Spectacle!

Spectacle, our kids Christmas Program, was on Friday. They did so good after all that practicing they had to do! It was fun seeing them get all dressed up and to have their parents all come!

Before the show started, we went down early to help get the kids ready. We didn't know what this entailed when we signed up, and we had quite the shock when we got down to our classrooms. There were at least 30 Chinese girls there, doing all the kids hair and make up. And I mean ALL the kids. The poor boys, who already are doomed to look girly for the rest of their lives, were forced to put on TONS of makeup. Eye shadow, white foundation, blush, lipstick, glitter... the Whole sha-bang. Poor boys... But, I must admit that I was happy I had my camera there to capture this moment. Haha a lot of those boys weren't happy about wearing pink, shimmery lipstick, not happy one little bit. And now we have this one in a lifetime experience saved forever! But they all looked very pretty, haha.

Each class performed a skit in English, and then sang their Christmas song. All of the English teachers did a dance to "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," as well as a piano piece from Lindsay, a guitar/singing piece by Becca, Chelsey and me, and a song by Teresa. But the Chinese teachers saved the best for last when they had all the children perform. The older class did an adorable dance that melts your heart, and the younger class did a fashion show to some great Backstreet Boys music that makes you laugh until you cry. Some of the little kids' 'model walks' were the funniest thing you will ever see. No joke. Ask me to show you the video when I come home, cuz you'll get the biggest kick out of it. Gucci, Mandy , Emily and Yumi are so good at the walk that its unbelievable that they are only four. Haha its So Funny!

At the end of the show, the Chinese teachers surprised us and had all of the English teachers come up to the front. The Principal then gave us each a hug and a fan as a present. Then all the kids came in and put flower lei's around our necks. I was bawling by the end. Dang, I am going to miss these kids so much. It was a really tender moment, and I will always remember it. I love these little kids so much!!

Picture 1: Poor Anson in all his make up glory. Picture 2: Adorable, dainty Gucci all made up! Her name is really perfect for her in sooo many ways. Picture 3: Mass make up chaos. Those boys were not very happy about this make over.

Let It Snow!

You know how half way through December a lot of people are so sick of Christmas songs that they want to shoot every radio in sight? Well I have a story for you.

About a month and a half ago, the Chinese teachers told us that we needed to start teaching our classes a Christmas song for the big end-of-semester program we have. I decided to teach my kids one of my favorite songs, Let It Snow. I thought it was funny that we had to start in October, but we did as they said. So, instead of teaching our first and fifth class rotations, we had our home room class to sing the song with. My class is all 4-5 year olds, and it was CRAZY trying to get them to sing the same boring song for 40 minutes a day. 40 minutes! I even get bored with that! By December, my kids were SO BORED with the song. I felt so bad.

That's when the Chinese teachers came up to us and told us that our songs were not good enough. They said the kids don't know the words well enough. I thought they were crazy for saying that, because I thought my kids were doing great for learning a whole song in English when they barely know any words. But the Chinese teachers thought otherwise, and we had to come before and stay after class with the kids who were "struggling" with the words. Some of these kids were now singing the same song for over and hour a day. They were getting so restless. But, we got through the extra practices and I gave them all hugs and told them they were doing great.

That's when the Chinese teachers came up to us and told us that our songs were STILL not good enough. So, the last week of teaching our beloved students, they canceled classes! We were now practicing the songs for three hours a day! The kids' poor attention spans were seriously shot. At one point one of my girls, Yumi, actually started banging her head on the table in boredom. Haha it was actually really funny. But dang, they were cute singing all the songs.

I found it funny that the Chinese teachers were okay with cutting so many classes, when earlier in the year they were upset at us when we missed one day of teaching because we were stranded in Beijing, and they were making us make up that teaching day. And now here they are cutting two weeks worth of classes in the end. Weird, huh? At one point I asked our coordinator, Annie, that

"Isn't it more important to be teaching them English, then to be teaching them Christmas songs?"

And she got a shocked look on her face and replied with a sharp

"No! Our production is more important!"

I really don't see their logic at all... but there wasn't anything I could do, except try to entertain my kids as much as I could through the three hours of grueling Christmas song singing everyday. Sometimes I wondered to myself if these poor children would ever forgive me for inflicting this torture on them. So much Christmas music in such small children haha.

They ended up doing very well at their Christmas Program, and I think most of the kids have forgiven me, but more on that later. Here are some great pictures of the kids being bored out of their minds. Enjoy!!

Picture 1: Emily fell actually fell asleep singing the song. Poor girl. She is super cute when she sleeps, though, so I didn't wake her. Picture 2: Ron was showing me some of his pent up frustration. Haha.

23

That's how many times I was hit with a stick today.

 

So how did I get in this situation?

 

I have one word:

 

Piñata.

 

I don't recommend having a stuffed animal piñata game while teaching a whole bunch of unruly and boisterous five years olds, unless you are looking for some kind of torture.

