Happee Tanks-geeving!

This morning Amy and I got up and ready to go to the Berliet school. Today was a big day for us anglophones... and so Murielle, the directrice told her kids that I was bringing a special surprise for Thanksgiving. As Amy and I walked up to the school, all the kids started turning to each other, realizing that the surprise was probably not a turkey dinner, but an American amie, coincidentally named Amy, and not Emmy as the French spell it.

In Murielle's class, the duel level CM1/CM2 (ages 9-11), they went through their regular morning routine of doing the attendance and lunch count in English. When they were finished they all turned to the back where we were sitting, to stare at Amy:) Murielle asked them to ask her questions to get to know her a bit... What is your name? How old are you? Where do you live? etc. She answered them slowly and in clear-as-a-bell English, but they still said... her accent is so hard to understand! I thought to myself.... hrmm, I wonder if I make my English sound French or if they have just gotten used to hearing me.... Anyway, after the interrogation, we went over some Thanksgiving vocabulary and had the kids make Thanksgiving place settings. There were given cut-outs to color and paste onto their mat, anywhere except for in the very right-hand corner, where a picture of us would be placed. The kids were like, Oh! They're going to be our Thanksgiving stamp! Murielle took our picture and said, Voila, your first stamp:)

In this class there are some very cute and thoughtful kids... a few asked us our favorite colors so that they could use them in their place setting.... a few wanted to know what we would be eating tonight. But then there is a little boy, who is new this year, and therefore doesn't quite fit in as well as the other kids who have been together since the maternelle. Although he's very smart, he often gets himself into trouble and attracts negative attention.... he decided to ask Amy if she looked at Playboy. I guess he figured he'd ask the innocent newcomer... but Amy just said no and sort of laughed it off. Had Murielle heard, he would have surely gotten in BIG trouble... but he was spared this time around.... lol. Oh kids!

In the second class, the combo CE1/CE2 (ages 7-8), we did almost the same thing, except for their table setting was smaller and they were asked to make a hand-print turkey on one side. They had very colorful turkeys... and we went around to help them figure out where to place the beak and feet. It's so amazing how exciting a hand-print turkey can be!

While the kids were working, we talked with Murielle a little bit... and she told me that she was leaving to go to the doctor after school. She was taken to the hospital by ambulance last week from school because she was having such severe back pain. Turns out she has a different infection in each kidney! So, even though she was very nice in talking with Amy and wishing us a Happy Thanksgiving, I could tell she was a little off today.

At the break, she showed Amy and I the Catherinette hat she made for the CP teacher. Apparently, today is also a holiday for the French (well, Nov. 25th specifically). It is St. Catherine day... and for all woman who are unmarried and 25, they are given a special hat, almost like a princess cone hat to wear. I guess it's kind of like a good luck tradition... hope you get hitched soon kind of thing. Interesting, non!

After the break, which was frigid, we went to the CP/CE1 class (ages 6-7) to explain Thanksgiving in French (with pictures of course) and make hand-print turkey thank you cards. They, too, enjoyed making the turkeys.... although these were the most creative. Some looked like they had fur... some had tattoos... some were spotted. They would have done well in the Cincinnati Newspaper turkey competition:) Amy brought her flip camera into the class to tape a little bit of a French classroom for her kids to see... and we got them to say Hello and Happy Thanksgiving at the end. Cute!

We booked it home because it was raining and super duper cold. Now we are resting a bit before cleaning up and cooking for our Thanksgiving feast:) So more later!

Happee Tanks-geeving as my kids say!

More Hand-Print Turkeys and BOOTS!

This morning I went to school, while Amy stayed in bed, the lazy bum (hehe). I met with my preschoolers for a bit and then did the same lesson, for once, 4 times in row (by the end I was getting pretty good at explaining Thanksgiving). I explained Thanksgiving in French with pictures, then had the kids make gestures for a couple key words (so that when I said them during my story, they could at least listen for those words and make the gestures instead of getting lost in the English). After reading the story, I had the kids make hand-print turkeys on thank you cards for their parents. After they made their turkeys (which they thought was SO cool to do using their own hand-print), I asked why they made turkeys in their Thanksgiving Thank You cards. A common answer I received was, "Because it's a turkey." I said, "Yes, but why do we talk about turkeys during Thanksgiving...." "Oh, because you kill turkeys...?" hmmm.... close enough I guess.

Laurence was observing the teacher in the last class, which was fun, because she got to see me explain Thanksgiving. I'm glad she was in there because this is the teacher who has 4 different classes and she has a hard time with these kids. And after class, she (Laurence) gave me the rest of my laundry, woohoo!

