Friday

Woke up at 7:15am, had croissants and a caramel latte for breakfast, threw out the trash, then drove to school. There was a staff meeting this morning since the farewell assembly yesterday took the usual meeting spot. The meeting was a bit longer than usual because there’ve been a lot of injuries at school lately, so they were just reminding the teachers to remind the kids to not run in corridors and walk on the right side of the stairs and stuff like that. First up today was 6-1 in period 2 and we started on our final unit, making our own picture books. I first read “Dear Zoo” to them, and then we went over the vocab (animals) and meanings (of the adjectives). Then we checked their alphabet writing again – since my JTE comes from a junior high school background, she wants to prepare the 6th graders as best she can. But it’s also probably cause her previous school/workplace was a junior high school near our elementary school, so a lot of our 6th graders will go to that one and she wants to leave a good impression on her ex-colleagues who’ll be receiving our 6th graders. She even made little certificates saying “Congratulations! You can write the alphabet perfectly!” which I thought was pretty adorable. Most of the kids can write well enough, but they just sometimes get lazy, and then there are still some kids who write b, p, j, p, and q the wrong way, and write downsized capital letters for lowercase letters. After they “passed” the alphabet test they got started on the drafts for their picture books.

Lunch today was special, because it’s ひな祭り (Girl’s Day/Doll Festival) so it was sushi rice with seaweed to wrap it with, soup, salad, and a pack of rice cracker puffs which are a usual ひな祭り snack. Cleaning time was pretty fun again today, although I had to work to keep the kids from speed skating or playing baseball or curling with their brooms and cloths. We did the reflection meeting today in English too, and they were still just as enthusiastic. I think the 2nd graders really like speaking English, even if they have no idea what they’re saying! 5-1 in period 5 and we did a rehearsal of what the actual day of presentation will be like, with the rotation system and all. It was alright, just a bit too noisy (as usual, no surprises there) and they got through the rotation system alright, and were able to keep in time with the beat together. Some kids are still super quiet whilst some kids are super loud, so presentation day is definitely going to be a bit wild. I taught them how to play Simon Says for the last 5 minutes and to my surprise they all liked it and were really fascinated by it! It’s definitely going to be fun playing this massive game of Simon Says with the 2nd graders and 5th graders – since the 5th graders just started playing it, they haven’t got the hang of it just yet, but the 2nd graders are practically masters of it, so the dynamics are going to be interesting to see! Got off work at 16:00 and went to the sports clinic for another wrist checkup, and it looks like the fracture is all healed! The doctor said I can go snowboarding from the 21st, so I just have to wait 19 more days!!!!! Just over 2 weeks. My wrist area has gotten really itchy because of wearing the brace all the time, so the doctor put some itchy ointment on, and then said to leave the brace off till the rash goes away. I can definitely put strength in my wrist now and use it for a lot more things, but I still can’t twist it fully and it definitely still feels very fragile and weak. But now I have a set date I can look forward to for snowboarding! Headed back home to pick up dad, then we went out for dinner with a bunch of ALT friends at a Vietnamese restaurant.