 

There I was this morning, unsuspecting and excited while I prepared for today's lesson, reminiscing over all of the childhood memories I have of hitting a piñata. As I sat tying that stuffed monkey to a long bamboo stick, I had no idea that in 30 minutes time I would be cornered by a little four year old boy named Ron, who was blindfolded, walloping a stick, and VERY determined to hit that stuffed monkey. I might add that Ron added eight of those whacks to the "Hit List."

 

The problem was that these blindfolded and dizzy children would follow the sound of my voice while trying to hit the stuffed animal piñata, so as I was telling them to "hit the monkey!" the kids would come right over to where I was standing, brandishing that stick the entire way. I dodged where I could, but I will most definitely have bruises tomorrow.

 

It was still a very enjoyable day. The kids were cute as always. I just have one more word for you: OUCH.

 

Photo: This is Ron. Imagine that running at you with a 2 foot plastic stick. It's a good thing he is so dang cute.

Kids & Halloween

On Friday we had a Halloween party with our students!

 

All of the teachers dressed up in costumes and the kids loved it. I decided to be a fairy and made wings out of hangers and garbage bags and when the kids saw me they all shouted "butterfly, teacher, butterfly!" I decided to just go with it instead of try to teach them what a fairy was. So now I am a butterfly. Lindsay made a way cool pirates sword, and even put beads in her hair. Chelsey was a witch, and Becca and Teresa were cats.

 

We also taught them how to Trick-or-Treat! We decorated paper bags and then the kids went from classroom to classroom knocking on the doors and chanting

"Trick-or-Treat, Trick-or-Treat!"

while we dropped candies into their bags.

(FYI Chinese candy = Gross)

 

After the Trick-or-Treating, we played the Donuts on a String game where you have to try and eat all of your donut without using your hands. At first the children were okay at not using their hands, but after a couple minutes they got restless and started to cheat. They were SO FUNNY to watch. Most of them were sticking their tongues out as far as they could reach, trying to rope in the donut. The donuts also had sugar on top, and so the kids' faces were covered in little white granules. Haha they were adorable.

 

The kids had a ton of fun learning a new Holiday from us, and we had a ton of fun teaching them about Halloween. All in all, It was a

BLAST!

 

Photo #1: All of the teachers in our costumes with our foreign coordinator Annie.

Photo #2: Cherry and her donut.

Photo #3: Adorable Yumi with her sugar face.

 

 

SO MANY TOKENS!

The ILP program that we teach through has a reward system. If the children say the right phrase, then we give them little red, plastic tokens. They have little felt bags that hang around their neck that they are supposed to put the tokens in, but they are 5 year olds. HA. Like that happens.

 

So we rotate classes every 20 minutes, and the first thing the kids say as they come running into my class is "Teacher, teacher! So many tokens!!"  And then every child has to come show me their bags and handfuls of tokens before I can get them to sit at our little table.

 

And then throughout the lesson, every time I hand a token out, the kids exclaim in euphoric delight: "So, so, SOOOOOO many tokens! So many tokens!"

 

All afternoon this phrase has been stuck in my head, while pictures of cute little Chinese children flash in my mind, and their accents make me giggle. These kids can be so funny.

 

SO, SO, SOOOOO MANY TOKENS!

Teaching in China

Yesterday was our first day of teaching in China....

 

WHOA.

 

It was so CRAZY!

 

My class has seven children in it, and they are only 4 years old. They are ADORABLE, but they don't speak a word of English. So while I am "teaching" them English, they just stare at me like I'm an alien pretty much.  Poor kids.

 

Since they are new to the English program here at the school, I was able to give them English names. After naming them all, I found out that 3 of them already had English names, and the boy I named Fred was actually already named Apple and is a girl. Whoops. My bad.

 

We rotate classes every 20-25 minutes, so luckily I get to teach some of the older students (5-6 yrs old) too. They are Easier and harder. They are easier cuz they have had a year in the program already so they know some English, but harder because since they know some English, they aren't as shy and you cant get them to SIT STILL. During class today, one of the little boys kept grabbing the board game from me and whacking me in the head with it, while one of the girls kept pulling on my braid and covering my eyes. They just cant seem to keep their hands to themselves. Oh children are such a joy.

 

But really a few of them are SO CUTE. There is this one girl name Emily in my class and she loves to just stay by my side so whenever we line up to rotate she comes and hugs my legs and is so cute. Its hardest for the 4 year olds because they all miss their moms still, and so a lot of them cry throughout the day. There is also this boy named Harry and he is super smart and picks up the language really fast and is extremely helpful. He also has really big ears that stick out and you just want to eat him all up he is so cute!

 

Some of the kids are really funny, too. And not always on purpose. Example Numero Uno: Susan (AKA 'Sweaty Sue'). Sweaty Sue is one of the new 4 year olds in our school, and just the mention of her name here has a rolling on the ground laughing. There aren't really words to describe this lovely little girl, other than she is SWEATY. For some reason she sweats more than anyone else  we have ever met here in China. Even just sitting there, without any physical activity, she has beads of sweat rolling down her face, and her hair is always plastered across her forehead. Oh she is such a joy. I need to get a picture of her in all her sweaty glory!

 

So teaching is NOTHING like anything we expected, and NOTHING like what we were trained for, but I am liking it so far, and I am having so much fun!