Halloween at SLP 2012

We're almost halfway through March, and I haven't published anything all month!  And when I was thinking of what to write, I realized there's still plenty I haven't covered from my time in Korea!  The first thing to show you is how adorable Elegance Class was on Halloween last year!

There are no half-assed costumes here in Gangnam SLP.  Go big, or go home.

We took a short field trip to COEX mall where the mothers were waiting to give their darlings treats.

These kids left with their bags heavy with candy, cookies, and toys.  Some of the buckets were overflowing.  I was impressed by the mom's enthusiasm, but also a little weirded out.  I don't think they realize it, but my children are spoiled.

Ruby complained about the weight of her candy bag.

First World Problems

We switched ears.

Don't even try to get all of them to smile at once.

Everyone's pretty tired after our field trips, no thanks to the sugar comas they got.

 Halloween isn't a traditional Korean holiday.  We celebrate it at my school to give the students more exposure to Western culture.  The kids enjoy the celebration and love the candy they get.  When I ask them if they'll go trick or treating later, they say no.  I've never had Halloween as a big holiday in my life, but I'm glad my students got to have fun with it.  And they all looked so cute in their costumes!

One more thing Ruby said

Leftover story!

I never got around to telling it, but it needs to be told.

One day during our morning greeting/homework checking/hugging time at school, Ruby starting looking at my Caucasian face more closely than usual.  Noticing this, I turned to look back at her and cocked my head to ask what she was looking at.  Instead of speaking, she reached up and ran her finger along the bridge of my nose.  She then ran her finger along the bridge of her own nose.

Ruby's adorable nose starts to come away from her face near the end, so she has a flatter area until under her eyes.  My nose has a long straight line coming down from the center of my eyes to the tip.  Maybe this was the first time Ruby had noticed the difference, but I didn't know for sure because she still wasn't saying anything.  That's when I decided to speak up about the richness we can see in the wide spectrum of the human races.

I said, "Our noses are different.  We look different, don't we?"
Ruby agreed.
I continued with what I knew would be the clincher.  A nice, happy everyone-is-beautiful moment.  "But we're both beautiful, right?"
She looked me square in the eyes, squinted with just enough suspicion to make me feel stupid, and then she left.  She just left me there!

Ruby didn't actually say anything in this story.  She just pointed out the differences in our noses and walked away.  All of those opportunities to say, "Yes, Teacher, I am pretty and you are pretty," were just left hanging in the air.  It was a funny moment for me, and I laughed.

We are both beautiful, Ruby.  We ARE!

A picture of our noses together, for comparisonSee how they're both beautiful?

: )

Elegance Class Goes on a Field Trip: Science Museum

On my last day of work, the preschool classes had a field trip!  Also, my co-teacher, Bridget, was assigned to a different class for the day.  This meant that I had my lovelies all to myself for our last hours together.

They were absolutely wonderful.  I'd never seen them so alive and excited to roam around.  They constantly said, "What's that?"  I said, "I don't know!" and they would pull my hand and run toward the mystery.  I love learning myself, and I am so eager to instill that in my kiddos, too, so I was on cloud nine.  I was with my favorite children in the world, they were happy, we were learning, and everything was perfect.

Here are some pictures.

Waiting outside

Exploring

The girls were taken with the astronaut.

Typical

Min-Sun in the astronaut helmet

Not always the most put together group, but definitely my favorites.

Ryan was taking these pictures for us.  The kids loved getting to use my camera.  They also love putting their scarves on my head.

Yoo-Jin was especially darling today.

Judy was absent this day, but these are my kiddos and I.  Ah, I will never see them again, but I will love them for always. For always.  If I say more, I'll be rambling, but know that I could go on forever about these wonderful children.  

SLP Gym Day

Every year my school, Gangnam SLP, will hold a family gym day down by the Han River.  It's on a Sunday, and the teachers have to get to school early to take the bus to the River, but we get to hang out with our kids without having to teach and correct their English.  That's super nice, especially since my favorite part of teaching is getting to play with the students.

Gearing up for the start of the day

Morning stretches

A resistance race of sorts

On the sidelines

Three legged race

Parent/Child race

Family shot

Two more little Min-Suns!

Elegance walks to the starting line

Foot race

White Team forever

What Ruby Found

Maybe I've told you about how my preschool students will sometimes be the best people in the world and ask, "Teacher, can I play with your hair?"  I love it when they do that, however it is not my favorite thing when Ruby will catch my attention to say, "Teacher.  White hair."

I let them pull out the ones they find in the back, but I tell them I want to keep the ones that are congregating around my right temple.  They don't know who the X-man, Rogue, is, but I tell them that if I keep those white hairs growing in that area, I'll look awesome.  Er.  AwesomER.

I don't think they believe me.

More Of What The Kiddos Say

I've collected a few more cute and funny things that my students have said. I've started keeping a notebook with me in the classroom so I don't miss these gems.

The first story requires a little info about Korean theme parks.  At these Korean theme parks, the staff, whenever they see you, are supposed to shake their hands like this or as if they are unscrewing light bulbs.  The one time I went to one of these parks, Everland, my friends and I decided it would be hilarious to do the hand dance, too.  Whenever someone would shake their hands at us, we made it a requirement that we had to reciprocate.  Months later, I was wondering what my students thought about this hand dancing.

