-ish

After such a great 6th grade singing class on Monday, I wasn't sure what the rest of the week would hold.  I got to 5th grade yesterday, and was doing a repeat lesson of fourth grade (they're in the same book remember).  We were discussing clothes and whose they are.  "They're Diego's socks."  Before we could get to that, I needed to review the vocabulary with them (it's a long time from Friday to Wednesday, but even longer in a foreign language setting).  I showed them flashcards of the items we're studying.  There are several eager beavers in 5th grade.  I don't know their history with English like I do 6th grade.  There's just something magical about 6th grade.  I can just talk to them.  5th grade I have to be the teacher.  Anyway, in order to reach everyone, I asked some comprehension questions: "What color are the pajamas?  How many shoes are there?  Are they big or small?  Are they for a girl or a boy?"  When I showed the pajamas, first we had to work on "puh."  Say pajamas.  Right now.  With the exception of Bewley, who probably says "pujAMuhs," most of us say "puh-JAH-muhs."  They say "pee-YAHM-ahs" and since I'm here with the native tongue, I try to take advantage of as many accent and pronunciation lessons as possible.  So we worked mostly on the "puh" and the "j" sound.  Then I asked what color they were.  Well, there were varying answers.  They were a great mix between a muted blue and a muted green.  I let them battle over the color for a bit.  Then I took advantage of yet another teaching moment.  I explained that what I was about to tell them was in no English book or dictionary, but sometimes was used (and that in college, I used it a lot).  I explained that you can add "-ish" to the end of some words to mean... and then I did a signal with my hands because there aren't the right words to explain "-ish."

I showed them that the pajamas were blueish green or greenish blue.  I told them that in my college days, everything was "-ish."  What time will you get there?  6-ish.  Are you sick?  -ish.

We left that for a moment, and reviewed the rest of the flashcards.  The next task was to pass some flashcards out and ask whose they were.  For example: "Whose pajamas are they?"  The student then has to create the sentence "They're _______'s ________."  I used some of their language and said we were going to play a game, not a game game, but a game.  I began my next sentence and was interrupted by a boy in the front row who said, "game-ish?"

Bonus points.