Today was Nanbu elementary again-- I spend the first 4 periods of the day there and then go to the middle school for lunch and afternoon. Only thing is, I don't usually actually teach every period- just a couple and then I have prep.
But today I had four classes in a row before dashing to the middle school. 5th grade, 6-1, 6-2, and 4th grade. The two 6th grade classes are on the same lesson, so I was able to make one lesson for both classes. We've been working on months and how to say the dates and today we moved into birthdays- asking when and answering. We played bingo with the days of the month as a review, and they all enjoyed it in both classes. I struggled somewhat with the introduction of birthdays, there were parts of my presentation I forgot with 6-1, but it worked out alright in the end. But 6-2 as usual is very quiet. They like me alright, but they just never talk when I need them to or anything. Makes things a bit harder but I'll keep charging through it. That one shy kid I mentioned before? He's still really shy. Like others I can't get him to volunteer for anything, but he does answer when I walk up to him and try to get a response so there is that. Though he won't look at me at all which is different from the others. xD Oh, to be 11-12 again.
The 5th graders I had never had before. But they were quite enthused to see me and my self-introduction went on for quite some time. Their lesson was introducing "I am (hungry/tired/sad/happy/etc). Though I had learned quickly that their teacher had already covered it pretty well. Luckily, my self-intro (they had so many questions for me including "are you married?"....the 4th graders asked this too. I even ended up explaining what languages we learn in the US) lasted for a lot of the time and I played a review game with them. I've done this game with the other classes as well. What I do is put the flascards for the vocabulary on the board. I tell the kids they are policemen (have I explained this already...? oh well) and I have them turn around and not look while I take some of the cards and move the others around. I laugh evilly, saying a robber has stolen things and have them look again. One at a time, they'll say which ones are missing. Then, I through my squishy cat ball at them, and the kid who catches it is the next robber. This game can go up to 15-20 minutes, especially if the kids are really enthused. So even though they all really knew the words it doesn't matter, they had a lot of fun. My cat ball is also really popular. It's a stuffed animal cat that is in the shape of a ball, and really squishy. I bought it in America for this expressed purpose actually. xD
The 4th graders were really cute. There is no book for them or actual laid out curriculum for this grade and lower as I'm aware, so the plan will always "free" whatever I want basically. I have not had this class before either like 5th grade. I decided to go with numbers and colors. I had no idea what they already knew. If they didn't know them already, it would be something easy to teach with limited time and if they did already know it, then more game time. As it is, they also asked me a lot of questions though it took up less time. I discovered they knew 1-10 and all the colors. So, again I played police with them, focusing on the colors because I had more of them. Cat ball was again extremely popular. xD After this, I put up colored numbers all over the room. I'd call out a color or number and they'd go to whatever was, say, a "3" or "orange" and then I'd say "purple 3" and the ones who had chosen the purple 3 out of all the 3s would win the round, etc. In the end, I had made a lot of those papers and I let them keep the papers, so everyone had at least one. xD It was just xerox with a big colored number on it, but they were so thrilled. (Man, these kids are so cute).
As it is, I left on time but still when I got to middle school my tray for lunch had already been brought to the class I'm eating with. This week, it's 3-1 (9th graders). Like yesterday, I'm finding that this class seems to enjoy looking at me, giggling when I notice, then laughing because I make dumb faces at them. xD Lunch time is pretty limited though, and most of the 9th graders don't try to talk to me much. But I'm finding as time goes on that they actually seem more "whoa, this person is here with us, it's crazy and I don't know how to react" but it was hard to tell at first. xD
But the girls who walk with me to and from the teachers room with my lunch tray really seem to like that I'm there, and I was actually chatting with one of them on the way back. She seemed to express her worry about a lack of English ability, and was glad at my (however limited) Japanese ability. I told her that I felt English was probably the hardest language, so it's nothing short of amazing to me when there are people that are really really good at it. She seemed cheered up by that. It's true though, our language is no walk in the park.
It's sleep time, mmmmmmmmkaaaaay~?
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