Thursday, November 14, 2013

Oct 8 2013: Americano

10/8/13
It was one of the first nights I didn’t sleep well in these beds. I was super groggy. Though it could have been in part we were going to go to the school for breakfast because of our early classes. I can’t remember the last time we went to breakfast for that, though! Although I could remember why we didn’t do it often. I was so groggy walking around until we got to the school.

Turned out to be a great breakfast! I don’t know why we didn’t go more often. They had some rolls, some tasty food, and these bread rolls bean paste things which weren’t too bad and kind of sweet! They ended up having these at all three meals which was awesome.

We headed to our office- no internet!

That ended up really stressing me out and I got really quiet for most of the day. I had to teach 4 classes, and couldn’t reuse all the material from yesterday. My first class was my bad class from the day before. What could I do with them?

Not so great, but they were a little less crazy than Monday so that wasn’t too terrible, I suppose. We actually ended up playing Tic-Tac-Toe for the most part. A little bit in their books, of course. I had them trying to write down a few words for it which took about half the time which really helped, haha.

Lunch was after, and pretty good. Katie headed home after that as I went to the office. Still no internet! It was connected, but just not working for any of us, we couldn’t make sense of it. It was very frustrating. I spent most of the time reading and trying hard not to stress out or anything.

Eventually it was time for class, though. Grade 4 first- three girls came and took my arms and my stuff and we walked to class together. They’re beginning to come and get me a few minutes early so I just watch the kids goof off and mess around before I really have to make them behave.

I was able to use the same Halloween presentation as with the younger kids the day before. Still a little tricky for them to understand, I think. Then we ended up playing hangman with Halloween Characters and then I had them draw out the words to make sure they knew what they really meant- I had two kids draw a cat like figure for ghost, no idea what that meant…

And that took up most of the time, thank goodness! They were pretty good, so we watched a piece of The Croods at the end. Though I’ve realized that it takes them FOREVER to decide on a DVD piece- everyone has to shout- so I’m working on a way to keep them quiet and just let one kid decide or something, because then the video usually goes over time and I let it go another minute but I don’t want to get in trouble with a teacher or anything.

I did exactly the same thing with Grade 5. They’ve probably been taught this every year with American teachers, so they have some of it down. I had half the class yelling ‘trick or treat’ at me. It was beginning to get annoying and I was pretty glad I didn’t really have candy to give them or they’d want more.

This time I brought in my Halloween story from before, though I’d shortened it a bit and made it easier. We read over Hansel and Gretel, their story, and it was fun to watch the kids get wide eyes over the witch trying to eat the kids. Then we closed with tic tac toe- they like that game- but I would ask them a question before they could put down an X or O to make it a little more tricky at least.

Final Grade 3 class right after. The ‘stand up-sit down’ didn’t work nearly as well with Class 1. So I stopped that, and opened their books. They’re always reading these three stories at the back, so I let them read one today, and I got some kids to say the pieces in English, so that helped at least a little- they’re getting good! After that we reviewed another part of their unit.

They were good enough for a DVD. More shouting and trying to crowd the computer which was frustrating, trying to keep them in control and all. Eventually it worked but of course the bell went off during that for dinner. Still, they stayed another two minutes to finish it out, and we didn’t get in trouble or anything. Yay!

Katie returned for dinner, we ate the decently yummy food there. We went back to our office after that and checked for activity time- but there were a ton of teachers there and the few kids that were there were playing around on the playground, where we usually don’t bother them. We waited a few more minutes, but nothing changed. Then some of my girls came through and talked for a bit before Katie and I finally decided to head home.


We’d brought money for snacks for the week, so we tried out the new little convenience shop and grabbed a few fun snacks for the week. We got some hot drinks in a different brand- no pictures of the actual flavor. I thought mine was mint but it wasn’t. Super weird, but kind of good? Haha… We finished up my Community episodes and munched on these American-like Chinese noodles that were seasoned. Funky but a good snack whilst watching something, so we enjoyed that during our lovely evening.

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