My School!

I have never experienced a school like Dararat Kindergarten. My day starts around 7:45 am when I arrive at the school. Some kids and most teachers area already there. The school is smaller than others, and is spilt up into classrooms according to age. There is a nursery class with children from the age of 1-2. I only spend 30 minutes with the 2 year olds (only about 6 kids), usually just singing songs or teaching them simple words such as numbers or colours. K-1 is a class of about 20, and they are all around the age of 3. I spend 45 minutes in this class. Again we sing some songs and I will do a worksheet with them. The worksheet usually has them tracing letters or numbers, and colouring after! Then I move to K-2 and they are 4 years old. I spend an hour with them usually starting the class with songs. They love to sing 'The Wheels on the Bus', 'ABC', and 'Head,Shoulders, Knees, and Toes'.  They also have their own stupid songs they love to sing.... sorry did I say stupid I mean lovely songs!!! (I'm still adjusting to the young kids :) hopefully I will love to sing kids songs by the end of the year, but right now it drives me a little crazy lol). I also do a worksheet with the K-2's and end with a story. The class only has 4 English books and I'm already sick of them so I will probably have to buy some in the near future! Then they eat lunch! The school feds the students breakfast, lunch and a few of them dinner. The meals all usually consist of rice and either eggs or mystery meat. Then is it free time for the kids to play with the blocks or toys in their classroom. Each teacher eats lunch in their room to watch the kids while they play. I go and sit in the one air conditioned room with the K-1 teacher and watch the kids as they nap (only the nursery and K-1 kids nap). The one teacher A (yes that is her name) goes out everyday and gets us lunch. It's always a mystery to me what I am eating. I always get rice, and then some sort of soup or chicken on top of the rice. Sometimes we have a buffet style lunch where everyone just uses their spoons to eat out of the same dish. Only a couple of times I have tried something and wanted to instantly throw up, but for the most part it is great! Today I had Thai style fried chicken and rice. It was my favourite thing so far, but they gave it to me in a bag and I had to eat it with my fingers. They eat with their fingers a lot. Or with a spoon. I rarely get a fork, and I never get a knife. I don't think I have seen a knife while I've been here. Then I go to the K-3 class and these are my oldest (5 years old) and my naughtiest. This class is only about 12 kids, but a total of 9 boys that love to wrestle and say the word 'poop'. I laughed the first time, but after the 100th time I cant take it anymore. I tried to teach them the clapping method (when I clap a pattern, they clap it after me and then be quiet), except that all just started clapping and wouldn't stop lol I had a good laugh and then started to say, "thank-you, thank-you" and did a curtsy. They laughed and understood that, but I never clapped again. With this class I can have more conversation because they understand the most English (even more than the teachers). I have started teaching them new songs and tomorrow we will make props and then perform the song to the teacher. The schools theme this week is seasons, so I have taught them 'Oh Mr. Sun', and  'Rain, Rain Go Away'. Then at around 2:30 they get free time and the toys come out again until 4:30. Parents start to pick up the kids around 3:00pm. During the free time some of their favourite games to play include making guns out of blocks and shoot Teacher Melissa (yes this is allowed, and would never be okay in a school back home), they also love pretend cooking me food and watching me eat it. My favourite is fried eggs with ice cream on top (they have pretend food toys), and it is yummy every time. As hard as it is adjusting to the new age of kids, and the language barrier they are so cute. Hearing them say, "Good morning Teacher Melissa" puts an instant smile on my face, and even though they have snotty noses and don't cover their mouth when they cough, their hugs are worth it.