Discover English: Explorers

01 · The most important section

The Method — How We Teach

This is the part that makes the camp work. Everything else is logistics. The kids learn English the way every human learns their first language: by understanding messages they care about, over and over, until the language becomes theirs. Our whole job is to make English understandable without leaving English.

Why English-only — the reason behind the rule

Kids don't learn a language by being taught about it. They learn it by understanding it in use. Every time a child works to figure out what "jump over the lily pad" means — from your voice, your hands, the picture — and then gets it, a little bit of English becomes permanently theirs. That moment of effort-then-understanding is the entire engine.

So the rule is not "Spanish is forbidden." The rule is: we keep the kids inside English so the learning engine keeps running. When a child is confused, that confusion isn't a problem to solve with Spanish — it's the exact moment learning is about to happen. Your job is to make the English clearer, not to escape it.

How to be understood without Spanish

You don't need Spanish to be understood. You need these — learn them in your body until they're automatic.

• Slow down — really. About 70% of your normal speed, clear gaps between words. Not loud — slow. Not baby-talk — deliberate. Pause between ideas.
• One idea per sentence. "Color your turtle." (wait) "Now… cut it out." (scissors gesture) "Bring it to me." (beckon) — not one long instruction.
• Use your whole body — gesture everything (TPR). Attach an action to words and the body remembers what the ear can't yet hold. The OVER / ON / UNDER hand gestures are the model for how you teach everything.
• Show the thing. Real objects, picture cards, the craft, the lily pad on the floor. Point. Hold it up. Demonstrate first. Never describe what they could see.
• Repeat and recast. "Look — a dragonfly. The dragonfly flies. See it fly? It flies over the pond. Over!" — one idea, five ways.
• Build predictable routines. Same phrases every day for the same moments. When the words never change, kids decode them once and own them forever.
• Wait. Then wait more. Ask, then count to five silently. Five seconds barely covers translating the question, finding the word, and finding the courage.
• Check understanding by what they DO. Not "Do you understand?" (they always nod) — "Show me over." "Point to the heron." If they do it, they got it.

Holding the line — the no-Spanish discipline

When a child speaks Spanish to you

Don't correct, don't frown, never shame. Receive it warmly and recast into English, then give them the word to echo back:

You understood them, you kept everything in English, and you handed them a word they'll use all week. That's the whole move.

When you feel the urge to translate

That urge is the signal you're doing it right — you've reached the edge of their understanding, which is where learning lives. Instead of Spanish: ① say it again slower → ② add a gesture or point to the object → ③ demonstrate it yourself → ④ break it into smaller pieces → ⑤ ask a kid who got it to show them.

A few more moves

• The playful "I only speak English" persona. A warm, slightly confused smile — "Hmm? In English? Tell me in English!" Turns the rule into a game, not a wall.
• Let kids speak Spanish to each other at first. We're not the Spanish police. We hold the English line ourselves and keep pulling them up to it. By Day 3 you'll hear the English start to come.
• Praise English like it's gold. Every attempt gets a big, genuine reaction. Make English the thing that earns your delight.

The method in one picture

   A child looks confused.
            │
            ▼
   Feel the urge to say it in Spanish?  ──►  GOOD. That's the learning edge.
            │
            ▼
   Is the child hurt / sick / scared / unsafe?
        ┌───┴───┐
       YES      NO
        │        │
        ▼        ▼
   Comfort   Say it again: SLOWER + GESTURE + SHOW + DEMONSTRATE.
   first,    Wait five seconds. Praise any English. Stay in English.
   any
   language.

Carry that fork in your head all week. It's the whole method.

02

Camp at a Glance

'>Every day we explore one ecosystem. The thinking tool that ties English, craft, music, and games together is "Over and Under": what you can see vs. what's hidden. A dragonfly flies over the pond; a catfish hides under it. That one contrast drives the vocabulary, the gestures, the journal — and the big question of the week: "What's hidden that we can't see?"

The five days

The daily shape — 9:00 to 2:00

Kids split into 4 groups; every group rotates through all 4 subjects every day. You teach the same 45-minute block four times in a row — so by your second group you're smooth.

The four stations: English → Classroom A · Craft → Classroom B · Music → Auditorium · Games → Park.

