Kindergarten

These crazy two weeks are almost over. I'm sure you can tell by my lack of "bloggage" that the schedule has been taking its toll on me. Even though it's been a whirlwind of exhaustion and busyness, I have really enjoyed teaching kindergarten. The kindergarten kids come to school every weekday from 10 - 2:30. The elementary school children, on the other hand, only come to the school for about an hour either on Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays or on Tuesdays & Thursdays. So you get to spend a lot more time with kindergarten children and you get to know them better.

It's kind of an interesting idea to send your child to a foreign language kindergarten...can you imagine sending your 5 year old to French kindergarten instead of English? That's basically what these Korean parents are doing. Instead of sending their kids to regular kindergarten they send them to kindergarten in a completely different language. So at 5, 6, or 7 years old, these kids have been so immersed in English on a daily basis that their English skills are incredible.

This is what the Kindergarten schedule is like each morning:
9:45 - the kids arrive at school
10:00 - singing and dancing time - the kids are divided into 5 classes, all named after fruits (apple, orange, lemon, pear, and cherry). during this time they line up with their classes and we sing songs like "If You're Happy and You Know It" and "The Wheels on the Bus"
10:30 - English classroom time
11:30 - break time (which for the kids means running around, shouting and yelling and laughing and rough housing and getting into trouble)
11:45 - English classroom time
12:30 - lunch - eat class eats a Korean lunch in their classroom with their teacher. There are "helper teachers" that perpare the lunch each day. Lunch consists always of rice and kimchi and then theres usually some kind of soup (seaweed or spinach or something) and a variety of side dishes like vegetables, fish, etc. Can you imagine a five-year-old in America eating that for lunch every day?
1:30 - special activity time: either science, math, drama, art, etc.
2:30 - get the kids on the bus to go home

So for the past two weeks, after all of the above each morning, I go right into teaching my elementary classes which start at 2:30 and go until 9. Needless to say, I'm pretty tired right now.

Also, I found this entry below online and I had to share it with you. Like I said my 5 year old kindergarten kids (well all my kids actually) eat Korean food every day. With that in mind, I though this was pretty funny. And yes, these things are all true about food served to children in Korea. And yes they eat it.

Two Lists of Complaints.
BY STUART ZEHNER

1. Complaints My Students in Korea Had About Our School's Food.

"The rice is cold."
"The kimchi is dry."

2. Complaints American Students Would Have If They Were Served Korean Food.

"There's an entire fish in my soup."
"The fish in my soup still has eyes."
"The fish in my soup with eyes is full of fish eggs."
"What is this?"
"I was served a vertebra."
"The live baby octopus you served me stuck to my throat and died."
"This is dog meat."
"It's too spicy."
"The rice is cold."
"The kimchi is dry."

Ahhhh Korean food.....

Anyway, the kindergarten kids are incredibly loud but they are absolutely precious and bursting with energy. I like that when you teach the kindergartners you get to do more than just English class with them - you sing with them and do arts and crafts and science projects and drama. It's really fun. Plus since you spend about 12-15 hours a week with them, you get to know them better than the elementary students whom you only teach for 2 or 3 hours a week.

There are definitely advantages to teaching the older kids though. They are more focused and you can do more interesting and complex activities with them. You don't have to walk them through things so you can accomplish more. But I really don't mind the effort it takes to teach younger kids. I think I might feel more comfortable with them. Maybe that's because I am young myself so I don't feel as comfortable teaching teenagers. Plus I am used to dealing with little children since I have so many nieces and nephews. This job is definitely helping me learn what my strengths and weaknesses are when it comes to interacting with kids. It is such a wonderful experience. I do think that if they ever asked me to switch to being a kindergarten teacher I would do it but I would definitely miss teaching elementary. But both at once, like I'm doing right now, is CrAzY!! :)

Tomorrow is my last day of kindergarten so I am bringing my camera to take some pictures of my kids. So check back tomorrow to see some Korean cuties!