Gobble Gobble Turkey craft

A little late, but as my perpetually tardy family always says, "better late than never." We never send birthday cards on time. Its a miracle every year if all the gifts are under the tree by Christmas Eve.

We made a turkey craft this year with my little preschoolers. It looks like it would be INCREDIBLY messy, but because my co-teacher and I controlled the paint brushes, it was actually surprisingly neat. We put the cut up construction paper on their table and let them decorate the border as they wished.  They then took turns coming to us to have their hands painted.  We pressed their little hand onto their paper plate. They then took the beak, legs and feet and glued them on themselves. I think their little turkey's turned out almost as adorable as the kids themselves, not quite though.

Crazy Hair Day

Every Friday is Theme day at our Preschool.  A few days back, we had "Crazy Hair Day"  We spent most of the morning doing our hair in crazy dos and helping those students whom hadn't done their hair already, fancy it up.  It was an exciting day in the preschool.  Many parents went all out, putting flowers, rice, ribbons, color spray and pipe cleaners to adorn their children's hair. Most of the kids had a blast.  Top on the other hand was non to thrilled too be participating in this childish endeavor. I swear he is like a grandpa in a four year old's body.  "Why are you doing this to me?" Is what he's thinking right now.  "Play your silly games if you must, but don't expect me to enjoy myself!"

Moother goose

Somedays I feel like mothergoose with little duckling following behind me.  Not sure why??

I'm a yogini

"Can you teach yoga?" my manager asked me one day.

"uhhh," I stuttered

"I want the kids to learn yoga, and the president wont pay for a yoga instructor." she said

"I guess." I acquiesced.

I actually do yoga videos about once a week along with my other work outs.  So I'm quite familiar with the moves.  But I started looking up kids yoga, and its quite different to the calm and peaceful yoga that is ususally taught to kids.  Basically, all of the moves are active rather than static, and many of the positions are given animal names.  I also have the kids make the nosies of the animals as they follow along. They LOVE yoga because basically, they love pretending to be animals.  Its very cute.

Pre-school clips

A while a go our preschool was videoed for an advertisement for the website. This is that preschool video.  It's adorable.  The first class is mine.  I'm super proud of my kids, but not of my hair in this video.  Don't look at it!  Hope you enjoy!

Take more pictures

Part of being a teacher at our preschool is being a photographer.  The children need their pictures taken regularly as proof that their being taught.  So on each field trip, I take my camera and dutifully take as many pictures of the kids as I can while still trying to answer their questions, hold their hands, and take them to the bathroom. Recently we were told, that we don't take enough pictures.  Not in quantity really, but that we also needed to take pictures during the week of the kids doing mundane things like studying etc. 
"Are you serious?" I asked my co-teacher.  "I have just uploaded 2000 photos to my kodak file.  Seriously, how many pictures do the parents need?"

So one day as we were playing outside under the bridge, the kids and I engaged in a funny game.  Take pictures wearing teacher Vanessa's sunglasses.  One of the kids wanted to wear my sunglasses, and we thought it was so funny we took their pictures.  They all started yelling out at that point, "I want to, I want to..."  So we had them line up for their picture with my sunglasses.  They were so cute with my movie-star sunglasses on their tiny faces.

I have a new pet

One of the field trips we took with the kids recently was described to us as "about bugs."

"Okay" I thought, "this is going to be boring."

It was anything but boring.  And one of the treasures the kids, along with the teachers were given to take home as a pet was a caterpillar.  However, this caterpillar, if he can be called that, will not transform into a beautiful butterfly.  Oh, no!  Not this guy.  This guy will certainly make a cocoon, but his metamorphosis will be into entirely different; a Japanese rhinoceros beetle. Well, at least I think it's that beetle.  No one knows for sure.  In Korean it's called the "stag beetle" but we can't seem to find a proper translation.  Basically this beetle will be HUGE; 35-90 mm, around the length of a man's index finger.

 The kids were sent home with these beetle larva as well, except without any instructions other than verbal instructions.  Can you imagine being a parent, and having your kid walking through the doorway with a jar filled with soil and a larva as large as your child's fist??  My mom would have had a heart attack.  Why would they not send home written instructions to the parents.  Do they actually expect 3-6 year olds to remember what they were told to do with the creatures.  And when they grow into full sized beetles, they're completely equipped with wings.  They will fly, oh yes they will.

