teacher needs help with Japanese lesson plans

[Lexy]

Hey everyone!

For over a year now I've been assisting a fifth grade class near my home and from day one the teacher has been allowing me to teach half-hour Japanese lessons to the kids everyday. Last year's fifth grade class has graduated and I've been teaching Japanese to these kids since the first day of school (august 25th).

Here's what I've taught them so far:
vocabulary:
greetings
おはようございます
こんにちは
こんばんは
おやすみなさい
ありがとうございます
どうぞ・どうも
どいたしまして
いただきます・ごちそうさまでした
Numbers:
1-1000
animals:
うま、いぬ、ねこ、うさぎ、かえる、さかな、くま、う し、きつね、おおかみ、さる、ぶた、にわとり、あひる 、ペンギン、いか、たこ、へび。
色
あか、あお、くろ、しろ、きろ、みどり、ピンク、オレ ンジ
家族
私、弟さん、鬼さん、妹さん、兄さん、、お母さん、お 父さん、おじさん、おばさん、おじいさん、おばあさん 、ともだち。
いろいろな物
かぼちゃ、本、えんぴつ、かみ、はさみ、がくせい、せ んせい
時
ごぜん、ごご、時、分、はん、間、ごろ、ぐらい、から 、まで

sentance structures:
私は　x　です。
私の　x　は　ｘ　です。
私の名前は　x　です。
ｘ　の　名前は　ｘ　です。
私は　ｘ　が（大）好きです。　
私は　ｘ　が好きじゃないです。
私は　（number)才です。
ーですか。
歌
’あたま、かた、ひざ、あし’　（head,shoulders,knees, and toes)
’しあわせなら’　(If you're happy and you know it)
money
いくらですか？
円
characters
あいうえお
かきくけこ
さしすせそ
たちつてと
culture:
-table manners
-slippers
-Japanese school system
-bow
-へのへのもへじ
-お正月
-hand gestures in Japanese speech
-sadako and a thousand cranes
-origami
-the story of ももたろう.

I'm sure there are other things, but they're not coming to mind right now.
It seems I'm having a harder time coming up with what to teach the kids now. I'm not a certified teacher yet, so it's amazing that I get this experience so early on, but that also means that sometimes I don't know what I'm doing and I don't have any elementary-level textbooks to work off of. I make all my worksheets (aside from kana-learning ones) by myself.
Some things I plan on teaching still are fruits and vegetables, and how to ask where things are.
If you were a third grader, what would you want to learn in Japanese?
What things do you think would be useful to teach them?
Would you do anything different?


-Lexy

[Nattybumppo]

There's only so much you can teach without starting to get into actual grammar. It looks like you've covered most of the bases... maybe you could teach them how to ask for directions, or some basic adjectives to describe objects? They're probably too young for you to teach much grammar to them and have them understand it well.

Oh, and your picture's lighting is terrible! Here, this is a little better:

[filiadragongurl]

How about the story of Orihime and whats his face... the lovers that live on opposite sides of the milky way and only get to meet once a year on that Japanese holiday. Heck, why not go over some other holidays like children's day? And how Valentine's day is different in Japan and how white day follows and everything.

Also, how about various counters like how you use -biki/hiki for animals and -dai for buildings... also, do they know the other way to count like hitotsu, futatsu...

And how about simple things like car, library, post office, that kind of thing.

Oh, and when you do fruits, how about play Fruits Basket with them? I went to an elementary school in Japan for a little while and we played Fruits Basket but the kids had to yell out the fruit they pulled out of the bag in English. This time, with American kids, you can have them yell it out in Japanese^_^