Disaster Averted

Okay, so here is just a short little blurb about the past week before I fly off to Boracay tomorrow morning! I'm going to try to make it through this post without mentioning that trip...wish me luck..I'm not making any promises.

Thursday was an infamous Kindergarten field trip. All week long I had "Disaster Experience Center" written on my lesson plan. Sounds like a regular day at school to me!

Just kidding...

Sort of...

We piled into the buses and drove off to the center to experience some disasters! Here students can learn what to do in an emergency situation. For example, how to repel down the side of a building using one of those rope boxes you'll see around Korea (that doesn't look like enough rope to carry you down 9 floors to safety below...but I digress). They also learn what to do in case of an earthquake, how to put out a fire using a fire extinguisher, and walk through a room full of smoke to safety. This trip wasn't really photo-shoot friendly, but I tried to get pictures of my girls hiding with a pillow on their heads under a table and spraying water from a false extinguisher.

putting out fires

One of my least favorite (and my girl's least favorite parts too I think) was the smoke room. A group of students and two teachers were sent into a pitch black hallway (for those who know me, you know that I LOVE the dark...) full of smoke from a smoke machine, to walk through and make it to the other side while covering your mouth. Well, as I lead the group of frightened kindergarteners through this dark smokey passageway I ran into this pipe hanging from the ceiling that obviously I couldn't see and nearly screamed. Thinking that might not help these students feel safe with me there I held it in and pushed forward despite me desire to run through as fast as possible and get the heck out of there. I started to get tense all over. It reminded me of when we played Murder in the Dark as kids and I just sat in a corner up against the wall so I knew nothing could sneak up on me. I really just don't enjoy not knowing what is behind me...or next to me...generally just open, dark spaces aren't my thing.

Anyways, I had Jenna clinging to my arm like a Koala and what I though was a trail of students following behind. As we made it around the last corner I heard an earsplitting cry of "TEACHERRRRRRR!" and I turned to see that no group of shivering students was behind me. I turned around to pick up my lost followers, and pulled them out coughing and sputtering because the smoke was in our mouths and eyes. Needless to say that was one of the most uncomfortable and terrifying experiences I've had in a while. It shows what you can do when you have children counting on you though. I had to put on my brave-no-I'm-not-afraid-of-the-dark face on and push through it for my girls. Made it with only minor emotional scarring...

 Jess repelling like a pro

Earthquake rehearsal

"smile!....or not"

gotta put out the fire

When the students get back and fed its craft time. The Korean teachers were a bit ambitious with an intricate fish bowl craft including lots of small pieces, origami, and gluing. It took longer than expected, therefore the game time that the foreign teachers were to run was cut to about 15 minutes for about 35 kindergarteners to fish out of big blue buckets with cheap little magnetic fishing poles. Embodying my sister, I got into camp councilor mode and the other teachers and I set up a relay race between two teams. I swear our fishing rod was rigged on our team's side. The magnetic poles were off or something, because the darn fish didn't want to hang on. As a result, out team was trounced by the other team...In true camp councilor fashion, Kaitie got the other team to cheer on our team until each child had successfully fished a magnetic sea animal. Once fishing was over, we played a rousing game of Simon Says before sending a wiped out group of kids home to sleep (or maybe it was the teachers who were wiped out...).

"And what exactly do I do with this, Teacher?"

The end  of Thursday meant ONE MORE WORK DAY before the....Ah sorry I promised didn't I. Nevermind...

That evening I had my weekly Korean lesson. My teacher noticed that we have been able to have better conversations in Korean together because my understanding has improved. While my grammar and vocabulary have not gone up too much, I can still keep a conversation going. Granted a very simple one...like what she had for lunch and if it tasted good or not. You know, deep and meaningful stuff.

Friday (Yay. Sorry.) was the birthday party and song contest day for kindergarten.

Grandpa Style

Look at those ballet feet!

Lord of the dance

My girls did really well in their performance of "Put on a Happy Face". Whenever I played the song I had great flashbacks to Junior year Playbill. Such a fun musical. Might have to have those DVDs sent to me so I can have a Tatnall musical night.

They sang so loudly this month! I'm so proud of them. It's not easy to get up in front of a whole class of your peers and sing with only two people there with you. They did such a good job. After lunch we had a few more classes, and time to play games and color (normal Kindergarten shtuff) before it was time to get ready for Elementary Market day!

A face only a mother could love

This would be my second market day at Little America. I think I was a bit more prepared than last year with my game. At first I was going to play the balloon popping game where you have a balloon tied to your ankle and you have to pop everyone else's without getting yours popped, but then I realized that students don't wear shoes in school. Popping balloons with sneakers on is difficult let alone with socks or barefoot! I made the command decision to change to balloon volleyball, where teams had one minute to get as many balloons on the other side of the "net" as they could. (Could I say balloon one more time?) This turned out to be a hit with all of my students who came back 3 or 4 times to compete against their friends. It was a great photo op for me too!.....Balloon.

The students have so much fun playing games and buying things with their hard earned points. The next time slot I was in charge of the snack bar. This means getting absolutely covered in tteokbokki sauce and patbingsu. The students seem to have bottomless stomachs as they ask for their third cup of chicken poppers and eighth popsicle. As the students get older, their attitude towards Market day changes. The younger kids go straight for the mini-olympics and game rooms, while the older ones spend more time in the shops and snack bar. The oldest, and final time period will get food and sit in the big room where a movie is playing. I was painting nails during this time. We had a few customers, mainly girls and one very confident boy who got one hand painted a bright purple. It looked gorgeous. During this last class I got so excited I couldn't sit still! (It's okay, it's the end of the post now, so I think I can mention it!)

Tomorrow morning at 5:30, Kaitie, Katrina and I will be off to the airport for the 8am flight! We have some spa activity planned but other than that the trip is pretty much up in the air. We have ideas of snorkeling and other adventurous excursions. I hope to get some beach running in and a sunrise hike somewhere in there! Also just eating my weight in fresh fruit from the island. I will be taking pictures and writing an old school journal while I'm there so the blog post when I get back will be as accurate and detailed as possible, just to make all of you completely hate me! Until that time...

xoxoxo

Korean of the post:
수영할 줄 알아요? (suyeonghal jularayo) Do you know how to swim?