The Moon

Spent the morning preparing for an English class I taught as a volunteer teacher. The Mid-Autumn Festival next week was a handy topic, so I put together some activities that got the children to talk about the moon, tell traditional stories about the festival, listen to a song and write some song lyrics, and read and write poems.

The activities worked well. They enabled the students to use a lot of English and they enjoyed them.

One poem I used was found on the Internet. It is called “The Sun and the Moon” and here it goes:

"The sun is shining in the sky
But the moon gives a sigh

He can’t light up the day
For the sun is in the way

But at night the moon shines bright
And the sun is out of sight

He was sleeping in his bed
And wasn’t angry to be said

That the moon is shining bright
In the black and gloomy night”

A simple but lovely poem that gave the students enough to talk about.

There’s actually another one about the moon that I liked even better, but I couldn’t use it as it would be too difficult for the students:

"A blackened moon once was a relic

shone down a gleaming charm on silver lined sky

her years of glory, eclipsing, rotating, waiting

though shortening, shattering, soon to die”