My Kids

I've decided to post a few pictures of me teaching. All these shots are pretty recent, within the last few weeks. As always, click the picture for a larger view.

These pictures are taken in our newish classroom that we inherited after the Lunar New Year. It is freshly built, but the flooring is starting to bubble in places. I guess that's what you get when you try and slap up a new classroom in a couple weeks!





We are in an Olympic unit, so I stole Carol's idea of having a small standing long jump competition in the classroom. I put a small line on the floor, and taught the kids how to pump their arms three times and then jump. I have a metre stick that I used to measure their jumps, and I recorded the results on the white board behind me.



Here we are playing letter bingo. We play every Friday, and the kids love it. Everyone gets to call bingo, and everyone gets a sticker, even if they're the last to fill the eight spaces on the card. I encourage them to yell BINGO!! loudly, so that adds to the fun. I pick a letter, say the letter, then walk around showing the letter. About half of the children don't need to see the letter, and half do.

Most all of the children will tell me if they have the letter or not. "Mr. Jon! I don't have H!" or "Mr. Jon! Mr. Jon! Mr. Jon! I have H!" I congratulate them on having the letter, or commiserate with them if they don't have it. It's quite a lot of effort actually, giving everyone attention on almost every letter called.

Every day we must play outside for an hour, between 10am and 11. My kids are three and four years old, so they have to be entertained pretty much the whole time. There are now three teachers in the class, so we take turns doing the entertaining. I prefer to play with the kids after Guo Lao Shi (Teacher Guo) or Ma Lao Shi tell them what we're doing or what we're playing. Guo and Ma don't play with the kids as much as I do, although sometimes they do.





Here we are playing Mr. Wolf. The children love being the wolf, so sometimes there are multiple wolves, as you see in the first picture. You can also see Linda cheating by sneaking a peak!

The wolf is also a villian character in Chinese children's games, so it wasn't too hard to teach them the premise of What Time Is It Mr. Wolf? A wolf in Chinese is pronounced Da Hui Lang and means Big Grey Wolf. I hear "Da Hui Lang!" a lot when we're playing.





Now, we're playing Train. As you can see, the kids are stoked. I'm the engine, and I chug around with the children behind me. I try to weave around as many trees and other things as possible, since they find that fun. We're playing in a garden of sorts, one of the only places on the compound that has grass. A lot of grandparents bring their small grandchildren here, and sometimes the infants join in our games.

There are about three or four places we go to play, and we cycle through those every two weeks or so. Sometimes we'll play inside if it's raining, or do things like fish for tadpoles which we did yesterday.



Here we are at the beach. It's a fake beach, with coarse sand so we leave our shoes on. We bring sand toys, and generally dig holes and cover up other toys. Lily gets excited as I cover the rabbit. The beach is a great place because the children entertain themselves and it's less work for me!



This is at the playground. It's pretty small, with a swinging bridge, a curly slide, three straight slides, and some platforms. I like the playground, because the children like it and they can play by themselves. Guo doesn't like the playground because sometimes the children get hurt. I think the kids are going to get hurt anyway, so we might as well get used to it. Here I am on the teeter-totter with Linda.





Last week we had a Family Day picnic at the top of the mountain. It's not really a mountain though, more of a large steep hill. It's where the pagoda is. Carol and I have eaten fancy meals up there with the bosses and other teachers. We walked up first, ate at the top, and played with bubbles for awhile. The whole excursion was about 2 hours long.

The mountain is familiar territory for me since I do my hill workouts there a few times a week. It's pretty steep, although that's hard to see in the pictures. Here we are climbing the mountian before our small picnic. I don't remember how long it took us to walk up, but it's about 500m long and takes me about 3:10 (on a good day and during a fast interval) to reach the top.



I'll finish it off with a class picture. It's not just my class, as there are some members and teachers of the Baby Class in there too. You have to be two years and three months old to be in the Baby Class. Li Lau Shi and Sue are their teachers, and they work hard. This is ultra daycare! I don't know how they do it, herding and dealing with crying 2 year olds from 8am until 5.

Sue has taken an English course at university, so she's good to chat up. She's the one pointing at my head. Ma Lau Shi is sitting with the kids. She used to help with the Baby Class but the administration traded her to my class two weeks ago. Li is on the far left, who is also a Baby Class teacher and seems to have endless patience. Guo is in the middle. Guo has learned a lot of English this year and I communicate with her well now. She's probably the best teacher in the school and I'm happy to work with her.

Photo credits go to Guo.