Christmas Monday at school

Merry Christmas! Doesn't feel like Christmas at all. Woke up at 7:15am, had rice for breakfast and then drove to school. I wore a Santa hat to school today and it was cute cause all the kids were like “Hey it’s Santa!” or “Hi Jaime Santa!” and even the other teachers smiled. Need to bring in more festive cheer! Handed out the Christmas bark and everyone loved them. There was a closing ceremony in the morning but I didn’t have to go. Good thing I didn’t have to go too because I wasn’t wearing a suit or anything, and realised way too late until I saw all the other teachers wearing suits woops! Only had three lessons today, all with 3rd grade. Spent the first period drawing up more masks for the 6th graders. 3-2 in period 2 and they were being super noisy and rowdy at the beginning that their homeroom teacher had to fully yell out them to settle down. Was glad she did so though, can’t let kids push you around! We did the exact same Christmas lesson as 2nd grade (Olaf game, and then making Christmas cards) but since 3rd grade has more kids in each class, the game took a little longer and we didn’t manage to finish the Christmas cards.

3-3 in period 3 and they were pretty funny today because for the Christmas cards, a few kids were being like “I’m going to give it to (classmate’s name)” and their teacher was laughing because she found it so cute. They were colouring in their cards and were like “Can I give it to him now?” and exchanging cards right after. Adorable. 3-1 in period 4 and it’s always such a relief to have them after going through 3-2 and 3-3 because they’re a lot quieter and so much more settled down. A few more kids were able to finish their Christmas cards in this period cause 3-1’s kids are pretty fast workers. Lunch today was a Christmas special! Butter rice with chicken, chocolate cake (or strawberry! We could choose and had ordered them previously) and salad. We had a lot of good food in December for school lunch. I ate in the staffroom today since it was just one day of the week (kids would be on break from tomorrow). Some of the teachers knew I had been snowboarding on Saturday so they asked me about that, and introduced a lot of other good ski fields. Spent the lunchtime inside since I had a bit of work to do before going on holiday, making sure everything is in order and stuff like that. I’ve taken annual leave for a few days, so I won’t be back in school until it officially starts again (with students coming in) on January 9th next year! Spent period 5 and 6 drawing up more masks, before going home at 16:00. Headed out again at 17:00 to have dinner at the Thai place with some other ALTs, and then went for some Christmas karaoke! Went home early around 21:00 since we still had an office day to attend tomorrow.