Go Fish - Monday Nov. 5, 2007

Well, I didn't have an incredible start to the day. The children, oh my goodness, the children were crazy today! The first class came in and started running around the classroom, sliding on the carpets, jumping on the stage, playing with the VERY expensive interactive white board, and doing whatever possible to ignore what I was saying to calm them down. SO, I yelled! I was a very unhappy teacher, and I definitely let them know. This class has not been good the past few weeks, and I'm not going to put up with it anymore. It is so difficult to be a teacher who reasons with her students, when we don't speak the same language. Their teacher hasn't been much help, so I do what I can. They're scared when I yell, because they don't expect it from me. I am incredibly nice with them, but I'm super sick of them not listening. After that, they listened the rest of class!^^ I’m playing “I Spy…” with my first graders this week. They seem to enjoy it.

My host mom picked me up from school after I frantically made 20 small books for the children at the orphanage. *I almost just wrote “…for the orphans.” That has a different impact on my senses when I think of them as orphans rather than children at an orphanage.*

There were 19 children this week instead of the 17 last week. Two older boys joined this week. I talked to them about the date; they didn’t really understand much of what I was talking about, and because there are 19 of them in a small space, it was difficult for all of them to see what I was showing them. I like working on the floor alongside the children rather than working above them, so I need to figure out how that’s going to work out. I’m not in a room; I am in the living room of the boys “dorm.”

After talking about the date, we colored “Aa” papers. I had them write the letters in the air with their fingers and then cut out one of the “A” pictures. On the front cover of their books, I had them write “ABC Book.” On the back cover, they wrote their names. They wrote “Aa” and glued the “A” picture on the first page of their books. They did a really good job, especially for their being a range of 5-10 year olds in the group.

Before leaving, I took pictures of all of the children and had the “mom/caretaker” write down the corresponding names; I want to try to memorize names, and I want to glue their pictures inside the front cover.

I love the kids! They’re so cute! I’ve only been twice, and I feel like I want to start spending more time there than just the hour and ½ a week. I don’t know how it would work with my schedule or their schedule, so I’m just going to continue with the hour and ½ for now.

I talked with my host mom for a while when I got home; we talked about the orphanage, a little bit about North Korea and South Korea, and some other politics. She doesn’t like politics; she told me that she thinks it’s dirty. Her definition of dirty politics is quite similar to our definition.

I spent a lot of time with my host sis tonight. We played card games; I taught her how to play “War” and “Go Fish.” She fell in love with “Go Fish,” so we played about 5 times. I made a deal with her that I would take a shower while she did her homework, and then we would play again afterward. So we did! We played 2 more times and played Gongi. (I’m not sure of the spelling. It is the Korean form of Jacks.)