After school, I came home for lunch. Amy and I decided we should probably hit up the mall because there was a strike going on (allegedly... we were unaffected except for we did see that the post office was closing an hour early). The mall is closer than going all the way into Lyon... and I needed to look for another casserole dish for Thanksgiving feast preparations anyway. So, we went to Porte des Alpes, in search for boots (my priorities changed a little). It's going to snow this weekend in Strasbourg, and I have no appropriate shoes to wear in the snow without having very cold/wet feet or ruined suede boots... so it wasn't frivolous. We went to a few shoe stores... and decided to go have a look in Auchan, the Wal-marty store at the mall. Miraculously, we both found very cute, reasonably priced boots. We also left with juice, disposable aluminum baking dishes, a small xmas tree, cookies, and winter window decorations. The store was seriously decked out... and I realized after Thanksgiving, I'd need at least a few decorations to put up....

We stopped by a few other stores, Amy having lots of luck, me not so much (which is a good thing). On our way home, we stopped by the post office because I had gotten a notice in my box that I had a package! I got a few more mini-toiletry items and LOTS of hot chocolate, courtesy of Valerie, Vic's sister (thanks by the way if you're reading this Valerie!).

We just finished making pumpkin bread and chocolate pie for Thursday (figured we should get a few things out of the way since we'll be dead tired after we get back tomorrow night). We're going to try to be in bed by 9pm.... because we're getting up at 4:30am (bleh). We thought our tour started at 9am, so we got train tickets that leave at 6:35am... turns out, the tour group switched the time to 1pm... which means we could have gotten a later train, but oh well. More Avignon for us!!!

Reste cool:) Wish you were all coming with us tomorrow!

Ice Cream Corn, the Nouveau Beaujolais, and Audrey Tautou

So much to update you on!!! I just got home from spending the night at Lindsey's house, which is why you didn't get your daily post yesterday... but now I can tell you all about my avant-premiere experience!

Let's start from the beginning, shall we? I went to school (Berliet) and did two lessons on Thanksgiving and one with the number friends (in the youngest class). Murielle, the directrice, did most of the work for the first 2 lessons, creating flashcards and laminated pictures from the book I brought... I merely read the English while she went back to reexplain with pictures and French. I had talked a little about Thanksgiving last last week (since I didn't have work last Thursday for Armistice day), and so yesterday was mostly a Thanksgiving story recap and review of key vocabulary (Pilgrims left England, didn't have much food when they got the Plymouth, Squanto saved the day and taught them how to hunt turkey, fish, and grow corn and pumpkins, Pilgrims and Native Americans enjoyed a 3 day feast, which us Americans recreate in one day). With the middle age-group, when we asked what food the Native Americans taught the Pilgrims how to grow, they said "cones? Like ice cream cones?" and of course laughed hysterically.... I guess corn and cone would sound similar. They did fairly well with all of it considering how random this group of vocab words seems to them... and how difficult the words are in general to pronounce. Plymouth was never really achieved... but that's ok... I can't imagine when they would need to say Plymouth any time soon... or ever for that matter.

My lesson with the number friends went over well, as it has in the other schools. Who wouldn't like numbers with faces and names??? I also taught them the songs... which are just so cute to hear them sing with me. And then I gave out stickers that had little English expressions (Good Job! Wow! Excellent! Super! Super star! Goal! Touchdown! etc.). This was very funny...I'd give out a sticker, they'd say merci, and then I'd move to the next kid. After they said merci to me, they'd turn to their teacher and say... maitresse.... what does this mean??? Lol, and then she'd explain, even though sometimes the words would be/mean the exact same thing in French (super, excellent). And then they'd go ouuuaaai!!! I'm a crowd pleaser, what can I say.

After work, I ate lunch with the teachers. Murielle invited me to a Christmas festival thingy for the last Friday before the winter break. Apparently the teachers and parents bring in holiday goodies from around the world and the kids go around and try them all. So of course they want me to bring something American. I told them I'd try to make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (even though I don't think they have quick-oats in France, my mom is sending me a mix). But then, right before I left, Murielle asked me to send her the recipe so that she could try it before we made it as a class.... I was like... oops... now I have to dig up the recipe and translate it. So I did, and I threw in a translated recipe for pumpkin pie too because they kept asking what was in it (I guess it sounds so foreign to them to put pumpkin in a pie and eat it for dessert). After translating the ingredients for both recipes... I realized... there are very few Christmas cookies I can even make here! Hershey Kisses... non-existent, peanut butter sparse, crisco... non-existent, quick-oats...maybe.... Ah! I guess I'll just have to live with French pastries this year.

