Planning for Winter Camp
If I’ve learned anything this first semester teaching in Korea is that sometimes too much planning can really lead to disappointment. Basically, things change here at the very last minute… all of the time. My first winter camp is coming up and leading up to the vacation I was becoming more and more frustrated with the lack of information I had on the format of camp itself, so I’ve been hesitant to prepare too much too far in advance.
What I did know (or I thought I knew): In total I would be teaching 23 days of winter camp over January and February. These camps would be happening for two hours in the afternoon from 3:40-5:50p (after 8 hours of desk warming). My coteacher estimated 40 students would sign up and the plan was to have all 40 in class the first 3 days and assess their levels, then split them up into 2 classes of 20 I saw every other day. In that case, I would only have to plan 13 two hour lessons.
However… students weren’t told about camp or allowed to sign up until the second to last day of the semester. Going into this I realized it was likely things wouldn’t work out like I was told and I didn’t plan too much beyond the first week of lessons. It’s a good thing I didn’t. A few days ago I text to the co-t to see what the final number was… turns out ONLY EIGHT. I’m not surprised; it’s vacation and they are being given the option of taking an extra 2 hour class for 23 days? And given only 2 days notice? So this week I’ve completely started over with the camp plans because clearly I will being having one class instead of 2.
How to entertain 8 HIGH SCHOOL students for 56 hours? I have no idea. Tomorrow’s the first day which I have all planned and ready but I am quite nervous about this whole thing. I’ve planned for the first week but I am going to wait until I meet the students (IDK anything about their grade, level, gender… anything) before I plan too much beyond week one. Plus, I go on vacation for 2 weeks after the first week so week one is going to be a sort of stand alone introduction week.
Nervous. If anyone out there with more experience has any advice… I would really love to hear it.
