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Friday, March 4, 2011

Oh...What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor?

What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor? What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor Early In The Morning?-Now that I have that song stuck in your head I can tell you about my first day of kindergarten yesterday! 

If my nerves and excitement yesterday was just from me having to show up and teach I don't want to know what all those moms all over the world go through when they send their cute little boys and girls off to kindergarten for the first time.  I was a mess, and I was the teacher and even better there were only 7 kids and I had a Korean Woman that was coming to teach the music class with me. So why was I such a mess?  Well I was worried they wouldn't like me, or that they would cry, or that one of them would break something and I wouldn't know what to do (you know because Korean and American emergencies are so much different, umm for those of you that don't get jokes they are the same in all countries).   I was worried about everything, and I was scared of the kids. I know crazy right?  Looking back now I guess they are like little spiders, they are more scared of me than I am of them.  That saying never really helped me when it came to scary things but yea.   Well, I guess that is not true either, they all seemed more or less happy just looking at me, then smiling and turning away only to turn back around and smile, and one little girl clung to my hand like it was the best thing in the world.  Ok I guess I can stop rambling with my thoughts and try to get the class in order, I mean that is the point after all, yet here I am still rambling.

I got to school a little before my 1:00 class to ask Ryan how his classes had gone (being the kindergarten teaching pro he is after last year he was not worried at all and kept telling me I was crazy for being so worked up...he was right).  The music teacher, a very sweet, and almost over the top cute little girl, came a few minutes after me.  We gathered all 7 of the kids in the gym for an hour of music.  She was very good with the kids and I more or less just acted as another child in the class doing as she did and taking part in everything that went on.  She started by getting everyone in a circle (this is harder than you think it would be) and then we did a cute little song and dance (with a puppet no less).  Well once we said hello to all of our "Friends" it was time to talk about different continents and do a nice little song and dance about where the puppet was going to land, and then when he land have the class tell us where he landed.  After that we did a nice fun coloring sheet (I even got to do one) coloring all the different continents.  We also got to learn about the "moon tambourine" with a cute little song.  We got to tap them with our fingers, then tap them on our hands, then wave them in the air, tap them on our feet, tap them on our butts, and ended the little game of where can you tap it when a little boy went to tap it on his fact and hit himself to hard.  The music teacher then had us all dance as we learned a song with different way to use the tambourine and then we sang our tambourines to sleep and gently (I was shocked at how gently she got the kids to do this) put them to sleep.  We ended the day with a good old dance (do you see a pattern here?  yes I should of stretched before class) as we sang the song "What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor" (an odd song for kindergartners in my mind but hey who am I to judge).   I got to dang with the littler girl who had earlier shown an interest in my hand, we held hands and spun in circles, jumped up and down slapping hands, swung our arms up and down, and went in and out (you know I pull my left hand back you pull your right hand back as you hold hands?). 

Well that was the class.  It was odd, and I felt oddly out of place, but I am looking forward to doing it again next Thursday.

Today I had Show and Tell with Anne teacher and Julie.  The kids really didn't have any time yet to make anything in any of their classes for Show and Tell so they did their show and tell with pictures they drew of their family.  The idea Julie and Kevin and behind this was that the kids would stand in front of the blue wall we have (used as a blue screen) and tell us about their families.  Well the kids are 5,6 and 7 they are still learning Korean so that didn't go quite as planned.  Most of the kids got up there and just waved at the camera, or smiled, or held their paper in front of their face and giggled.  It was rather cute, well unless you were Julie who was trying to get useful video footage, but hey they are little kids.  One boy could not sit still as he waited his turn, he was all over the place here there and then over there before you could even blink, but then when it was his turn he was as still as a rock.  This class was scheduled to be an hour long but with the Show and Tells only taking maybe 10 minutes, followed by another 20 minutes of "Duck, Duck, Goose", which the kids didn't full understand as they ran off chasing the other all around the room, or some of the little girls would just laugh when they got called "Goose" and wouldn't get up and run, we called class and they went back to their rooms with the Korean teachers to do who knows what for the last 30 minutes before it was time for them to head home.

So far I have to say I really like music but could do without the Show and Tell class.  On Monday I get my first whack at P.E. (with a Korean Teacher who comes in with all the P.E. stuff) Music and Art, and Science.  I am a little bit nervous about the science classes but hey what could go wrong? I'll let you know how they turn out.

2 comments:

Chas said...

I like how you related the children to spiders. I'm sure the Kindergartners adore you now! Humm..Yeah I'm sure the drunken sailor song was good for kindergarten. ha ha! Did the Korean lady pick that one ? Maybe you could do the wheels on the bus or Head and Shoulders, Knees and toes ? ;)

Megan said...

Haha I have so many random thoughts that race through my head at record speed, if only I could recall them all when it was time to blog, but yes the spider one stuck with me! They seem to be warming up to me, and more or less just like to stair at me with big huge eyes, and some are drawn to me like little magnets. She picked it, she comes in with a whole lesson of stuff, and different songs and dances picked out. The class seemed to be like half English and half Korean songs, and then some songs were mixed. I think she did Head and Shoulders with them in Korean. I am looking forward to class this week and seeing what she brings for us!