Yesterday, September 8th was a FULL day of teaching. I taught K1, K2 and K3. They did a great job. We worked on numbers and sang "Old MacDonald had a farm, EIEIO!!... And on that farm he had a cow...EIEIO!!!" I used a felt board and some felt fish someone had made and used them to add and take away fish. Of course occasionally Kru Joyann got hungry and a fish disappeared... and then there were... [loud voice] "FIVE MINUS ONE EQUALS FOUR!!!!!" K3 is learning some basic math. K2 and K1 didn't get this portion of the lesson. But they all got to work with numbers and what color the fish were. They know these in Thai, we're practicing the English words.
I teach K3 from 9-9:30, K2 9:30 - 10, K1 11:00 - 11:30. Lunch is at noon. At 1:00 I worked with K3 in a special class that Kru James is working with to learn the phonics of the letters. Many of the older children were struggling with how to put the letters together into words with the various sounds. For example they would want to pronounce "a" like in "Cake," but "a" also has an "a" sound like in "apple." So he is teaching the younger ones one letter a week and the phonics for that letter in hopes of helping them at an earlier age. I got to take over the class which was GREAT fun because it's very dynamic and I do a lot of animated gesturing and explaining. This is about an hour long class. Each letter can do things like... karate and do fun kicks and look like a super hero and go... "AYY!" or they can make animal noises and slither like a snake for "SSSSS"... :-) You get the idea.
This would normally have then been my free time but Kru James asked me to come into the 5th grade class to help explain family and use my pictures. So from 2:00 - 3:00 I sat in the 5th grade class. Try explaining "step-mom" and "step-daughter" in a language that uses only the phrase "cares for" or "takes care of" someone to explain this relationship. The kids and I were cracking up because James ended up drawing pictures on the board to explain it! BWWWAAAHHH!
Yesterday afternoon I spent time on the internet (because I'm going to assume it will be off again this weekend) researching grad schools and volunteer ops. Fun stuff when you're tired!
I finally got a nap from 5:00 - 6:00 just in time to "freshen up" for dinner.
Last night the children that are in training for working in the restaurant held dinner for several teachers. We were honorary guests. This was suppose to happen last week however with the party for Kellie this was put on hold. This week it will be Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Four of us teachers arrived at the restaurant at 6:30 and were welcomed by two of the children. (They are about 8-12 years old). We were taken to our table where they pulled out chairs for us, asked us for our drink requests and provided a menu. They were very attentive and helpful. They did a wonderful job. The dinner was amazing! We had coconut soup with chicken, pork with black pepper, fried vegetables, chicken with cashews (a little bit like home) and omelet. YUM!! I sat next to "Princess Noi" and Kru Apple and Kru Nom sat across from us. We had fun!
After dinner, Kru Noi and I joined the band class which is taught by Kru Nom. I got to play keyboard!!! The school has a small four octave keyboard. They also have a couple electric guitars, an acoustic guitar and a huge drum set and marching band instruments. Some of these include Thai instruments as well as things like small xylophones, etc. I helped Kru Noi learn to play scales with both hands. GREAT fun! And they let me try the karaoke machine and sing the only English song on there... Paul McCartney's "My Love" which I don't know! So we all had a good laugh at me making up the melody. You could hear it but I couldn't because I was trying to sing it! Great fun. I called it an early night though because I was exhausted.
Oh... big event of the day... I found a HUGE centipede which is mildly poisonous. If it bites you your arm (or whatever) will be numb for a day or so. I took a picture of it after one of the men squished it for us! YEAH!! The thing was longer than my hand. I'll post after I download the pics.
Happy day to you!
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