curry, curry, curry omnomnom

[cierra_james]

So I know Im not supposed to have a favourite school, but I do. Its just so much better than the other 5, its not just one thing but millions of little things. For example, the awesome that happened today...

• slept in 30 mins cos this school is the closest to my house and I can do so without even being late to the Friday morning meeting
• had a teacher hand me a detailed outline of when and where I'll be teaching for this term and where I'll be having lunch (some schools dont have this, or have one month to month)
• morning meeting was 3 mins long
• both 5th grade teachers and both 6th grade teachers were available for me to give them a run down of the lesson plan for the day.
• I dont ever teach period 1 at this school so I have time to organise flashcards and print worksheets and generally wake up.

• P2 - grade 6.1 - The teacher likes to give himself an English nickname, it changes every class. Today it was Johnny, though a couple of kids yelled "No! Jack!"
• We were starting a new topic of time, the teacher had taken it upon himself to teach the kids a little bit already that morning so we had a head start.
• The kids got what I was teaching them in about 5 seconds.
• When I say "Are you ready?" or "Are you OK?" The whole class yells "Go!" or "OK!" at me!
• Almost the whole class got everything on their worksheets correct.

• recess - there are ALWAYS delicious snacks in the staffroom!

• P3 - grade 5.2 - usually my least liked class of the school, though I think that was because the teacher was nervous at having me teach. But today she was super, super genki and helpful and participatory = YAY!  Plus she even gave me some constructive criticism about the flow of the class which I used to fix the next class.
• the girl in the font row had a Kisumai clearfile which was awesome and pretty and slightly distracting for me, the girl next to her had Arashi!
• started a new topic of school subjects, most kids already knew about 1/2 of them
• to make things fun in what is essentially a class about memorising words we played fruits basket. Ive taught this class at least half a dozen times already, but this was the first time the teacher suggested we both also participate which made things absolutely hilarious as all the kids tried to catch us out.
• half way through, there were 2 kids battling for a chair while a third calmly waddled like a penguin to an open chair neither of the other 2 had noticed = major hilarity

• P4 - grade 5.1 - possibly the loudest and most insane class I have to teach, but really thats half the point of primary school English
• most of the classed yelled "Hello" as I walked in
• 3 or 4 of the kids grabbed my flash cards as I walked in and went through them to see how many they already knew, then realised the cards had Naruto on them and got distracted.
• had a "you can speak japanese cant you" "no I cant" "yes you can you just did" "no I didnt, you're hearing things" battle with one kid
• class started and again most kids knew about half the words already.
• as we were moving furniture to play fruits basket, one boy came up and handed me a hand warmer and said, "Im warm already, so you can have this!"
• participated in fruits basket again, ended up in the middle 3 times so had to do a punishment game
• the kid next to me asked to see my cards and checked them against his, then anytime he was in the middle the one card we had the same was the only one he would call
• probably the funniest moment was the other teacher, who is male and about 6foot, had a battle for a chair with one of the more class-clown like girls, easily half his height, which ended up with him in the chair and her on the floor doing your classic pounding the floor with a fist routine.

• Lunch - with 5.1, which in itself is hilarious and awesome!
• Lunch was curry, and 5.1 had about 5 people away today so there was A LOT of extra, I think I got 2 extra helpings of both rice and curry and an extra milk, some kids were having thirds and fourths!!! Lots of delicious food today!
• When I walked into the class for lunch one kid came up and said "Chiii-su!" which I suppose is the equivalent of "Yo!", and then got super excited when I replied in kind. He went and told his friends and then about 3 or 4 others came up and tried the same greeting.
• After lunch a couple of girls came up and said, "Ooooh we still remember this..." and did a weird hand movement I taught them about a month ago.
• Then a few other girls were like "Emma-sensei, let's go play volleyball." So I went, but we sucked so it turned into dodgeball, which I also sucked at but still I was wanted on all teams.
• I got pointed and gasped at by a couple of the 1st/2nd graders. They are so random cute.

• P5 - grade 6.2 - again the teacher here is amazingly awesome. I made a joke about Friday the 13th early on and she ran with it, using it to lightheartedly threaten the kids when they were being too slow or quiet.
• again, the kids got what I was on about within about 5 seconds
• when I asked if anyone wanted to write the answers on the board, I think the entire class volunteered.
• when asked if they wanted to attempt short speeches, 2 kids who are rarely brave enough put their hands up
• this happens every time with this class but, when the bell rang I did absolutely no packing up. A small army of kids collected my stuff together, picked it up and walked me back to my desk in the staffroom. One kid did it all in an army style, complete with straight back, 90degree corner turns and a salute at the end.

• P6 - again no classes, so I can pack up in peace and go pay the office ladies for lunch, usually I end up chatting to them for an hour or so because their office is so warm and they're just damned nice people. 
• As I was leaving I ran into another teacher who asked something I didnt quite understand, eventually I worked out that she had sent me a souvenir from her trip to Vietnam - like I said, seriously nice people!!
• And lastly, the school is sat atop a medium sized hill, which is ever so fun to zoom down on the way home!!!

Edit: I have no idea why there are numbers. These were bullets when I wrote them!!!