9.9.10

 Last night I went to yoga with a few of the Chinese teachers and Helen. It was a lot of fun to get to spend time with some of the other teachers. Afterwards I worked on a few of my lesson plans and went to bed with it raining. Around 2:30 I woke up to the loudest clap of thunder I have ever heard. My entire apartment shook! The thunder might as well have been inside my apartment. Then all of the alarms on the bikes and cars went off. This repeated about 5 times before the storm moved on.

     This morning I did ‘morning exercise’ with the kids. The teachers have choreographed basic movements to a few songs and the children ‘exercise’ each morning. It was funny, because I didn’t know the motions any better than the kids, so we were all in the same boat together.

     There are definitely good days and bad days. Some of my lessons I think are great, but they don't go as well as I would have thought and some of the ones that I’m not so thrilled about go over really well. I taught my L2 classes the Cha, Cha Slide and it wasn’t quite as good as I thought. They really enjoyed it, but it was a little harder for them to follow than I thought it would be. I needed the words to be just a hair slower. We will sing it again for the next few days and see if it gets a little better. My N1 kids I had an umbrella and a kite so we could learn about the weather and it was good. I let them play with the stuff and it went over well. The most shocking part of the day was when we did big/small. I had them stand up and we stretched out our arms wide for big and the hunched down for small and they loved popping back up to be big! It was the highlight of the lesson. I never would have guessed.

     For me, my favorite part was when Yoda waved good-bye to me. He has just given me this scowl up until now, but he gave me a small wave. And he participated a little in big/small. He normally just looks at me like I’m the most ridiculous person he has ever met.

     In the afternoons I see the L2 students again. There are three classes and each class sends me 7 kids for twenty minutes. So I have three twenty minute classes and I see each of the L2 students once each week. I have a four week rotation for these afternoon classes. Week one is Montessori, week two arts and crafts, week three imagination theme and week four centers. So this week has been Montessori and the objective is for each student to be able to roll up a mat and then walk around it. Someone has either taught these kids this already or they are born with the natural ability to roll a mat perfectly, because I've had four days worth of kids and not a single one of them has had any problems rolling a mat what so ever. This means that we are finished with the lesson in about 5 minutes at most. I've been setting up the mats as an obstacle course and letting them run around them until they get tired and then we color. I've got a wall full of kindergarten drawings now and my room looks a little more used/homey. 

9.7.10

     I've come to the realization that teaching isn't something I want to do for the rest of my life. I think this year will be enough. I also don't think it would matter what grade it was, teaching just isn't my calling. I enjoy seeing the kids and giving high fives, but doing pretty much the same thing seven times in a row can get a little boring for me. It is a little bit of a challenge to see what they will like and what the kids want to do and what they can do. That does keep it a little more exciting for me. I'm just going to have to try new things and see what works and what doesn't.
     I have one kid in my N1D class that looks like a young Yoda. His ears almost come to a point and the stick out just right and he's eyes look so serious and like he is almost mad, but not quite, because he is thinking about whether he should be mad or not. I love seeing this kid stare at me from the bus each morning, I want to make faces back at him as he stares at me.

9.6.10

  Today was a very successful day in Kindergarten. I had more than enough things planned for all of my classes. L2 we did a word/letter match and they loved it! I had Aa, Bb, Cc, Dd and Jj, Kk, Ll, Mm written on the board and then I had a picture of an apple, bird, cat, dog, jacket, kite, lion and monkey. I would hold up on of the flashcards with a picture/word on it and ask them which letter it went with. I would hold it in front of the wrong letter and they would get so excited, because that was not the right letter. When I would hold the word in front of the right one they gave me a definite “yes”. We had so much fun. N1 having a lot of little things to do was perfect. We were constantly changing, so they never really got fidgety. My second to last class, however, was really, really quiet. It was almost creepy. I couldn’t get them to say anything. So I was trying to get them to say the color red and I just happened to have a red ball. So instead of getting the entire class to say red, I asked each of them individually to say read and when they did I then handed them the ball. Then they got to throw it back to me. This went over really well. I was glad to have a few smiles as they tossed it back. My last class is taught by a girl that just graduated with a Financial Accounting degree, she is in the same boat as me, but I think her class may be my favorite. They don’t know a lot of words, so they are excited to learn. Sometimes when they get really excited they just yell. It is really pretty funny, but then we calm them back down and they will say what I want them to. We just have to get our yells out.

