So, I have my first week of teaching complete!! It is definitely draining at the end of the day because you have to keep your energy up, make the kids engaged and have them speak english!!! It is frustrating sometimes when I have to constantly say, "English Only!!" But, its okay. It gets them in the habit and helps them! The kids all call me Miss. Madison and its so cute.
Tuesday, I taught Level 2. School starts at 3:30 and at 3:27 there was only ONE kid in my class. He actually wasn't even supposed to come to Level 2, cause he's level 3 but he wasn't going to be in class on Wednesday because he was going to Poland. His name is Mose and he is one of my favorites! He speaks FIVE different languages. Italian, Polish, Lithuanian, Russian and English! When he told me that I was so impressed! Anyways, finally a little after 3:30 more kids showed up! I had Ignas, Sofia, Nicole, Max, Alex, and Mose. If there is not more than 8 kids, the other elementary teacher and I do not split the class and do the rotation. We just stay in one classroom, I teach my lessons and then she goes. We have 5 minute breaks in between every 2 lessons. I taught Spelling and Language Arts. Spelling is 25 minutes and then language arts is 50 minutes. For spelling, I have to give them words, we learn how to spell them, say them, and practice them. We came up with sentences to put them in also. Then, we played a game with banana grams where they had to find/create as many spelling words as they can and they LOVED it. They got so excited when they found some words! I also have to give them homework. Which is basically, writing the words 7 times or writing them in sentences. For language arts we go right by the teacher handbook that we have and just give the lesson out of there. We read a book about a Dragon, and had to discuss and predict and infer. It is pretty easy because I just teach right out of the text book and sometimes we do little games to make it a little easier. But, the main focus isn't just getting them to learn about Dragon. It's about being able to understand the words they're reading in english, read in english, write in english, and talk in english. The kids were insane. I had a lot of crazy boys. Ignas is a handful. He is cute, but a handful. Max was good, but asked a lot of weird questions. Alex is straight up so cute! He is so smart. Well, all the kids I taught were so incredibly smart! But, I had to separate Max and Ignas because they weren't listening. I'm actually not supposed to discipline them but I can move them around. However, if they're really not listening, I have to go get Alma. She is a worker here at the ILP school. Doesn't speak any english really, but I have Nicole (Dima's daughter) translate for me. I give them warnings and say "okay if you're not listening one more time I am getting Alma." And guess what happened? I had to get Alma! haha but its okay cause they came back in and quickly apologized.
Then I had my adorable Prelanguage kids. Leo is honestly one of the cutest kids you will ever see. He barely speaks english but says "Hi hi!" and "bye bye" and "mama". He actually whispers "mama" which can be a little creepy hahahahaha but he is so cute so it makes up for it. Yava is adorable. She is so tiny and loves hugs. She speaks really well also! Micholas is again, so cute, and makes the cutest faces ever. We just play different games with them.
Wednesday I taught Level 1. They are probably my favorite. All girls except one little boy named Lukas. WHO GAVE ME A FLOWER POT MADE OUT OF TISSUE PAPER. He comes into class, comes up to me and says "what's your name?" I look at him and say "Miss. Madison! what's yours?" Pulls out the flower pot, hands it to me and says "I'm Lukas!" SO CUTE!!!! He has a little man bun/pony tail. All the other kids in my class are so cute. One girl I had a tough time with though. She has never ever been in regular school. Her name is Bruite and she's 7 years old. I guess that's normal here, to hold off putting your kids in school!? She had a hard time understand how much work we had to do. For example, every thing I write on the board, I have to make sure they write down on their papers and I told them that too! Every single time I wrote something down, she would say "do we have to write all of that?" "yes, everything I write, you write down too." I THINK I SAID THAT ABOUT 100 TIMES THAT DAY. I kept my calm, but she couldn't grasp that and kept saying "oh my goodness, thats so much writing" and I told her "well that's what happens when you move up to elementary level! You've improved so much that work is going to get harder." Anyways, besides that, it was a great class! I'm probably not supposed to have favorites from each group but, I do. Toma and Varvara are my favorite. We did spelling and I did the same thing with banana grams and instead of doing it on their own, I had them work together, and they loved it. We then moved onto Math and we learned addition and subtraction. I made them 100 charts to use it. They also loved that! All hands on learning really helps them. They are rockstars! Then for Language Arts we made "Things I like to do books" and they loved those also. They got to color, and write everything down themselves. Then for word skills we learned about phonics and sounding out different words that rhyme. Finally I taught listening comprehension where I just read them a book and asked them questions! During breaks we took pictures and they LOVED that. They loved asking me all these questions too, like how old I am, and how many brothers or sisters I have too. Pre-language was good too. Just lots of playing :) A new kid came named Daniel but its not pronounced like Daniel, its pronounced "Da-neel", its weird. He BARELY speaks english. He knows a few words, like bye bye and what the. His mom sits in on the class and he acts out, touches kids, draws on walls and chairs and his mom doesn't do a thing. I'm just so confused because I am not sure he is understanding anything I am saying and so when he acts out his mom just sits there and laughs. ALSO, he almost said the F-word. He goes "what the fu" and I was so shocked and his mom just laughs. Like, excuse me WHAT?! But, the f-word just isn't a bad word here which is strange. Their swear words aren't the same as ours. Culture is definitely different.
