Good Days

Today was a good day at work.  Good days recharge you and give you your spirit back.  Sometimes one good day will last you a month.  It is hard work teaching the very young, it can drain you but it is so rewarding when you see your hard work is paying off.

I put the open house on the back burner this week.  Maybe I should be drilling them on the vocabulary since we are getting videotaped next week but I think they need a break; I need a break. Plus, Monday went terrible.   So we had some fun today.

My 4 yr olds are learning to count in English so I set up a scavenger hunt for them in the classroom.  They had to find cut-outs I had made of cats and fish.  When they collected them all each student had to count theirs for the class, the student with the most won an animal cracker.  They loved it so we played it over and over again but I set it up outside on the playground while they sat obediently in the classroom.  It was amazing I never thought they could sit still and quiet for even 2 minutes but they were great.  A couple of them tried to peek but it was all fun. In the end they all won an animal cracker for participating.  After the scavenger hunt we sang a couple songs and class was over.

My next class (the 3 yr olds) I was going to try a game I do with the older kids, where we pass a bag around the room full of our vocabulary flashcards and when the music stops the student with the bag has to pick a card and name it.  Instead of demoing it like I usually do, I had the national teacher translate for me but it didn’t quite turn out how I planned but we went with it.  They danced around to the music while I held the bag and when the music stopped they all shouted the flashcards name.  They loved it so we kept going.  I tried to get them to pass the bag around but it got a little out of hand so I ended up holding on to it.  We did this for about 10 flashcards and then class continued as normal.

My baby class is getting tougher because I don’t have help anymore; I think the teacher is trying to help me gain authority maybe but I only have a month left and it is just making things difficult.  So I talked to her today so we could switch up the classes.  I have the babies everyday but on Tuesdays and Thursdays I have them twice (40 min and 30min).  I have 10 babies so this can get crazy for one person.  So now 2 days out of the week I will have half the class one hour and the other half the next hour.  I’m excited for the change but we’ll see how it works out.

So things are going good.  But what I learned is you can’t just ask other people to help you out.  You have to make things happen yourself.  People may say they will do this or that to help you but it may not happen.  You have to be the go to guy from the beginning.