The running threads — what makes it a week

The opening skit — Zog & Bleep

Every day starts with a ~10-minute skit by teachers. Two aliens — Zog (tall, fearless, over-excited) and Bleep (small, nervous, comic relief) — "land" in a new American national park and discover the day's ecosystem, pre-teaching the key words and the OVER/ON/UNDER gesture game before kids hit the stations. Watch it each morning even if you're not in it — you'll see which words landed.

03

Rotation Roles — Running Your 45 Minutes

You run one station and teach it to four groups back to back — same plan, four times. Whatever station you're on, the Method rules still rule: slow English, gesture everything, wait, praise, never translate.

Every block has the same skeleton

Keep the rhythm: greet → show → teach → do → share → reset.

The four station write-ups below are reference as you build your own plan:

English — Classroom A

The anchor of the camp's language goals: reading, speaking, writing, the journal.

• A warm-up game with the day's target words (sorting OVER/UNDER, story chains).
• Reading from the day's book — read slowly, point at pictures, ask "over or under?" constantly.
• A short journal entry using the day's prompt (the passport thread).
• Picture cards are your best friend — meaning is on the card, no translation needed.
• Give a sentence frame on the board ("The ___ lives ___ the pond") so a beginner and an advanced kid both succeed.

Craft — Classroom B

Turn the day's creatures into something kids make, hold, and display on the class ecosystem board (over creatures up high, under creatures down low). Medium rotates daily: Pond paintSnow colored pencilsCanyon crayonsOcean watercolorsRainforest markers

• Demonstrate first, talk second. Cut a shape, then say "Cut. Like this." They copy the action; the word rides along.
• Narrate the same step-words daily: "First… paint. Then… cut. Then… up on the board."
• Offer the outline at two or three difficulty levels — nobody bored, nobody lost.

Music — Auditorium

Make the words stick through sound, rhythm, and repetition. Daily: a soundscape (learn the English sound-words) plus a song or rhythm game.

• Call and repeat is king. You say it, they say it back, louder each time. Any age, any level, instantly.
• Clap the syllables (dra-gon-fly, three claps) — drills pronunciation without a word of Spanish.
• Sound words are their meaning — "splash!" with a splashing gesture needs no translation.
• Layer sounds into a group "symphony" — a performance for closing.

Games — Park

Make the vocabulary physical — TPR at full volume. Daily active games drill over/under through the body.

• The command IS the lesson. "Jump!" "Freeze!" "Climb over!" "Crawl under!" — you say it, they do it, the word enters through their legs.
• Make English the price of the turn: say the word/sentence to take your jump or hold your spot.
• Keep commands to one or two words mid-game — short is what they'll remember.
• Safety first in the park — the one place to scan constantly for the over-excited kid.

04

Classroom Management — Leading Without a Shared Language

Run the room on routines, signals, and your body instead of explanations. Kids follow what they can predict and see, even when they can't yet follow what you say.

1 · Attention signals — pick these as a team, use the same ones everywhere

• Call & response clap — you clap a rhythm, they clap it back.
• "Hands on top" → "Everybody stop!" — hands on heads = hands not touching things.
• Countdown — "Five… four… three…" with fingers; by one, silence.
• Freeze — borrowed from the games/music freeze; works anywhere.

Teach the signal as a game on Day 1, before you need it. Practice it three times when it's fun.

2 · Routines — same words, same order, every day

Arrival greeting · transitions (clean up / line up / walk) · bathroom ("Bathroom, please") · clean-up song or count · your attention signal. When the procedure never changes, the kids' brains are free to spend effort on the English, not on guessing what happens next.

3 · Mixed ages — floor and ceiling

• Floor: the youngest/newest succeeds by copying (trace, echo, gesture). No child stuck with nothing.
• Ceiling: the oldest/strongest stretches (draw their own, full sentence, help a younger kid).
• Use sentence frames, pair strong + new kids, tiered craft outlines, and let older kids be helpers ("captain," "line leader," "word boss").

