I am not too far behind...

...But I am a little. I’ve been working on the posters with the song lyric-pictures for the English concert and they are taking a little longer than I anticipated. Plus, I found out my “exam” time slot (aka the concert) is NEXT THRUSDAY from 10-11 am (not Friday, like originally planned). Plus, we are losing tomorrow because we are taking all the kids to a carnival-like thing. From what I understand there will be go-carts, games, slides, etc. Even the babies who can walk are going! Very very happy to get them out. So what explains why I am writing this right now and not working on the posters? 1) no school = time to procrastinate 2) I need to wake up and 5am and need to go to bed soon and 3) this sort of activity is both productive, quick and relaxing, unlike my posters.

Needless to say, I started teaching the songs today for real. They have heard them all before in various lessons and it went really well in Pre-Kinder/Kinder. I think with 20 minutes every day they will really have it. Prepa, however, was a different story. Were doing “If Your Happy and You Know It,” which is definitely the right song for their level, but the class is a challenging combination. There are only 10 of them but they can make it feel like 30 and I can’t exactly place why they are not getting it. On Thursday I’m going to have them sing with the recorded version, it might be more effective than just me. Oh and there poster is now done.

Last week, because I was sick, English was a big review activity. I made a word search! They first have to translate a list of 25 words (plus a bonus) into English, than they have to find the English words in the scramble. All the words should have been written in their notebooks too. It is a little challenging, but Claudia was telling me that when she was young she would do them in English to force herself to see the words. I, of course, did not give it to kinder and prepa. Just 1st, 2nd and 3rd. And they had the whole week to work on it. I’ve seen some of them floating around completed and some of them were working together or found me to ask questions, all good things.

School store has evolved. In a way this is good. I am happy that the other teachers are offering changes and making it their own so they will continue it when I am gone. But here is the new plan and the reason why: We’re changing the money distribution process to be a little more fair. Basically, there will be 5 things during the day that can earn you money and a bonus for doing something especially helpful or working really hard. That brings the whole week to a possible Q30, so I need to first of all raise the prices of everything. We will still pull money out as a disciplinary action. What was happening is some of them would have nearly Q15 and others would only have Q2 at the end of a week. I personally say, “that’s life,” but I get it too, school is a sheltered version of life, at least it was for me. I like the 5 categories idea, but I don’t like how high that raises the prices because they will no longer be realistic or number the younger kids actually recognize. I will see how it goes on Friday and like I said, I am about to lose my say anyway, and if this is how it is kept going, so be it. After all that is way more important. I also got my first donation to the school store. Two ladies from Texas are here and they gave me bagfuls of old McDonalds toys that they brought down!

So here’s a peduncle. I found books! For the babies I mean. There are A LOT too, just locked in a closet. And so when a baby asked for a book, I gave it to him. And then passed out another and another. They love just looking at the pictures and talking to themselves. Really important stuff here! But then I got in trouble. I was told not to give the books to the babies because then they get ripped. Yeah they fight over them like they do all toys, but the LOVE them too and books are so important. And SO WHAT if they get ripped up, at least they were used. What’s the point of having books if you’re never going to read them? That to me, is like looking at water in the desert. I’m going to work on this point. Stay tuned.

And to continue my classic movie stint I’ve watched: Cabaret, The Way We Were, and Manhattan. I think I mentioned how I am catching up on my classics here. It’s fun to do while poster or word search- making.

Last a little math challenge. If we started with 16 babies. Got a new one. Lost the new one. Lost another one. (That’s minus 2) And picked up one more yesterday. Where do we stand? Answer: Back where we started, at 16 again. But this time with a 20 day old infant! She is beautiful!