I've named him George Harrison after the Beatle (from the band) who is the "forgotten Beatle." He currently resides in his jar tucked away in our cabinet as we were told that he prefers the darkness.  He requires no care.  If his soil drys up, we are to spray it lightly with water, other than that, leave him to his business of eating, growing, cocooning and growing into a humongous beetle.  I can't wait to see him progress!  Maybe I'll even send him home to my family as a gift :)

"This is my home"

This week, our class size has grown from 9 to 11 students.  Two may seem like a small number, but I can definitely feel a difference.  We're struggling to integrate everyone into the routine.  However before this addition, our newest student was "four year old" Aden.   Aden came to us about three months late.  It was obvious from the start that Aden had NEVER been to preschool.  He was a wild child, often hitting other students, playing during circle time, and never helping to clean up during "clean up time." Aden was by far our most difficult child.  He didn't ever do his work unless one of us sat with him the entire time coaching him step by step, which makes helping the rest of the children do with their work extremely trying.  His focus lasted as long as a gold fish's memory; two seconds.

His adorable face with two deep dimples was quite endearing however.  And although he often hit other classmates, he'd always freely admit to it, and would apologize with such candor and empathy in his eyes, even reaching out to touch the other student. It made my heart melt the first few times I saw it.  Now, I'm just tired of the words, "Aden hit me!"

But today, Aden did something else to tug at those heart strings; he cried when it was time to go home.  His aunt told us that he's been doing it nearly every day.  He insisted that he wanted to stay at preschool.  When teacher Cindy said, "But Aden, it's time to go home now." he exclaimed adamantly in Korean, "This is my home!"

I'd like to take all the credit for this outburst, but I realize that it most likely has more to do with there being other children to play with than with my marvelous teaching ability. But I'd like to think at least, that I create a fun and safe environment for the children to learn and play in.  And that's enough to make my day. That one of my students, despite, how much we scold him, still wants to be at school with us.  These kids just might make leaving Korea more difficult than I bargained for.

Ancedotes of preschool 3

We've been teaching illnesses recently in my afternoon class.  They learned stomach ache, fever, cough, cold, and rash. The picture for the rash, however, was a bit deceiving, and confusing. The picture shows a child with red dots covering her face. I think they were demonstrating chickenpox but what it actually resembles is acne.  We were talking about each of the illness, and as we came upon, "rash" one of the kids observantly said,
"Teacher you have a rash"
Shaking my head, slightly embarrassed, I explained that the red dots on my face were pimples, which are different from a rash.   "Rashes itch, pimples are just red dots that you get when your older."  I didn't even have that many, maybe two or three, but oh, are kids observant.  Almost every time I have a new pimple, one of the children asks me about it.  "Teacher, what's that?" they ask innocently, not knowing that they are rubbing salt into my wounded self-image.


It's summertime.  In Korea, the tale tell signs of summer is the heat, which isn't anywhere near the heat index in Texas, the humidity, which is high, maybe even sometimes higher than San Antonio, and the insects. (I wrote two posts last year about those nefarious bugs, here and here)  These insects, seeking refuge from the great outdoors, or maybe the many cruel Korean middle school children who try take them apart limp by limb, for some reason or another, choose to make their home in our bathroom.  At first, we didn't understand why the kids would wiggling and shaking, doing the pee pee dance, were refusing to go to the bathroom.  Sometimes, they would even have their pants down, as they came back into the classroom, whining. Once, a student in our afternoon class, who is normally quite garrulous, refused to not only answer a question but repeat anything I said.  He then refused to answer, "what's wrong Edward?" We finally got out of him that his stomach hurt.  Later, we found out, that his stomach hurt because he refused to go to the bathroom to poo, as he was afraid of the bugs.

Cindy, my co-teacher, is afraid of all bugs, even moths and butterflies, albeit massive bird sized moths and butterflies, but harmless critters never-the-less.  So that makes me the designated bug catcher. I don't like to kill animals, unless it's likely to harm me.  However, I've had difficulty catching spiders without killing them, as I'm always afraid they might escape and start crawling on me. 
The kids have, out of necessity, have learned the word "bug," a word they use nearly everyday now, when its time to use the restroom.  What I've found, even more cute however is when they tell me,
"Teacher, spiderman, bathroom!"

"Spiderman is in the bathroom?" I ask jokingly. They know who Spiderman is, but haven't learned the word spider on its own.  I'm loving summer, but I'll be glad when I no longer have to fend off the insect invaders so that my kids don't pee in their pants!

