Transportation Coming to an End

I cannot believe that I have finished my 2nd week of teaching; the time is going by so quickly! It has been so nice to have Yuling back as she knows where so much more stuff is than the other teachers and is really willing to help you. Today I felt quite special as when Natalie, Yuling, and I were talking about different things we could do for our classes and the point of what we were supposed to be doing Yuling told Natalie that if I ever need any ideas or help she should just ask me, I guess she was quite impressed with my resume and what I had done. That made me so happy to hear, I just hope that Natalie didn’t feel too insulted by that, thinking that she doesn’t have ideas.
Today in my morning class I talked about charades. I had made a jar full of slips of paper with different animals and actions (fishing, dancing, running, sleeping, etc.) and explained to the kids that charades is acting out things without using sounds or props. I pulled one out to show them and give an example of what they had to do. Then one at a time one child came out of the room with me and drew a slip of paper, I told them what their paper said and gave them a suggestion of what they could do. They then went in and acted it out, it was rather interesting- the 4 year olds who are rather very loud and excited were very shy doing this activity, they opened up as we went through the class but at the very beginning they were very shy. The 5 year olds loved it, they were so quick at acting out the actions and guessing what they were. I did it a little different with the 3 year olds, they each chose a slip of paper and then we all acted the action out together. It was a big hit with all the ages though and so I think that I will keep my jar and use it a couple of more times before I leave.

I came dressed like this to class, for some reason the kids thought that I was not dressed correctly :D


My middle class we talked about getting dressed and getting ready for the day. I came into class wearing a pair of shorts, a skirt, two shirts, two different earrings; I had my hair clipped up really high, a brush in my hair, a bracelet in my hair, and a ribbon put on the very top but backwards. I began the class by telling the kids that I had gotten dressed this morning and asking how I had done, for some reason they thought that I had gotten dressed wrong. I then had them help me and tell me what things should come off (I had actually started the day off in the skirt but I figured that it would be easier and more modest to keep the shorts on :D) After I was dressed correctly we went through the order and drew pictures on the board of how we should get ready. After we had gone through the order a couple of times I erased what we had on the board and re-drew it but in the wrong order and had them correct it. Last night Natalie and I had a conversation about how we wish that we could understand what the little kids were saying between them because we figure that their conversations would be hilarious, and then today I had some experience that I really wish that I could understand what was being said. I had the 3 year olds and then the 4 year olds right after them, when the 4 year olds came in the 3 year olds were still in the classroom. I was just standing watching the kids when some came up to right in front of me and a 3 year old started talking really fast and I think that she was telling about what we had done in class and how silly I was or something because right after the 3 year old left Wendy (who she had been telling the story to) started saying Teacher you are silly.
Finally! My last day of transportation. For some silly reason I had decided to talk about motorcycles, I don’t know why as there is not a ton of things that you can talk about with preschoolers about motorcycles. I started with having them talk about the similarities and differences between a bike and a motorcycle. When we had finished that we listed on the board all of the different kinds of transportation that we had learned about this week. After we had the list on the board I asked the kids if we were going to the grocery store which one would you use, and then we just talked about other places what would we use. Today Yuling had mention to Natalie and I that she would prefer that we don’t have them color too much, for the 3 year olds they are learning some things but for the 5 year olds they are not learning anything from it and it can be boring to them. So my plan of having them color different kinds of transportation and making a memory game was out, she and I then talked about something different that we could do. She found me a book of drawing and how it shows the steps of drawing it. There was a whole book or transportation. I then ended the class with giving each child a piece of paper that was folded into fourths; we then drew three different pictures. It was kind of bonus, because we talked about the different shapes that we were drawing to make the transportation and then when we were done we talked about the letter that the word began with. For their fourth picture I let the kids pick what kind of transportation they wanted to draw, in my 1st class most of the kids drew hot air balloons and then most of the kids in my 2nd class drew trains.
Tonight Natalie and I had talked about going to McDonalds (just to say that we had gone to McDonalds once in Taiwan), but unfortunately she got invited to some other plans. Her family has some friends here in Taiwan and their son is going to fly to the US on Monday to stay with Natalie’s family for the school year and so they were going to have some kind of party tonight as they also have another son going on a mission on Monday. So I am just hanging out here alone, but I feel pretty good about my progress, it is barely 8pm and I have already gotten my laundry done from the week, am almost done with my blog entry, have already written up my write-up from class, and now all I have left to do is finish this entry, do my lesson plans for next week, and then I have to write evaluations for the kids (crazy thing, each week the English teachers have to write an evaluation of the child and so does the Chinese teacher and then when they graduate they are given a book with a copy of each weeks lesson schedule and the evaluations that were written for them).
I don’t have many plans for the weekend but Natalie and I kind of talked about going to a waterfront festival sometime either this weekend or like Monday or something, so we will see- might have that to talk about.
Oh but I did almost forget to mention, today when I was walking through the office Yuling stopped me to tell me something about how in Taiwan they celebrate Halloween through the whole month of August and that today is the middle of the month and they do something with letting out all of the ghosts or trying to catch them or something like that. I had forgotten all about that until Natalie and I were riding to the grocery store and we saw all of these fires along the side of the road, at first I was like what the heck is going on and then I remembered that Yuling had mentioned it, here is what Wikipedia has to say about it.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Festival I thought that it was an interesting sounding thing.
I am going to sign off now to go and make my dinner and to finish the things that I need to have done for my class. This is Betherd signing off, love you all!