Well- silly me, I figured it out, got off at the right stop, and got to school at oh, 7:50am. I sure wasn't late! I took my time walking to the school from the stop, although it was pretty chilly this morning... and came in to find most of the teachers already there (2/3, hehe). The directrice very kindly got up and gave me the double-cheek-fake-kiss greeting (which I've gotten used to...before I used to awkwardly bang my head into people's cheeks). She said she had a few things to do before school started...and I just sorta sat there and thought, guess I'll be taking the 7:50 bus next time...
In the directrice's first English class (the combo CM1/CM2 class), they were making me postcards. They colored a picture of somewhere meaningful to them and then put their face in the stamp. On the back, they wrote in English a little introduction of themselves (My name is... I am ... years old... etc). Then, a few students got up and recited these sentences... they're so cute. I want to giggle, but I restrain myself...because their accents are so French when they speak English... but then again, I guess my accent is probably so American when I speak French.
In the second class, they were still working on vocabulary from the Very Hungry Caterpillar, and they were still saying "pear" and "apple" wrong (pier and ay-pple, oh well). I kept thinking to myself, "No, A is for apple..." but then thought...haha that actually would make it "ay-pple."
In the third class with the CP/CE1 combined class, the teacher had me read Funnybones aloud (a Halloween related story, all in English). But first, we talked about Halloween and the American traditions of trick-or-treating and pumpkin carving. I learned a few new vocab words (citrouille is pumpkin for example) and learned that although Halloween is certainly not a traditional French holiday, it is becoming more and more popular for children to dress up and ask for candy door-to-door. Some of the kids told me they went last year and the houses didn't have any candy... guess it doesn't work quite as well if people aren't participating in the same way:) We also talked about how children dress up in costumes to scare the ghosts away (at least I think that's why we dress up?)... which segued nicely to our story about skeletons who try to find people to scare...and end up just scaring each other (it's cute- the kids liked it, and I got to sing "The head bone's connected to the neck bone, etc.").
Reading the book aloud in English was interesting, especially because these are the students who have the least English knowledge. But, page by page, I'd read aloud, point to pictures, make hand gestures, and their teacher would summarize or ask the students for summaries in French. It was cool because you could see their little brains trying to figure out what was going on in the story. And at the end, the teacher asked if they like the book... and several said it was very funny... and a few said that it was too scary. One little boy said it was moyenne, or average, because he thought parts were funny, and the dark staircase the skeletons walked down was too scary...lol. The teacher told the directrice about it and now I'm reading it to her 2 classes next week! Yay Halloween!
I came home, exhausted from my early morning, and have pretty much done nothing but eat, watch TV on Hulu, and research places that I'm traveling to. I think I needed a day to just chill out. Tomorrow, I'm going to meet Lindsey for lunch and a movie downtown!
Reste cool!
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