Ancedotes from preschool 2

So last Ancedotes from preschool I talked about my little girl Elise, however, the story doesn't end there.  Elise is a four year old (in Korean age) which means she is between two and three; my guess is that she is three years old.  But she is quite mature for her young years, and is by far one of the superior colorers in the class. She is quite adept at staying in the lines, and even color coordinating.  She is reticent, and slow to speak, but lately she has been coming into her English voice with confidence.  After lunch, which is brought to our classroom, I make their toothbrushes.  That is, I put the toothpaste on their toothbrushes to avoid a calamitous sticky disarray that would send me into a cringing, twitching state liable for institutionalism. (I have to say, I'm admittedly, not a neat person, but messy toothpaste is a pet peeve of mine)  And when I first entered preschool, the children raced after lunch to brush their teeth, and found it hilarious to put not only their own toothpaste messily on their toothbrush but to make a hodgepodge of everyone's toothpaste on their own one toothbrush, making what they called rainbow toothpaste.  After a few eye twiches, I put a stop to that quickly.  I digress however...  Where were we?  Awww yes, Elise.  One day, Elise, who hasn't spoken hardly any English outside of circle time suddenly calls out to me,
"Come here!" Two words I haven't heard her speak before. I'm already impressed, but she's just gotten started. She leads me to where I have made up the toothbrushes, and points to one particular toothbrush, Louis's.
"Louis isn't here." she tells me.  I stare at her dumbfounded. Not only had she been observant enough to remember which cup and toothbrush was Louis's, but she had just formed a perfect sentence, with a negative verb and all.  She didn't say, "Louis not here," which would have been impressive on its own, but she used "isn't."  Huge! Colossal! I had to restrain myself from picking her up and twirling her around. My throat constricted, and my heart pounded with pride like a mother just hearing her baby speak its first word.  My children were learning. They were actually not only understanding but on the cusp of beginning to speak English in sentences.

One finale Elise story...(watch her little video here)

As you know, our preschool goes on field trips.  One Friday, we made our way to a beautiful wildflower garden. We picnicked under the shade of  sycamore trees. (I don't even know what sycamore trees are, but it sounded nicer than just saying trees :) )  Lunches consisted of the snacks the children brought, which ranged from chips, packaged goods, candy and fruit, and kimbap which is brought by the school (Korean style sushi roll).  One ingredient in the rolls is a yellow radish.  I don't like radish.  I don't like radish in any form, yellow or no so I meticulously pick it out. On seeing this Elise picked up my radish to hand me, thinking that it has fallen out.  I tell her "Thank you," but explain to her that I'd taken it out because I didn't like radish. Minutes later, Elise handed me a kimbap, an action that's sweet in itself.  However, that she handed me food without my asking is thoughtful in itself, but what really got to me, was that she'd been considerate enough to take out the radish. This is a three year old folks.  A three year old who thought beyond her own needs and desires to unselfishly feed her teacher. I nearly cried. Seriously, I held back tears as she handed me that seaweed rice roll missing the disgusting radish.  Elise has taken my heart and run away with it, and its all I can do to keep up with her.  I only hope that she remains small enough for me to pack in my suitcase when I come home.

Anecdotes from preschool

I'm having fun with my preschoolers.  Their at the adorable age of innocence, where everything that comes from your mouth is as good as gold.  They have yet to test out rebellion, and believe that the most troublesome aspect of the world is that their friends don't share with them.  Teaching  the "five year old class" has been an entirely different experience than when I substituted for the "7 year old class" last year.  It hasn't been better or worse, just substantially different considering the children's maturity levels. One great aspect about teaching in Korea, as opposed to a Western country, is the fact that Korea has not taken up law suits so avidly as other countries.  I don't have a fear of being called a pedophile for hugging my children, or showing them affection.  In fact, that is part of my job description, giving affection to the children, hugging them, playing with them, and kissing their boo boos.  Hopefully, if I can remember, I will continue writing this as a series relaying stories about my children.

