Thursday

Each week just seriously flies by. Really looking forward to this weekend though because it’s canyoning with GAJET in Minakami! Woke up at 7:00am this morning – the temperatures are really starting to drop! I’m actually using my thick blanket already, so I may have to look into buying a proper winter blanket for winter. If I’m using the thick blanket now at the beginning of autumn…can’t imagine how cold winter might get here then! Had rice and soup for breakfast, then drove to school today since I need to go to the bank and shops after school. This morning when I arrived at school one of the teachers told me she was going to NZ (Christchurch) next year for holiday because her husband loves rugby! So cute. Also struck up a conversation with the tea lady and she told me she’s going to Kōchi for the long weekend, so I told her about the Minakami canyons trip. She then introduced so much stuff to do/places to go in Minakami because she goes there quite often for skiing! She even has an acquaintance who runs a lodge up there, so she told me she could even personally call and ask for a good deal. She is so nice and lovely.

Because the sports day is over, the timetable is relatively back to normal so there’s no more sudden changes and stuff. Today was with 4th grade and 1st grade. First up was 4-1 in period 1, and it was presentation time today! They all were a bit nervous but they did great! Some of them presented absolutely perfectly (great pronunciation, loud clear voice, etc.) and the rest were just a bit quiet, but still did good nonetheless. We finished quite early and had 5 minutes spare so we read through the picture book “Who stole the cookies?” once. They surprisingly really loved it – listened very quietly and attentively, and at the end they were all saying how it was so interesting and a fun story. They kept wanting to look at the book even after class had ended, so I told them to look forward to next week’s lesson! They were all like YAAAAY haha. They’re just too cute and innocent really.

Next up was 1st grade, and man it was one wild lesson after the other (had 1st graders from period 2 to 4). We were doing the “My Town” unit that the 2nd graders just finished up on. Today was on “Left” and “Right” and they learnt it well enough, but there were many tears today because of the games. 1-1 had the most criers (4 kids ended up crying cause they lost in the games) followed by 1-2 (3 kids) followed by 1-3 (2 kids). The homeroom teachers completely ignored them and let them cry though, and they told me it’s normal and don’t worry about it. The 1-3 teacher laughed when I told her her class had the least amount of criers. I felt a teeny bit bad because their faces would just crumple down and break down into tears when they lost, but at the same time it’s cute too because other kids would run round and be like “Don’t cry” “You did your best” and so on. Things did get a bit heated in 1-1 cause there’s a lot of competitive kids in there so they kept calling each other out and be like “you made a mistake!!!” so yea, a teeny bit messy today. They really liked the games though (we played a total of 3 games) so that was good. They also loved the “Left and Right” song and participated with a lot of energy. So much energy though, I was drained by the end of the 3rd class, I was so ready for lunch.

Lunch today was something we had before – the fried bread, tuna salad, and wonton soup combination. Although I love this combination, I wish it was rice because I was really starving from having spent so much energy in the 1st grade classes. Thursday is always bread for carbs though, so it’s to be expected. I should probably bring some extra food/snacks for Thursdays especially! Spent the lunchtime finding the last kids who’d handed in the emoji worksheets and giving them stickers. Cleaning time today was a bit noisier than usual, as the kids were a bit restless. At the very least they still get the job done, so it’s not too bad.

Last two periods with 4th grade and 6th grade. 4-2 was the best today!!! Did their little presentations SO well – loud clear voices, and great pronunciation from every single student. They also did the question part of the presentation really loudly and clearly, and listened to the picture book very well. We had more time left over than 4-1, so we did some reading as well. They loved the “Aha!” that is used a lot in “Who stole the cookies?” and asked me what that meant. Every time we got to the page that has it they would laugh and say “AHA!” really loudly and happily. Last period with 6th grade was pretty good too. Again since it’s 6th period, it was a little louder and lax than usual, but we still got through the lesson. They even did the reading part of “Brown Bear” really well, reading loudly and clearly. We then did some grammar/vocab with sports – “playing” a sport, VS “watching” a sport (on TV for example). They did the related game fairly well too, but a lot of them forgot how to say “watch” and had to keep asking me. We got two pairs of students to demonstrate at the end, and they did pretty nice. Their homeroom teacher was away on a business trip so my JTE and I stayed to watch over the kids going home. It was pretty interesting to see how they do it here – basically the kids in charge for the day do the farewell greeting, and then they can go home. The kids in charge also have to write a daily report thingy, with reflections, the lesson times, the weather, and so on. My JTE was asking me what kind of “going home processes/meetings” NZ has, and I tried to remember, but I feel like all we had was just a normal goodbye at the end of the day.

Got off work at 16:10, went to Daiso to buy some stuff, and then went to the bank and the drugstore to get some stuff. Bought some snacks at the drugstore because I remember having this crunchy choco snack thing from one of the teachers at school, and it was really nice so I wanted to find it again! Had kimchi udon for dinner at home and did some laundry too.