Safari Animals and Ball Pits

Hello from sunny (I know! sunny!) Korea. Spring has finally sprung and I no longer have to spend the first hour of my day trying to get feeling back into my fingers and toes! Thank goodness, because frankly that was just time consuming. Now my walk to work is less of a hunched over half-sprint and more of a cheerful prance.

Not too many updates from this past week. I was introduced to a younger Korean lady through a coworker who wants to do a language exchange, which is right up my ally. So Thursday she and I met at a cafe after work and we discussed what our goals were for our exchange. Her English is excellent. She is looking to just continue her speaking and listening skills with native speakers. I therefore gave an open invitation to join my coworkers and I on any excursions we go on so she can practice with us. My goal is to be able to hold a conversation in Korean. I want to be able to automatically understand what people ask me instead of getting flustered and taking a long time to answer even though I know how to. I have a textbook that Shanna provided me that I brought to the meeting on Thursday. It goes through a lot of vocabulary and situations that are useful, and some that aren't so useful. My new friend gave me homework to memorize 10 words a day until we meet again next week...so 70 new words, here I come! I think with this, along with Rosetta Stone and other websites I have found, I hope to really improve my Korean these next few months!

Friday we had a field trip with our kindergarteners. We took them to Woongjin Playroom which is right down the street from my apartment. We had previously come here for the tubing field trip in winter time. When we entered the play area we were greeted with a safari themed kid heaven. Stuffed animals of all shapes and sizes were placed around the entire play center. The center itself was broken up into different areas. Firstly was a track where students could ride motorcycles (tri-motorcycles?). These bikes went maybe 0.5 miles per hour but the students loved it going around in circles waving each time they passed us at the beginning again.

After the thrilling motorcycle ride, my girls ran to the next area which was a squishy and colorful jungle-gym. Similar to the ones that some McDonalds have? This playground however does not come with super-nutritious-mystery-meat unfortunately. Our group from Little America took over the play area for the most part. There was one other school group there with us, but overall our students had the place to themselves. After jumping on a trampoline about two and a half times, we had another mad dash towards the next entertaining activity. This came in the form of a pool of water about ankle deep with little boats that the students could float around in while an employee wearing rainboot-overalls monitored situation.

Commence giggle-running towards next activity. This room was my favorite. Baskets filled with foam food items lined the wall so the students could pretend to go grocery shopping and then take the items "home" to a kitchen play area to serve the food. One of my students, Jenna, and I have a very similar problem. Well, maybe problem isn't the right word, but anyways we both found it incredibly irritating that the baskets of food items were all mixed up. She and I therefore took it upon ourselves to organize the baskets of food. We decided on what baskets would hold carrots, apples, bananas, eggplant, etc. even making a miscellaneous basket for those foam foods that had been handled to the point of destruction and we couldn't figure out what they were exactly. Am I ashamed of this OCD behavior? No. I'm not. Granted 10 minutes after we leave the play area I'm sure there will be a fruit and veggie massacre and all of our hard work will go out the window, but if felt great knowing that, if only for a moment, all was in order in the grocery shopping room. Good work, Jenna.

Other rooms in this place included a princess dress-up room (you know where my girls wanted to go), a music room, blocks room, a sand pit area, trampolines, and a chance to fish for brightly colored, magnetic sea animals.

Oh no!

Our kindergarteners

 After the usual crazy photo shoot period it was time to get back to Little America to have our kindergarten market day where they are given some fake money to buy school supplies, toys, and candies. Many of them do not get the concept of money just yet. Several complained that they only got one dollar ($5 bill) while their friends got two (a $2 and a $3). Explaining the mathematics behind this was not happening, so once everyone was satisfied with their combination of $5 they began their shopping excursion. They had to practice the phrase "How much is it?" and then pay the appropriate price. Most students did a great job at asking how much each item was (everything in my room was $2 so I did a lot of repetition with them...). One student stood at the table and quietly pointed to things looking down at the floor. He just couldn't remember the question he needed to ask me and each time I reminded him he would ask and then forget again a few minutes later. He'll get it one day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Market day ended with a flurry of face painting, rushing to draw bunnies, dolphins, and soccer balls before the students needed to get on the bus and head home. Overall a very busy, but enjoyable day as field trip days usually are! Though when elementary classes started I kind of felt like this...

A fun weekend spent celebrating Cinco De Mayo at Cheap Shots in Bupyeong, spending time with new friends in Hongdae, meeting up with old friends who have moved to Daegu recently, and now very very sleepy. That's all for this quick update!

xoxoxo

Korean phrase of the post:
하이쿠를 쓰고 있습니다 (ha-i-ku-reul seuh-ko i-seum-ni-da) "I'm writing a haiku"