First Day of Teaching : DONE!

Well, today we had our first day of teaching! I was definitely nervous for it. I teach elementary level 1, 2, 3 so basically I teach 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade. But, the kids only come twice a week. Level 3 comes Monday and Wednesday (I only teach 3rd Mondays), Level 2 comes Tuesdays and Thursdays and then level 1 comes Wednesdays (I solo teach that day) and Friday. The kids are in the levels not based on age, but based on ability. So, I have some 9 year olds in my first class on monday's and some 13 year olds. I team teach with this girl in my group named, Saffron. We split all the level 3 kids in half and then switch half way through. We do that for every day except wednesdays, where like I said earlier, I solo teach ALL level 1 kiddos :) Today she taught them writing and language arts. I taught spelling, math, and word skills! Dima's daughters were in my classes today and I loved it! They are my favorite. Sofia, the blonde one always asks me if I can come over and hang out with them at their house hahahaha it's so cute!

My first group of kids were tough. Not that they were crazy but they would NOT talk!!! They were incredibly quiet. I teach a lot like a traditional teacher in the way I go over words, and I teach them and I teach actual school subjects. But, I teach what the words mean because honestly they don't know what a lot of the words mean. I teach from 3:30-6:30 and then the last hour I teach pre-language kids which are kids that are 2-3 years old. We just play different things with them for 15 minutes because their attention span is not that long hahaha. It was cute! We first did a puzzle, then colored, then play dough and finally made little bracelets!!! The kids barely speak any english except one little kid named Micholas kind of like Nicholas but with an M had really good english for 3 1/2 years old!

It was funny during my second group of kids, one of our rules here is "English Only" but whenever we as teachers walk past one of the workers we have to say "Laba Dienna" because thats polite and they think its incredibly rude if we don't say hi first even though they won't say hi first hahaha kind of weird. Anyways, two of the kids in my group, brothers actually, named Simon and Mose say to me after I said "Laba Dienna" to someone, "MISS MADISON ENGLISH ONLY!!!" The kids are super cute here and I get so happy when they get excited when they say or write an english word correctly. The way their face lights up or their huge smile honestly makes my whole entire day.

Dima, our local coordinator, came into my class for the last lesson and I got super nervous hahaha, but afterwards he came up to me and said that I did perfect and he is so grateful I am teaching elementary level. Also, my head teacher shelbi said I did awesome too which made me feel great cause I definitely was super nervous!

After everyone got done and we were cleaning up Dima decided to buy us all pizza as a way to celebrate our first day teaching! So we cleaned up, and headed back to the apartment. So, we got salami pizza which is basically their version of "pepperoni pizza" and chicken and pineapple which is like hawaiian pizza. It was so so yummy! Dima is hilarious. I apparently talk really fast but he said he loves it and loves me so thats good right?! I can't wait to see what my level 2 kiddos are like tomorrow! I love the kids so far and am excited for the rest of the semester here :)