4 · Behavior — redirect in English, with your body

• Praise the behavior you want, loudly, by name — "I love how Group 2 is sitting!" Does more than any correction.
• Proximity — walk over and stand near a wobbly kid; presence settles most things.
• Redirect, don't scold — point them at what to do next ("sit down, please"), not at what they did wrong.
• The look + the gesture — a calm face, a hand signal, a quiet "stop." Save your voice.

5 · Energy — ride the wave

Wired? → a freeze game / movement burst, then settle. Tired (often after the 11:00 break or the last rotation)? → a song, a call-and-repeat, something with their hands. The rotation itself re-energizes — a fading group perks up in a new room with a new teacher.

05

Phrase Bank — The English You'll Reuse All Day

Use the same wording every day so kids decode each phrase once and own it forever. For Spanish-first teachers, this is your scaffold — you don't need to invent English on the fly, you need these, smooth and automatic, with a gesture on each.

The English-only redirect (when a child uses Spanish)

Receive it warmly → recast in English → give them the word to echo. Never shame.

Pronunciation help (for Spanish-first teachers)

Sounds English has that Spanish doesn't — worth practicing so the kids hear them right from you:

• /h/ — heron, hawk, hello, hands. Real breath out, not silent.
• /v/ vs /b/ — vole, wave, over. Top teeth on bottom lip for v.
• /sh/ — fish, splash, shark. Not "ch."
• soft j / z — jellyfish, jaguar; zone, lizard, frozen.
• th — the, this, three, feather. Tongue between the teeth.
• No vowel before s-clusters: splash / snow / star, not "esplash."

Unsure of a word? Ask a native-speaker teammate and say it five times — the kids copy your version exactly.

Your daily anchors — memorize these six

06

Vocabulary & Skits — The Words of the Week

Everyone teaches toward the same words each day, in every station. When games, craft, music, and English all hit "dragonfly / over / under" on Pond day, the kids hear each word a dozen times in a dozen ways. Know your day's words before you walk in.

The daily skit — Zog & Bleep

A ~10-minute opening performance that pre-teaches the day's words and gestures. ZOG — tall, fearless, over-excited; big gestures, big voice. BLEEP — short, nervous, comic relief; his daily arc is scared → brave → scared again. The kids love him.

From the script: when asking kids to name a creature, WAIT for responses. Give hints. Never rush. The "falling in the pond" beat is the big laugh — rehearse for safety. The tent is home base (emerge at start, retreat at end). Each day ends teasing tomorrow's park (Day 1 → "Yellowstone… SNOW!"). Full Day 1 script: ../Skits/Day1_Pond_Skit.md.

07

Logistics, Check-In & Safety

The practical layer — how kids get in and out, how we handle allergies and emergencies, and the day's flow. The method is the heart; this is the spine that keeps everyone safe.

1 · Daily check-in / check-out — the QR system

Each child has a name tag with a QR code. It runs on your phone's browser — no app account needed.

• Open the scanner (/admin/scan), sign in once with the staff login on your phone.
• Point the camera at the QR → the screen shows the child's name, status, allergies/medical notes, emergency phone, and records Check In / Check Out with one tap (IN / OUT / AUTO mode).
• A live attendance board (/admin/board) shows who's present now, with a manual fallback if a QR won't scan.

2 · Allergies & medical

The scan screen and board surface each child's allergies/medical notes — but review the list for your groups before the week, and again each morning. Be especially alert at snack/break (11:00–12:00). Know where the first-aid kit is and who the medical lead is.

3 · Emergencies & the safety-first rule

A hurt, sick, scared, or distressed child gets help first, in any language — the standing exception to the English-only rule. Know the plan for a child who is hurt, missing, or sick, and for evacuation. Count your group at every transition and every venue change. The park is the highest-attention zone.

4 · The daily flow

5 · Who's who — fill in on orientation day

• Camp lead / director:
• First-aid / medical lead:
• First-aid kit location:
• Scanner staff login:
• Emergency number: 112 (Spain) ·
• Allergy/medical list location:
• Floater / backup adult:

00 · For whoever leads orientation

Facilitator Run-of-Show — The 1-Day Orientation

The day runs 10:00–3:00 and keeps camp's rhythm on purpose, so the team feels the flow. The single most important outcome isn't that the team knows the English-only method — it's that they've practiced the reflex of staying in English when a kid is confused. Protect the practice blocks.