Friday 1/27: “Just Keep Teaching…Just Keep Teaching…”

I’m feeling a little bit better, but still really stuffed up. Urgle. However, I had a great class with the 10 year olds. We talked about animals and then sang Old MacDonald…but this class was really enthusiastic about dancing and we all got up and did the do-si-do! I really wish I could have a video of them all…it was hilarious!

After a break, I had class with the difficult group. I had them do a worksheet on “a” vs. “an” and then we sang and danced to “YMCA!” That went fairly well, except that for a brief time they were getting kind-of out of hand and were standing on chairs/completely ignoring me. I yelled at them, made them all sit down, and then we re-sang the song while looking at the lyrics. It’s amazing how even when we’re doing something fun, they have to be difficult! But it was pretty funny to be walking across the playground later and hear “YYYY MMMMMM CCCC AAAAA!!” being sung extremely loudly by many students.

In my afternoon classes we kept working on the days of the week and I read “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?” to the smaller class in the library. With the other class of 7 yr olds, I also played the song “B-I-N-G-O” and explained it to them. We’ll start learning it on Tuesday next week, but I wanted them to at least hear it before then. I think it’ll help with remembering how to pronounce the letters “I” and “G”…they have a lot of trouble not pronouncing them like “E” and “J.”

After classes I hung out with Margot until she had to leave for tennis and then I rested in my room. I wasn’t feeling that well, but I decided to go to folk dance because I didn’t go last week. I didn’t go up on stilts, but I did all the floor dances. I’m starting to talk a bit more with the people there, which is nice. One of the ladies is our post woman and she said to me “You get a lot of letters and packages!” I said, “I know! I love my family and friends—they’re so great!” :)

Luckily folk dance didn’t go late tonight, so I came home and made myself some past around 10pm… I was starving!!

Tomorrow I have to get up early to take the train to Spain!