After a quick gchat with my mom and Vic... it was about the time I needed to head out to meet Lindsey at the tram stop. I went with her to her house to drop off my stuff to spend the night, we watched some French tv, and then went out into Lyon for a quick dinner before our advanced screening of De Vrais Mensonges (True Lies.... maybe ?) with Audrey Tautou. I realized as we were on the bus coming down the hill that I haven't really been in Lyon much, if at all, after dark... so I haven't seen how things are lit up. Thankfully I had my camera to show you some pictures. It really is a very pretty city, don't you think?

We were a little early for restaurants to be open (it was about 6:45, they open at 7ish). So we walked around a bit and decided to take respite in a grocery store.... which just so happened to be having wine tastings of the Nouveau Beaujolais. The wine comes from this region, so there are big festivals all over town and in the little towns of the Beaujolais region. Lyon residents are often quoted as saying Lyon has three rivers, the Rhone, the Saone, and the Beaujolais (as in...the wine is a-flowin'). Apparently it isn't known for being a particularly good wine, just a tradition.... but I thought it tasted alright.... but what do I know?

After our wine tasting, we went across the street to a cute little italian restaurant for pizza. Lindsey and I shared a yummy tomato/mozzarella salad and each had our own cheese pizza... that was big enough to feed 2-3 people. We both kind of made ourselves sick trying to eat it all (we didn't succeed, although I got pretty close). We figured we wouldn't be allowed to waltz into the advanced premiere with our cheese pizza... so no doggy-bags... if that's even allowed in France.

We ended up finishing our dinner at about 8:10... running to catch the metro... and running to get seats. We got pretty good seats considering... although the people by the aisle glared at us as we scooted in a little late. Had I had air to breath I would have said... oh don't glare at me, at least the lights are still on!

The movie was hysterical... I laughed out loud for 3/4 of the movie... got a little teary eyed at one moment... and thoroughly enjoyed being able to understand a movie entirely in French. (Quick recap of the story line: Audrey Tautou's character owns a hair salon, has a guy working for her that writes her a romantic anonymous love letter, she sends it to her depressed mother, who figures out it was from the guy at the salon, who figures out that Audrey sent it to her mother, who is now in love with the guy.... all while Audrey and the guy are falling in love with each other... kind of a weird love triangle story, but very funny as you might imagine... the mother's character especially was hilarious, as was Audrey's.)

Then, as if seeing a cute little film in French wasn't enough, all three main characters and the director came out for a question and answer time. The actors were very nice and funny answering questions about their roles, getting along on set, working for the director, etc. But about half-way through, I started to zone out a bit because I was really tired as it approached 11pm. They answered one more question.... and I thought, well surely they'll just escort them out, but no! They stayed down there to take pictures and sign autographs with people. We awkwardly followed Audrey around until she just about left the cinema and finally got a chance to ask for a picture. Obviously, as you can tell, she is a super tiny person... and we were really excited, haha. Then, we thought! Yes success, we can leave now. But, we saw the male actor and thought, why not, let's a get a picture. A guy had us take his picture with him, so we asked if he wouldn't mind taking our picture. The guy took the picture and said... oh it's perfect. The guy must have been drunk, because the picture is blurry... but oh well. You can still sort of see (up top).

We left the theater at about 11:15.... and the next bus didn't come until 12, so we went to see about taking the funicular and walking... but once we got there decided it would be quicker to walk back to the bus stop and take a more direct route home in the end. But... it wasn't that bad. There were tons of people out... maybe for the Nouveau Beaujolais... maybe that's just how it is on Thursday nights... but it wasn't too cold and we enjoyed looking at the sites all lit up.

We got home exhausted! I left pretty early this morning so I could get home to start cleaning the apartment for Amy's arrival tomorrow... and I'm still pooped! I see a nap in my future... among the other things I need to do!

Reste cool:)

les trois petits cochons

I woke up with a renewed sense of confidence in myself (in terms of teaching English in this unique teaching position I'm in). I need to keep in mind that what I do doesn't matter, but that I do it is important (thank you Gandhi). I have 30 minutes with these students, and I may not always have complete respect or attention from the class, but I can do my best to entertain the kids with English experiences that their regular teachers wouldn't normally give them. And that's that! (Amazing what a good night's sleep can do!)

