Wednesday

The days are passing so fast! Before I know it, it’s going to be the Winter/New Year break soon. Woke up at 7:00am, rice and pickles for breakfast, and then drove to school. It’s super cold in the mornings nowadays that my steering wheel is freezing to touch! 4 classes to teach again today with 2-2 up first in period 2. We did the Christmas lesson, same thing as 2-3 yesterday. Same as 2-3, they were super fast at guessing the zoomed up Christmas objects, and for the country quiz they were just shouting random as country names out, it was pretty funny. I was better prepared for them today because I’d downloaded some Christmas clips yesterday night for backups (Snoopy and Mr. Bean). I wanted to show them Mr. Bean, but they wanted to watch Snoopy more, so I had that playing in the background for the kids who finished first to watch. Next up was 2-1 in period 3 and they’re still a bit noisy and slow to settle than the other 2 classes. We just made it on time finishing up the Christmas baubles, when the other 2 classes had finished with plenty of time to spare. I didn't mind too much since the class felt busier that way, but it’s just interesting how we always just barely manage to finish the planned activities with 2-1.

5-1 in period 4 and we did a lot of writing activities today. We originally planned to play a game after they finished all the worksheets as a reward, but they were real noisy and rowdy today that only half the class managed to finish all 4 worksheets. So unfortunately we didn’t get to play the game with them. It’s always the same group of kids who are the disrupting bunch though. But on the other hand, two kids who are usually part of that bunch were actually doing their work properly today, and finished all 4 worksheets! That was really nice to see. I wonder if it’s something to do with the seating arrangement, because these 2 kids used to sit at the back of the class, but they moved to the middle-front recently, and have been much better. Lunchtime with 6-2 was a bit more interesting today than the previous days, because they talked to me more ha. Today’s group that I was sitting with me asked me if I knew these Japanese celebrities (I didn’t, sorry kids!) because one kid could do a good impersonation of one of them. They tried to explain/reenact this comedy duo’s gag for me but it didn’t go successfully because they were laughing too hard themselves to perform it. One other interesting conversation started when one girl asked me if I liked my mum or dad better. Interestingly enough the two girls said they both liked their mum better, whilst one boy said he likes his dad more, and the other boy said he likes them the same. The reasons were the same though – the girls liked their mum more because they spend more time with each other whereas their dad hardly plays with them, and the boy likes his dad more because he hardly sees his mum. Very interesting. They were also talking to me about puberty and rebellion as well haha.

Spent the short lunchtime outside playing jump rope with some 4th graders today for a change. They invited me to jump with them (I usually offer to spin the rope) and I totally failed after them and their awesome skills. I should practice so I can keep up with them. Last class of the day with 5-2 in period 5, and we did the summary test (which they did absolutely perfectly! So super quiet and serious, it was great), and then Fruits Basket. Didn’t have as much time as we would’ve liked to play Fruits Basket, but we still got through a few rounds. There was one minor incident where one kid stood on another kid’s toes, so that must’ve hurt a bit, but it’s kinda inevitable to have these kinds of scuffles when playing Fruits Basket. Got off work on time at 16:00 since today was one of those special schedules where everything started 10 minutes earlier. My last class in period 5 ended at 14:10 so I had plenty of time to do everything I needed to do and finished way before 16:00. After work I drove to Hard Off to sort out the broken humidifier. Thankfully they refunded the money with no problems!