A full-time job has kept us so busy and so exhausted! I joke all the time, I never want a full-time job again! How do people do it?! We officially started our full teaching schedule on the 16th of March and since then we've been on the go, go, go!
Our morning schedule is the two-day program and while it sounds nice that we see different students every week, it is so draining! We never know how the next group of kids is going to behave. We try to make every class as energetic and enthusiastic as possible, but our lessons feel like a broken record! The classes are great fun for the kids (and, the cooking class is my favorite) but we already feel like we should be changing it up.
I am happy to report that (my) cooking and gym classes are consistently rated the favorite classes of the program! Woop woop!
After the two-day program we teach the Seongnam Elementary kids (the school right next to the center). We see all 60-70 students from K-6th grade in two 40-minute class periods. We see these kids four times a week (with the exception of Kindy) and they are the most unmotivated of all the kids we see on a daily basis. That makes our work extra hard to get them excited and motivated to learn! We were also informed from our boss that Seongnam classes take the highest priority and we should just focus on having fun! Well, I've been taking the "just have fun" mantra to heart. Each class period we just do an arts and craft activity or something so simple and easy any one can do it. So far we've made origami stars, paper airplanes, and cut out/glue famous monuments like the Eiffel Tower and Statue of Liberty. I typically do a VERY SHORT lesson about the craft activity and then we spend the remainder of class cutting, gluing and folding.
The last group of kids we see is the After School program. We have a normal English class on M/W/F and a more focused skills class on T/Th (reading/writing/phonics). These kids are definitely the smartest and most motivated of the bunch. I have thoroughly been enjoying the After School program the most.
Friday mornings we teach adults. We split the adults into Beg, Int, Adv levels and Jacob and I each teach the Int/Adv students while our co-worker spends two class periods with the beginners. Teaching adults has been quite the experience. The adults are very vocal, not afraid to ask questions, call out mistakes (not that I make any), and even ask Jacob Teacher to change the topic of his course! (WHAT?!)
By the end of the day, we are drained, exhausted and HUNGRY! By the time I walk through our front door at the end of the day I collapse.
We've started to cook chicken and rice at home. I haven't quite figured out how to cook brown rice on the stove top. It always turns out too mushy, but we are saving quite a bit of money eating at home. Luckily, my dear husband has been a trooper through all my cooking mishaps and politely chokes it down. I picked a good one!
Besides work, life here is still challenging as ever! We have not picked up much Korean and we still haven't figured out the bus system. We walk a lot and go back to the same restaurants and coffee places a lot. On the bright side, we scored this free couch!
 |
| It's still wet from the scrub down I gave it. |
It was left on the sidewalk outside of someone's apartment so we felt free to take it! While it seems ghetto, I did give it a good wash down and our little living room feels so homey! We don't use it much, but it feels cozier just having it around. On a side note, the pillow is ours we bought it when we first got here!
In other news, the weather has improved considerably. It truly feels like the PNW. We don't have to wear our thermals underneath our clothing and I have even stopped wearing my boots! Hopefully since the weather is improving, we will venture out more and travel around the province.
Easter
I took advantage of the holiday and used the Easter topic as a lesson for all my kiddos. I found a short PPT about Easter and I had our coordinator buy enough eggs for everyone to decorate. In all of my more advanced classes we even had an Easter egg hunt. It was pretty fun watching all the kids running around trying to find eggs. The hardest eggs to find were in the most obvious places!
A few pictures of my Kindy students decorating eggs. We couldn't find food coloring so we just used markers and crayons to draw on. The cutest part-- a handful of my Kindy students just stared at us and asked if it was for them to eat! Precious.
 |
| Combined K, 1st, 2nd grade to do an Easter lesson |
 |
| David |
 |
| Andy-- he's the youngest and most ADD of all the Kindy students. |
 |
| Tony -- I named him :) |
 |
| Mickey |
 |
| Eric |
 |
| Wendy |
 |
| Jackson |
 |
| Kemi |
 |
| Jason |
 |
| Lily |
 |
| Michael |
Here are a few other photos from the past few weeks...
 |
| We should seriously have something like this at home |
 |
| We've been trying out the French press |
 |
| Our neighbor put this sign up after we complained to our landlord about her students being too noisy. |
 |
| Photobombing and otherwise cool picture |
 |
| We found an Oregon fan!!! Crazy! |
 |
| Should we trust a juice that has to say it's real? |
 |
| Old ladies are always riding around on these tractors on the roads! |
 |
| More pics of my Kindy students because they are just too adorable. |
 |
| This is my T/Th Reading/Writing group. |