"Why do the people at Everland shake their hands?" I asked.

Annie told me, very matter-of-factly, "They are dancing to give fun."

The way she put it had me reaching for my Student Quote Book.

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At another time, "What is God?" came up in the conversation.  God is a tricky thing to explain, regardless of whether you're speaking to native or ESL speakers, but I gave it a shot.

"Who makes people one?" I said.  Seriously, that's what I said.  I was speaking to Elegance Class, my preschoolers, and I was doing a terrible job with my words.

I tried again: "Who made the first people?"

Yes, that's what I had been trying to say.  I swear, my English has taken quite a blow from working here among Korean children every day.

Well, even though I had children from different upbringings, they all caught on.  I explained the word we were looking for: God.

Their response? "God is very up the sky."

Priceless.

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Sometimes I like to trick my kids when they're not paying good attention.  Ryan of Elegance Class was not listening to the given question, so I threw him a curve ball.

"What is the velocity of an English sparrow?"

It took him many repetitions of the question to realize I was talking about something completely different than the previous topic.  When he finally gathered that I was looking for an answer with a number, he shouted, "Two!"

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Again in my preschool class, we do these "Daily Language Activities" in which the students have to find a sentence's mistakes and correct them.  I've been highly impressed with how Elegance Class has caught on to so many of the grammar and punctuation rules in the English language.  I beam with pride when they point out things that we've never studied in class before.  They do, however, still need help with some things.

This picture above shows you one of the sentences from today's Daily Language Activity.  The kids quickly caught the lower case "n" in "nan," and they even recognized that "pacific" and "ocean" needed to be capitalized because it's the name of a place.  They just didn't know how to say that one word, "Pacific."

The first brave child to stretch out her hand for a try said, "Mm... the 'P' needs to be capital in... nn... 'Paxicle.'"

This is the same adorable kid that said "Tyranopops" instead of "Triceratops" during our dinosaur lesson.  If you're the praying type, feel free to pray that these kids' confidence and self esteem aren't too damaged by their teacher who laughs at them sometimes.

Chuseok 2012

Down below you can see my lovely preschool students in Elegance Class!  Chuseok (추석) was two weekends ago, and they got to dress up in their beautiful hanboks (한복) at school.  They were absolutely darling.

Chuseok is likened to America's Thanksgiving, but I don't think they're that similar.  Here are the similarities:

#1 - Families get together and eat a lot of food.

Now that that's over, here are the things that are different about Chuseok:

#1 - Chuseok is steeped in tradition that goes back long before America was born (no offense intended).
#2 - Koreans take this time not only to be with their families but to remember and pray to/for their ancestors, depending on whether the family is Buddhist or Catholic/Christian.

#3 - Keeping with the respect for ancestors, children also perform deep ceremonial bows to their adult relatives.

#4 - Children will also wear their colorful traditional hanboks (which you can see pictures of below), though adults won't.

#5 - One of the traditional foods made on Chuseok is songpyeon (송편).  It is a small, soft rice cake stuffed with a honey and sesame seed mixture.  I don't care for it much, but the kids here gobble it up.

#6 - The date of Chuseok changes every year because it follows the moon's cycle.  The holiday lands on the 8th full moon of the lunar calendar.

#7 - The kids play traditional games like tuho (투호), which involves throwing batons into buckets and ssireum (씨름), a kind of wrestling.  There are others explained here!

Of course there are more special things, but I just realized that I have pictures to show you!

Judy of Elegance Class showcases some strange hat I've never seen before, but she sure is cute.

Todd Teacher with members of Beloved Class.

Abigail of Lion Class looked like an adorable Korean doll.

Safety first.

Happy Chuseok from Elegance!

Elegance Class Studies Dinosaurs

Try getting 6-year-old Korean English students to say "pteranodon" and "appatosauroas," and it's almost as awesome as seeing the dinosaurs they create themselves.

Minsea Dinosaur by Min-Sun
(Min-Sun is our most recent addition to Elegance Class.  She will tell you at every chance about how she used to live in San Diego.  She will tell you this in an almost flawless American accent.)

Fly Dinosaur by Judy

Rxax Suros by Ruby

Ryannosaurus by Sein
It likes to play with Ryan.  :)

May Dinosaur by Yoo-Jin

Sophia was absent this day, but she invented the Lindsay Dinosaur.

The very similar Lindsay Teach Dinosaur by Ryan

I think my kids love me.  :)

Elegance Class Goes on a Field Trip: The Swimming Pool

I'm going to be a fantastic grandma.  I'm already all too eager to show off my amazing kids, and they're not even really mine.

Here are pictures from our August field trip to the pool!

Elegance Class
Sophia there on the far left wasn't excited about the cold water.  Next to her, Ruby was giving her classic punk attitude.  The next two, Min-Sun and Judy, are always camera ready and love getting their picture taken.  Lastly, Sein and Ryan are just great.  (Yoo-Jin didn't come this day.)

Too, too, too cute.

Oh, the chaos!

Judy found a water gun.

Judy spread mayhem with said water gun.  Min-Sun's face is priceless.

There was no mercy.

Teachers turning against teachers and rallying the young ones to their side.

The angel of doom.

War-worn face

Just kidding!   The kids had an absolute blast and tried to splash me at every chance!

Jumping splash action.  These kids are talented.  :)