Thursday I taught Level 2 again, but only 3 kids showed up!! Sofia, Nicole and Ignas. So Saffron and I, taught in the same class together. I taught Writing and Language Arts. We practiced writing to a pen-pal that they will have next week from America. One of the previous ILP teachers from Lithuania is actually an elementary teacher back in the states and she thought that might be a great idea! Which I think so too! Then we discussed more about the story we read in class on Tuesday. I also had to collect their homework for spelling, grade it, write down the grade and give it back. They also had a spelling test today! It wasn't that exciting. Its hard teaching with 3 kids because sometimes they don't always talk. But, we started this ticket thing where if they say something correct in english, spell it correctly, all get 100% on spelling homework/tests or just answer a question in english they will get a ticket in the cup I have. Then, when they reach a certain amount of tickets, we will have a party. They really loved that idea and it definitely motivates them to try harder and learn more. Then, in Pre-language class, we only had 3 kids. Daniel, Leo and this other little girl and I cannot remember her name for the life of me. But, we had a little accident in class. We were building a puzzle and Leo is learning how to potty-train and well... I think you can guess what happened. He peed his pants hahahaha. It was SO MUCH. It went every where. Not just in his pants. Out of his pants, on the floor, on the foam puzzle pieces too. The best of all is, his mom LEFT. Usually she is there and stays to watch outside in the hall cause she has a daughter in another class. But, nope. She left to go somewhere. So, he had to sit with Alma while she called her. Poor kid didn't even mind and was so content and didn't even really know what was going on I think.
Earlier on Thursday we had Russian Language class which was... interesting. The woman is actually a legit Russian teacher. But, ff thats how the kids we teach feel in english class, I feel so bad! hahaha She barely spoke any english and it was good but I just wrote down what it sounds like to me, and what it means. hahahah It was really interesting to see and hear it all from a native speaker though!
Today, I taught level 1. We did language arts again and science! For science, we learned about clouds. We made clouds out of cotton balls and glued them on paper too. It was really fun and they enjoyed it a lot! We also did Language Arts. I love my level 1 kids. Again, it was all girls and one boy! Poor kid was all by himself. He is very quiet but super smart! He also has never been to school before. So, he's not used to doing all this work of writing down things. But he has great handwriting and can spell things really well!! This one girl started bawling today in class because she just didn't want to write it all. She has never been to school other than english school. So, its a hard adjustment but I told her she's smart and she can do it! They loved making the clouds out of cotton balls. Apparently they don't have cotton balls here in Lithuania only in America. So the kids had no idea what they were but they were OBSESSED with them. In Pre-language the kids and I made paper plate jelly fish. I love my pre-language kids. Yava is my favorite. She is so cute and always wants to give me hugs. Today she said "I love you!" to me so many times. After we all got done, we went out to sushi to celebrate our first week of teaching complete!
I don't know how you teachers do it in America, I can barely handle 4 hours of it! I give you major props. It's exhausting and draining but I honestly love it here. I love the kids. I love helping them. I love love love Lithuania. I'm learning so much and I'm helping little children further their education and hopefully help them somehow with their futures. I miss you all and wish I could eat a big piece of steak. One thing I'm having a hard time adjusting to is the food. But, I'm trying!!
welp, remember you're loved and be grateful you can flush your toilet paper down the toilet!!
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One of the meals I had. Its beet soup (i didn't eat it) and some kind of meatball.
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