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http://www.foxtrot.com/2010/01/01242010/

This afternoon was good as well. I had seven kids for twenty minutes from my L2 A,B,C classes. I rolled a mat and then they showed me that they could roll the mat. Then we all walked around the mat. I really haven’t figured out the point to this, but I’m told to teach it and so I do. After we finished rolling out mats I had cut pieces of paper in half and I let them draw pictures and I have hung them on the wall. It adds just a little something to have kid drawings up.

After the kids left I sat down on the mat next to my books and looked over my lesson plans for tomorrow and I had about ten minutes before I had to go down and stand at the gate to wave good-bye to the kids and I laid down. One of the worker ladies came in just as I had fallen asleep and I think I startled her more than she startled me. I don’t think she thought I was in my room. It was a good thing she came in though, because I would have slept for a while.

Overall a good day. I’m just taking it one day at a time. 

9.4.10

I’ve recovered a little from my disasters N1 classes. I think the problem is that I was focusing on one thing a day, but we need to do lots of little things each day, but repeat those things throughout the week. Instead of just doing a on Monday we do a, 1 and red on Monday and then add b, 2, blue on Tuesday. That way we are repeating, but adding new things.

     I spent a great evening and afternoon with Femke and Helen. We had a girls night/afternoon. Last night we had dinner and then a movie. The dinner was great and the movie really cheesy. The Expendables was good if you are looking for an action movie with not much else. We did get a good laugh out of it though.

     This afternoon we went to one of the coffee shops and talked for hours. It was really nice, because I learned a lot about them. They also asked me some great questions about Christianity and I hope I gave them answers they needed to hear. They seemed to really consider what I said, so that was encouraging. We then went to one of the streets in Zhongshan that is a market, a mile worth of tents. We had tea in a little shop on the road as well. It was great, because it was a side of Zhongshan I hadn’t seen yet.

     I just checked my bank statement and I took out 1000yuen and it was only $149. I was expecting a much worse exchange rate, b/c that is pretty close to what I got from the bank at home. And My bank only charged $1 or it would have only been $148. At home I have a $2 charge for using a none Liberty Federal ATM. So that was a good surprise. 

9.5.10 Sunday

This morning was great. I went to a Bible Study with Christine and a few other foreigners. Most of them were a little older and some even had kids, but it was so nice to have a small group of Christian friends. I also have to remember that I would be classified more as a young adult and not a college kid anymore. I’m beyond that stage of life even if I am only 22. One of the couples has even invited me to dinner! So Tuesday I will get a western meal. They are from Arkansas and Tennessee. I can’t wait. And they were all so nice and I can’t wait till next week.

     This afternoon I did a little exploring/shopping. I bought a few things all by myself and the language barrier wasn’t even that bad. We figured it out in the end. I may have paid a little more for the things, because I bought them in a store and not at a market, but I did it by myself.  I also bought some juice at a little juice bar and one of the guys there could speak English. It seemed so strange that he could speak English, but was working at a local juice shop and not at a bigger/better job. Oh, well it helped me out. I’m also getting pretty good at b

9.3.10

Rock, paper, scissors went over smoothly for my older kids (L2) yesterday, but I realized very quickly that it wouldn’t work for the younger ones (N1). This put me with nothing to do. I tried to wing it by talking about the letter Aa, but there is only so much you can do and it only took 5 minutes at most.

     What I learned about games is that they are great except for the fact that the rules are in English and they don’t know English. Even the basic concept of rock, paper, scissors was hard, b/c they don’t know enough English for the game to make sense. This puts me at a loss for what to do with little kids when all the games I know take to much explanation. 

9.1.10

     First day of Kindergarten

     To start the day off I stood in front of the gate and said “Good Morning” to everyone who walked up. It was about a thirty minute ordeal and there was no breeze. Even at 8:30 in the morning you know you are in the tropics. All of the kids wear uniforms. They are white with either blue trim for the boys or pink trim for the girls. They also have a uniform for PE. This uniform is also white, but it has red trim regardless of whether the kid is a boy or girl. The Kindergarten teachers have to change over 30 kids in and out of the uniforms. 

This morning I didn’t have my normal class and I won’t have my normal classes this afternoon either. So I’m pretty much free for the day. I’ve not been given very clear directions about tomorrow either. What I did do today is go and visit all of my class. It was very apparent the teachers that discipline their students versus the ones who don’t. It will make for a very diverse range of teaching. I’m nervous and the anticipation of starting real classes is not helping. I’m ready to start to see if I will sink or swim. I’m treading water, so neither right now.