This morning I’ve been trying to get rid of unneeded files on my computer and I stumbled across this video I took in one of my 6th grade classes last year. The students were playing a game and it ended a few minutes early so one of the boys in my class decided to act out scenes from the Power Rangers movie. I had no idea what was going on, but it looked funny so I decided to record it.
I did the Flat Stanley project with my 6th grade after school class. It’s based on a book a about a boy that was flattened by a bulletin board and was then mailed all over the world. I did this project when I was in 4th grade and I finally had an opportunity to do this project with my students.
The kids sent their letters to Australia, England, Ireland and the USA. Last Friday the girls got their letters from London, England and Perth, Australia.
The packages were all so great and the kids loved getting mail from other countries.
Elementary school students all across Korea are taking final exams today. Test days like this are nice because I don’t have any classes. I do have to grade tests. Usually it’s a chore, but I enjoyed it today because the students seemed to do really well.
There’s a lot of pressure for students in Korea to do well in school. I know we took tests back home, but we never had “midterms” or “final exams” until middle school. They start in 3rd grade here. Most of my students seem okay, but the stress does take its toll on some students. This morning a 10 year old girl in another province committed suicide. You can read more about it here. The suicide rate is quite high here. It’s a shame that children so young feel that much pressure.
The top photo is my school’s playground On Thursday morning and the bottom photo was taken after school on the same day.
I asked two 5th grade boys what they were doing and they told me the Korean word for construction. I waited until I saw one of the high level 4th grade girls. She told me that they are making the playground “more bigger.”
For now, they have blocked off the construction area so I guess I won’t be able to see until its all finished.
I’m trying to catch up the blog so here’s a post from way back when.
I introduced Halloween to my students on Friday’s English Broadcast. I also invited them all to go Trick-or-Treating in the English classroom after lunch. The Trick-or-Treating turned out to be chaotic. I was passing out candy and JuHye was painting faces… and the other two English teachers never came. Actually, my head co-teacher did show up about 5-10 minutes before it was supposed to end. That was quite helpful because she was able to regain order. The kids go crazy for candy! They also really loved the Halloween goodies that Mary sent me. I had students begging for spider rings and bats. One boy kept begging me for a dragon and I had no idea what he was talking about. Apparently he thought the bats were dragons and he was not happy with me that he didn’t get one.
Thank you, Mary, for all of the wonderful Halloween goodies you sent for me and my students!
After school I whipped up a delicious meal for Shanna and Jamie, the girls in my neighborhood. Thanks to care packages from home, Costco and Mega Mart, we had fajitas, tortillas, REAL cheese, salsa rice, Pace Picante Sauce and Dr. Pepper! It was so so good and tasted like home. I always loved to cook for other people and now I plan to do it at least monthly.
I had to judge an English speech contest at my school today. The students all turned in scripts and I was able to read them over yesterday. This was my favorite speech. I thought it was clever and cute.
There were a lot of really impressive scripts, but it turns out that a lot of them didn’t live up to the writing. It was probably a mixture of nerves and the fact that the speeches were either written by or heavily revised by someone with a much higher English level.
I was really impressed by one 4th grader in particular. Yesterday when I read the scripts, I didn’t think much of hers. It was really simple. She wrote about I can/can’t.
She nailed it! She exuded confidence and memorized her speech perfectly. The great thing about it was that she probably wrote the entire thing herself. It was simple, but it was on her level and she did a fantastic job.
She won… the 3rd/4th grade competition. And both of the other top 3 had lived in the States for 6 months.
My dear friend Joni sent me a Cinco de Mayo themed birthday care package that included margarita glasses and mix, small tiki torches, sombrero headbands, mustaches… I could go on and on. She also sent me a sombrero piñata.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the piñata. I thought about using it at my birthday party, but I figured that would just lead to Dave’s apartment being destroyed. One of my after school students’ birthdays was on Thursday so I told them early in the year we could have this Friday’s class be a party. It was the perfect time to use the piñata. We also did the Limbo (which they already knew) and played Pin the Tail on the Donkey. They loved it all. It was so much fun!
Most of the students at my school have started carrying these around with them. I was curious about them so I asked my after school class kids. They explained that if someone tries to take them, they can push the button and it alerts their moms or the police or something like that. I guess it’s basically like a panic button. Pretty interesting.
Don’t let these 1st graders fool you. They may be cute, but they are a handful!
Tuesday was weird. I was greeted by several students as I left school (which is very normal), but this 5th grade girl stopped me to ask if I liked animals. When I said yes, she pulled a hamster out of her pocket (his name is Looney). I talked to her for a bit and then continued on my way.
I got a little farther from school and then noticed that this girl and her friend were following me. I had heard that students may try to follow you home, but for the past 15 months this has never been a problem for me.
As we crossed the street together, the girl said, “I’m your stalker.” I replied, “Yes, you are.” the girls had pretty good English so I didn’t mind the company. I was going by Domino’s to get a pizza on the way home so I thought I’d lose them there. I was wrong.
I went in to order my pizza and sat down. I saw that my students were still there… Waiting for me.
I went out to talk to them. While we waited, they put on a “musical” for me. It was really just them dancing, but it was cute.
Finally, my pizza came. When I asked them where they were going, they said “Meagan Teacher’s house.” Uh oh. I explained that they couldn’t come to my house, but they begged and said it would be a secret.
On the walk home I called Shanna and invited myself over. They walked with me all the way there and then told me they needed to come in because they were very thirsty. Then, one of the girls found 1,000 won on the ground (about $1) and gave it to me. I said they could have it to buy a drink because they were so thirsty. They were so excited and went skipping off arm in arm. Phew!
Life Outside of Texas 