Wednesday

Woke up a bit late at 7:15am today, rice and soup for breakfast, then cycled to school. A standard day today of 4 classes. First up was 2-3 in 1st period – the lesson went very well! They successfully learnt how to ask “What’s this?” and answer using “It’s a _____” and confirm with “Yes, it’s a ______”. Managed to remember to give everyone a go at answering, something that I forgot to do last week and resulted in a few sulky kids! 2nd period was with 1-2 and the class was noisy, but it went pretty smooth too. One of my favourite kids was throwing a tantrum when I arrived in the classroom (I have no idea what about) but it was too cute – I haven’t seen a tantrum like that in a long time, where they actually stamp their feet in frustration. The 1st graders were surprisingly very good at remembering the place names – they even remembered shrine, which the 2nd graders weren’t able to remember well! We played Town Basket (Fruits Basket but just changed the name) and it was wild – they were all just running around and walking around instead of finding the seat as quickly as possible, but at least they asked “Where?” nice and loudly, and could remember their own places.

3rd period was with 2-1, and they were a bit noisier and restless than 2-3, so we didn't get to play the game for long, only 5 minutes, which meant everyone only got one turn each. At least they remembered all the vocab and questions/how to answer. 4th period was with 6-2 again, and I was really happy with today’s lesson. I had prepared a harder worksheet for them, since quite a good number of them are finishing the worksheets insanely fast. What I was really happy with though, was that the kids who aren’t that good at English/not as confident were still trying really hard too, and they were actually doing it right! They’d be like “I don't understand, I don't understand” but when I walked over to them they’d have the sentence correctly written out. Very proud of them. English really is hard, but I love how they’re all trying. It was also a really nice change of pace – going from teaching 1st and 2nd grade to a 6th grade class is almost like having a break!

Lunch with 2-3 again today, and we had seaweed rice, a small fish that you could eat whole (head and tail too! Plus the bones are barely noticeable so you can actually just eat the whole thing), egg and tofu soup, and this bowl of stewed (?) vegetables (carrots, konnyaku, potato, and I think quail eggs?). There were quite a few kids who didn't like fish, so they were all holding their nose as they were chewing the fish! Spent the lunchtime in the staffroom today cause I was really tired. I think its cause this morning I woke up in the middle of a dream. Cleaning time was again super smooth, and they had requested the smiley stickers yesterday, so I rewarded them with those. I had period 5 and 6 free so finally finished my Halloween English board prep and put it all up! Got off work on time at 16:00, had dumplings when I got home, and went to badminton at 19:00.