had left, after I had signed back on to Facebook and was ready to enjoy the rest of my Thursday doing nothing.

They had a look at our classroom, took some pictures, took some pictures of me (weird), asked how long I'd been in Korean and then left.  Awesome.

Korea never fails to keep you on your toes.  Special, random, done-to-impress second open class was for nothing the kids!  They loved the game and it was great to see them going after it as much as they were.

Here's a look at Monopoly: the Miss Redding and Mrs. Jang Edition

How to play the game:

• Roll the dice and move your piece


• When you land on an item, the other 3 players will ask "Do you want the _____?"


• You answer: (1) "Yes, I do.  How much is it?" or (2) "No I don't.  Goodbye."


• If the first (yes), the other 3 players respond "It's $X."

• The next player rolls the dice and moves their piece.


• Previous steps repeated.

• Chance and Community Chest were replaced with "Lottery" (get $3) and "Donate" (give $5) spaces, and the utilities were replaced with "Roll again" spaces.

• Players did not try to roll doubles to get out of jail, instead they just paid $5 to the middle/free parking.


• All money was paid/taken from the middle/free parking.