Thursday, February 17, 2011

we must steer it up!

Gotta love it when little French kids attempt to pronounce English words. This morning I worked with my older kids on colors and emotions... continuing from last week. Although I said the words multiple times, using pictures to help, listening games, and miming games... when I finally wrote the words up on the board to help students remember a large amount of vocabulary... I get some of the most hilarious pronunciations. "Scared" becomes scarrr-ed; "tired" becomes teer-ed; "orange" becomes or-ah-ngees. I try not to giggle, but sometimes.... after having them repeat and re-repeat so many times and they still add their little French twinge, it's just too funny.... and to be honest, a little nerve-racking! I say- don't say it like you're French!!! Pretend you're me:)

Besides silly pronunciations, I'm getting frustrated working with the oldest kids at this school because the replacement has their schedule all out of whack and somehow I end up rushing through my 45 minute lesson in 25 minutes or less and they still miss out on recess. She doesn't do much to help me with behavior until it's too late and then she yells at them... which makes me feel bad that I didn't prevent them from getting in trouble. AH! Murielle will be out now until sometime in March.... I haven't heard much of her progress- other than she's needed more time off and more medical tests:(

But on a high note, I feel like the CP teacher at this school is letting me teach a little more than she usually does. I've decided because she knows these kids are "hard," she kind of goes over board with discipline and then they go over board with acting out. I feel like she's constantly yelling at kids for every little thing.... and when I come in... I feel like I need to suggest things to her before actually doing them; whereas in my other schools, I just teach how I want and the teachers help me out when I need it. I usually come out of her class feeling just as tightly wound as the kids do.... but today wasn't half bad. I think it helped that I prepped her with options via email the day before...

I came home in between schools, had some left overs from the night before and prepped for my afternoon lessons on recipes. I headed over (with a tram full of noisy middle schoolers.... they're always heading back home from lunch at the same time I am... the middle school is just across the street from the elementary school), made my copies, and headed upstairs to work with the "big kids." I actually had a lot of fun with these lessons.... I read out a recipe- had them guess what it was I was reading, and then we worked on what we needed ingredients-wise and what to do. When we got to the part about stirring... the kids saw the little words on the recipe sheet and tried to read it as "steer." I tried to explain that steering is what you do in a car, stirring is in a bowl. By the end, we were all air-stirring and saying "stiiiirrrrr!" Oh me- that would have been funny to rewind and watch later hehe.

After my recipe lessons, I went downstairs and ran into Nathalie's class. She said that they were reserving us a lane at the bowling alley for tomorrow night, haha. I don't think bowling is something they typically go out to do, so this should be fun to witness... although I really shouldn't talk- I'm good for about 3 goes and then my arm gets tired and my total score ranges in the 50's lol.

I took the tram home, nice and quiet this time:) I stopped to pick up a few things at Carrefour- water, milk, soap.... and I just happened to stroll by the baguette aisle and pick one up. I had eaten 1/4 before I even got through the check-out line, and finished another 1/4 at home with some carré cheese. It was good- but I hate it when I do that! It's not my fault though- I think they put something in it that makes you want to just eat it like a celery stick... and then you think- where'd it go???

Hope you're having a nice evening! I'm going to attempt to do yoga after that baguette fiasco. I did do some serious running/working out yesterday and have been walking around like I can't bend my knees today. In all reality, every muscle in my body sort of screams when I move one way or another.... eh bien voila- that's what I get for trying to be good:)

Reste cool:) I'll try to bring my camera tomorrow for bowling and show you how we do it in France!!! (Oh and ps- babysitting for Corinne's fam got rescheduled to next Friday... too much going on tonight for them to go out!)

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