Tuesday

Woke up at 7:15am, rice for breakfast, and then drove to school. Today was still a very relaxed day with only 4 lessons. First up was 6-2 in period 1 and we just did play practice. I checked each group’s progress by taking them to the empty maths classroom just down the corridor, and listened to them read their lines there. I also checked what character each kid was playing, so that I could prep their character masks for them. The play feels a little long, so I think we’ll probably take out repetitive and unnecessary lines. But it’s probably also because the kids are just slower when reading English, which is why it feels like It drags on and on. It was good though, there’s a Disney themed Momotaro story, a Doraemon themed Momotaro story, and some other interesting characters thrown in there (vampire, giant, witch and wizard, etc.). The kids are actually practicing properly, so that’s really nice to see. My JTE and I were a bit worried the 6th graders wouldn't do the play enthusiastically since they’re at that age, but they’re doing fine and showing a lot more enthusiasm than I expected from them! Same with 6-1, the kids are practicing with a lot more seriousness than I expected from them. I love it though. This class has a minion themed story, some very different animals from the original (throw in a hedgehog, dove, tiger, and so on!) and all kinds of fruit people (lemon girl, orange girl, grape boy, to deviate from the original peach boy). It was also really heartwarming because 6-1 is usually quiet in English class (when compared to 6-2) and the girls of 6-1 are super quiet, but in play practice everyone was reading out their lines and being super proactive and participative, and it was just great to hear everyone’s voices! Can’t wait to see the final plays. I’m thinking of filming each group and editing to make a mini movie, because that way it’ll be easier to show the 1st graders rather than having each group present their play live. We’ll see how it goes.

3-3 in period 3 and the kids drew their own flags, and I was able to do the “drawing each others’ flags based on clues” game with them that I wasn’t able to do with the other 3rd grade classes. They did this pretty well and successfully learnt “What do you want?” but just still a little shakey with the answer “I want (colour/shape)” but it was still pretty good for a squeezed in class – 3-3 is one lesson behind the others so I had to squeeze the 2nd and 3rd hour together. It was also nice because the usually hyper kids sat down this whole lesson working quietly on their flags. They were using their rulers to the extreme to draw as many shapes as they possibly could fit in their flag! Spent the spare period 4 starting the prep for the 6th graders’ masks for their plays, and cutting out carrots. Had lunch with the special needs class again, and today was also a lot of fun because one kid was asking us riddles. I suck at riddles even when they’re in English, so it was a lot of fun for the kids to explain the Japanese riddles to me. Today’s lunch was sooooo good – it was the normal soup and salad, but the main was a cream bun! The cream was super delicious and they even put a little chocolate star in the middle. I wish I could have had second helpings but everyone just gets the one bread bun.

Spent the lunchtime outside again playing with the kids. Winter weather in Japan is always super sunny, it’s so nice! Just a bit cold. Played jump rope with some 1st graders today. Cleaning time today was great, the usually rowdy girl was very well behaved today so that made everything easier. She’s been on a pretty good streak recently. Spare 5th period, so I kept cutting carrots. 5-2 in period 6 and we finally started the lower case letters unit with them. It’s a bit hard to keep track of since 5-1 is so ahead of 5-2 because of all their extra lesson hours, but my JTE is super organized and always gives me up to date schedules with the lesson that should be done on that day on there too. We did the writing worksheets, and I played some Christmas music in the background as they did their work, which a lot of them seemed to like (nodding their heads, tapping their feet as they worked) and they did their work very quietly so that was great. Everyone finished their sheets pretty fast so we had time to play a game at the end. We did the “writing on backs” relay where the last kid would write a letter on the person’s back in front of them, until it reached the row’s first person and they would write it on the board. They all did better than I thought they would and each team wrote the correct letter on the blackboard. After the lesson finished, I talked about the mini movie idea for the 6th graders with my JTE and she said OK to it! It turns out last year they did a rotation method with presenting the plays, so it was like each group presents to one group of 1st graders, and then moves to the next group, and so on. That way everyone got to present within the hour, and even though the 1st graders didn’t see every single groups’ play, they got to see a few. This was a great idea too that I hadn’t thought of, but I managed to win her over with the film idea in the end because with a movie, we could easily show the plays to all grades, and it’s also easier on the kids since they won’t have to memorise every single line. It’s also more cause I think the kids would perform better in front of the camera with a few takes, than a one off performance in front of a live audience. And also since there’s Doraemon and Star Wars appearing in these plays, I could do a lot with editing and adding in the theme music and making it really cool, so I think it’d be more memorable for the 6th graders. Glad she approved of it, and I just hope the other teachers like it too and don’t mind me changing the usual play presentation tradition!

Got off work at 16:30 and drove home. Had rice and tofu + egg + onion thing for dinner and then went for the last badminton meet of 2017 for the Tuesday badminton club!