School Days

After spending a couple weeks at the kindergarten, it is easy to see why any kid would enjoy coming to school here. Every day, kids run happily off the bus and in through the gates to the playground or their classes, giving us "high touches" as they go. Every day is filled with singing and dancing and of course playing on that amazing playground. Lori and I sometimes wonder if the kids actually do any learning, since our room shares a wall with a class that's always so noisy.

Each day of school is a bit different for us and for the kids too. On Mondays, Lori, Mike and I have two short English lessons with a small group (about 8) of kids from the three year old class. My first group is great. When I talk, they are quiet and listen. When I want them to participate, they are loud and energetic. The second group is smart too, but a little harder to control. They get up and look out the window a lot. There's one little boy who will just randomly run up to me with a big smile and then hand me something (he's in the picture with me holding "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" book when you scroll down) and another girl who always has to be first in line or first to get a sticker. After lunch, we have "Genkide Go-Go," which is dance time. All the students and teachers gather under the dome and we dance to different songs. Lori, Mike and I are supposed to teach a new song and dance every month, so this month's is the Macarena. I think I might have written earlier about how I am just saying all the moves into the microphone for this dance. I think today was the last time we had to do the Macarena, thankfully.

Tuesdays and Fridays are Kumon days. We each have an hour time shift to go and work with individual students on their English homework and afterward we work on our Japanese homework. I work with two boys, Yuma and Hiroto, who are both very good at English but both get antsy. Kumon is the brand of books that we are learning language from. We have small books and CDs so we can practice writing and speaking. I was telling my friend Megan in an
e-mail that the hardest part of learning Japanese compared to when I learned Spanish in high school is we have to learn a new character and the sound it makes. In Spanish, the letters looked the same but only the sounds were different.

On Wednesdays, we rotate in assisting either the gym teachers or two English teachers in the classes. I worked with the gym teachers my first week and had a blast, and last week I worked with Rori, a Canadian woman. She and the other teacher, Robert, have been working at the school for almost a year. It was nice seeing how someone else who speaks English runs the class. Rori did a good job of acting out everything she wanted the students to do and it was fun assisting her with games. She was pretty sarcastic too, so it was funny catching her comments and being able to laugh at them. Most of our English classes require us using flashcards, which is helpful but also frustrating for me. I'd like to try to use other ways of teaching, so I often feel like my creative talents are not being put to good use. There are only so many flashcard activities I can think of! Thursday are our day off for the most part. I think we're supposed to clean, but that usually gets forgotten :) Next Thursday will be another birthday parade and also the day after my birthday!

We also go to a different classroom everyday and eat lunch with the students. Sometimes after lunch we are supposed to teach a different letter of the English alphabet. Lunches have been...interesting, I guess is a good word. Some days we'll have yummy thinks like shrimp or mango slices or rolls with cream in the middle or chicken stir-fry and rice. Other days, I won't always know what something is when I put it into my mouth! I opened my lunch one day to find little sardines staring at me!

Each week, we help at a different after school program. I've now been to all of them, so I can now honestly say that each one has it's ups and downs. I am back in the nursery with the Little Angels (or Little Devils as we sometimes call them) and today I got beat up by some five year old boys. I guess I kind of started it- I lightly tossed a ball at a little boy's head and he and his friends decided the appropriate response would be to kick me in the shins and pull my lovely hair. It is funny to watch the kids do weird things too. They can't sit still and will just show you stuff and smile like its the coolest thing ever. I find myself giving a lot of thumbs ups. The after school program with junior high kids worried me at first because no one wanted to play with me. They just did their homework and laughed when I tried to say the few Japanese words I know to them. Then I decided to bring in the Lisa Frank coloring book I found in the room Lori and I share. Boy, did that make me popular! I had so many 11 year old girls wanting to color unicorns and tiger cubs and golden retriever puppies with me.

I hope that I can learn more names of students. I know a couple and it will be easy to learn more as I get better at reading characters. I already have a couple favorite kids though and teachers who's classes I enjoy visiting.