2nd Week of School Begins!

Another week of school has begun. Today I had 4 classes in total, the usual three 3rd grade classes, and one 1st grade class because of sports day practices. Woke up at 7:00am, had pasta for breakfast, and arrived at school at 8:00am. This week was a bit special because we have university students visiting and observing classes for the week!

For the first period I just did lesson prep, which included printing out a lot of worksheets and also some stuff for my English board. First class of the day was 2nd period 3rd graders. We were learning how to say different body parts in English today! Obviously started with the classic “Head Shoulders Knees and Toes”, and then moved onto vocab drills and games. The first class of 3rd graders was really noisy. They were just super hyper today and wouldn't listen, and their homeroom teacher is also the sweetest little person so they kind of take advantage of that I think. I think at least some of them remembered some body part names in English though. The second and third classes were much better, they listen way better to their homeroom teacher and are also less rowdy and more respectful. It was funny because it was super rowdy in the first class, less so but still a little bit in the second class, and then in the third class they were so well behaved that we had a bit of time spare at the end. The last class followed instructions really well so we didn't have to waste any time waiting for everyone to quiet down and the like.

I was eating lunch with the second class of Grade 1 today. They were super cute and enthusiastic. As I was walking down the corridor towards them they were already waiting outside and shouting “yay!”. Lunch today was fried rice, seaweed soup, sweet potato, and an orange slice. 1-2’s kids are just adorable, they were all hanging around and trying to talk to me at the same time. I spent the lunch break today with some first graders in the library – it was very cute, there were a lot of kids in the library reading!

After lunch was my last class of the day, 1st graders class 3. The 1st graders are seriously so well behaved. They do all the activities properly, with enthusiasm, and listen very well. There were a lot of animals in today’s lesson, so they couldn't remember them all, but they remembered a good enough number! They liked how I used Pusheen for the cat picture, and kept calling him “デブちゃん”, basically an affectionate name for “fatty” or “chubby”. Karuta is seriously popular and was a huge success. One of the girls started bleeding and everyone freaked out but it turned out it was from an old scab on her elbow, so that was all goods. I hope they’ll still be able to remember the animals by next week! One week is a long time for a break/to be able to maintain newly learnt vocabulary.

Finished work at 16:20 today and went back home. Made a quick stop at 7-Eleven to get some cash from the ATM on the way. The car dealer came to my house at 17:00 to get my seal stamped, and said that if all goes well, I could have my car by the end of tomorrow!!! Spent the rest of the night doing some lesson prep – it’s mostly always just saving images from the internet because my laptop isn’t connected to the internet at school. Also made some more powerpoint quizzes and crossword worksheets.