We had this student Ashton for a while.  He was four (Korean age) with floppy black hair, pants that were always falling off him and with a face as sweet as candy.  But Ashton, I'm afraid, did not make it on our class for longer than a month.  The poor thing could not understand us. I'm not sure he would have understood us if we'd been speaking Korean. He didn't comprehend school.  He didn't grasp sitting still in circle time or repeating words and phrases.  I thought at the very least he'd understand coloring, but even that seemed to boggle his poor little mind. We'd place a coloring sheet before him, place a coloring pencil in his hand, assist him in coloring for the first few seconds, and leave him to it, but he'd only stare at us, bewildered. He literally would gaze at us with a blankness only found on white paper holding his color pencil in his hand for ten minutes. I don't know if he wouldn't color, or if he really didn't get the concept, but either way, in order for any of Ashton's work to be completed, Cindy and I would have to complete it ourselves, placing Ashton's hand in ours, as we colored, or drew lines to the correct pictures for Ashton, as he stared at us as if we were strange creatures from his dreams.  After a month of this, his mother and father determined that Ashton wasn't ready for school yet.  We whole-heatedly agreed.

  I have an adorable class.  Really, I'm quite lucky to have such angelic children.  And I have to say, I particularly like the girls, although the boys quite frequently melt my heart  as well. One of my little girls names is Elise. She's an adorable creature that might have been a kangaroo in a previous life time. She's constantly hopping around, her arms bent like short stubby kangaroo's, singing her own little tunes.  She's also quite particular about dirt and mess.  I imagine her mother is quite tidy. She refuses to go into the bathroom if there is anything out of the ordinary such as water on the floor, or dirt.  She will come to fetch me, if the bathroom is unacceptable to her standards, and will hold her pee, until it has been cleaned up.

Stay tuned for more anecdotes from preschool.

When all else fails

I have put little time into the blog lately as anyone can see from the glaring lack of posts this month. However, when all else fails, pictures of my adorable students can always suffice as an adequate filler until I sit down and actually take time to write something other than, "isn't he the cutest thing you've ever seen." 

Friday was a busy fun day in the land of the (korean age) five year old class.  We played handbells, which was ULTRA confusing, as the handbell colors were the wrong color for the Wii handbell game.  "Jinu- your bell is red, but you need to ring when you see the green handbell, got it, not the red one." "No, jearom, your white, not green." 
When your kids are just starting to learn their colors, and the colors don't match the screen, you can be sure that chaos will rein, and the urge to ring the hand bell at any moment in time just for the fun of it, will be the main chorus of music.  Maybe to some it qualifies as music, but in my world, it does not.

After handbells, we made a fun project.
What one needs to make the most awesome sucker person!
1. paper cup
2. sucker
3. googly eyes
4. q-tips
5. pipe cleaner.
6. markers
7. sissors
Now, when I say "we" made the sucker people, I mean that the kids sit there, while Cindy and I make their activity.  Why? Well, for starters they couldn't hot glue the googly eyes, nor the pipe cleaner hair on.  I mean I guess technically they could, but that probably woldn't be a very responsible move. Nor could they poke holes in their cups to stick the suckers in the top to act as the head or the q-tips in on the sides for the arms. 
What could they do? They picked the color of their cup, in English mind you!  They picked the color of their sucker and the color of the hair.  They were also able to color the cup with their markers, while Cindy and I furiously ran around trying to glue and poke everyone's sucker people to satisfaction.

In the end, I think everyone was happy with their final project.

Making pizza the Korean way

As I have mentioned in the past.  Friday in preschool is "theme day." This past theme class was cooking- cooking pizza.  Except this was no ordinary pizza- oh no, this was special Korean pizza.

How does one cook Korean pizza?
1. get bread- most likely plain white bread
2. put tomato sauce on this bread
3. spread mashed sweet potatoes.  Yes, I did say sweet potatoes and yes I am aware that we are making pizza.  Remember, this is Korean pizza.
4. sprinkle onions and bell peppers which are called paprika in this country.  I don't know why.
5. cover in fake soy cheese which tastes like plastic.
6. place in oven and watch cook.
Honestly I was surprised that there was no corn.  There is never a pizza in Korea without corn. Even cheese pizza has corn on it because obviously you didn't mean "just" cheese.

So how did our pizza making day go?  It was a trial of patience, that is for sure.  First of all the kids had to have their cute aprons on, because you must be dressed for every occasion.
And then came the problem of the counters being incredibly high.  We had to find chairs that the kiddies could stand on so that they could make their pizza.  Often times when they were given the job of spreading something, they actually knocked off the toppings so that they were no longer on the pizza but on the pan, but really that was to be expected.
How did the pizza turn out?  I'm personally not a fan.  Maybe that makes me a pizza snob, and if so, then so be it. But the kids had fun, and that was the point.

In their cute aprons.

this has to be my favorite picture of the day.  look at Jerrome's face!

eating the pizza

they think it is yummy.

and so does my Korean co-teacher.  It is Korean pizza after all!