Anyway- I was at Simon Signoret today, and much to my surprise, I didn't have my regular morning talk with Pierre... so I took advantage of the extra time and made copies for another school for next week (shh, don't tell them I used their ink for another school!!!). I met with the maternelle first (Corinne's class) and worked with a small group of students on numbers and colors. They're so adorable... I would ask them what a color was in French, then say the color in English, then ask if they could tell me the color in English, and they'd give me the color in French like they were so proud of themselves for knowing the answer haha. Oh well, I'm sure it's confusing to them on the whole. I also sang my good morning song with the whole class and they're getting pretty good at mumbling along with me.

In my CP classes, we reviewed the numbers and number songs (they're actually really good at mumbling/singing along to 1 little, 2 little, 3 little pumpkins...). Then I read the Three Little Pigs with them (trois petits cochons in French). They already knew the story, so I was hoping they'd get to focus a little more on the English. They picked up on "three" and "house," but when I'd ask if they were big or little pigs, they'd say big first... I guess I didn't think about how "big" and "pig" sound alike, so they got confused. They were cute though, especially when I couldn't think of the word for straw or chin in French to help translate a page (paille and menton, fyi).

In my CE1 classes, we did basically the same thing but had time to play telephone at the end. Telephone was one of the activities they mentioned at the in-service for helping children learn to listen and pronounce words in a foreign language. It turned out to be very entertaining... I only used very short 1-3 word phrases (seven, little pumpkin, three little pigs, five, etc.). By the end it usually ended up sounding like made up words (seenin, lilly pumd, fee pids, hive), but once I repeated a few, they got better and better at taking their time to pronounce the words and come up with something they had heard before (that was English and not gibberish). I've decided it really is a good game to play... and I could change it up.... like by showing them the picture along with telling them the word or just showing a picture and they have to come up with the vocabulary to pass along or they can find the right picture that corresponds to the thing they hear instead of having to pronounce it at the end.... the possibilities are endless:)

So, all in all, a really good day! Granted, most of my classes were missing several students because today is the last day of Ramadan.... giving me class sizes of 12-18 instead of 25-30, but... I'll just go ahead and attribute it to my fantastic lesson planning skills!

Speaking of lesson plans, I'm getting really excited for all of my Thanksgiving lessons. With this school, I'm going to explain Thanksgiving with pictures I copied from the books my mom sent and then have them make hand print turkeys to put on thank you cards to give to their parents. With Les Marendiers, I'm going to read the books I got from my mom to help explain Thanksgiving, and either have them organize pictures from the story in the right order (for the older kids) or color by numbers a turkey to review their colors in English. With the Berliet school, we're doing some of that stuff this week and next week we are making place mats (Amy's coming in to help). The mats will say Happy Thanksgiving and they'll draw thanksgiving pictures and write what they are thankful for... plus Murielle is going to take pictures of Amy and I working with the kids so that later she can put the real pictures on the place mats before she laminates them and gives them to the kids to remember the day! She's so great to work with:)

Bon mardi a tous! (Happy Tuesday to all!)

Hhhhaunted Hhhhhouse

This morning was my first day back to school since October 21... and although it was a little rough getting up so early and switching my brain back into French, I had a great time at school with my kids and colleagues.

With les CMs (my oldest group, the combined CM1/Cm2 class), we went back over some Halloween vocabulary (ghost, bat, witch, broom, haunted house, mummy, skeleton, etc.), and played the game memory (which they love... and subsequently cheered "ouaaai" upon finding out the activity for the day). It was weird to be doing Halloween again, after Halloween was over, but I guess the teacher didn't want to start right off the bat with something new (since I was their very first lesson back at school). They had to match the picture with the word and pronounce the word when they flipped it over. Listening to them try to say "scarecrow" and "haunted house" was so funny. I tried to tell them at the beginning of the lesson that in English we pronounce the "h" sound at the beginning of words, whereas in French you do not (at first they were all saying "aunted ouse"). So they ended up saying "Hhh, hhhaunted Hhh, house." They couldn't get the "h" out in one full breath lol. And "scarecrow" was just hard because they had nothing to connect it to. At least the other words are sort of similar in French or are familiar from American movies (skelete=skeleton, spider reminds them of spider man, bat reminds them of bat man, broom sounds like the sound a car makes... and a witch rides a broom, etc.). But, I couldn't think of a good way to help them remember scarecrow... even after explaining that "scare" is like scary and a "crow" is a bird, they didn't get it. Oh well, maybe I'll show them the Wizard of Oz sometime:)

In the next class, we did essentially the same activity. These kids actually remembered the vocab and could pronounce the words better than the older kids for some reason. (Except, they were even cuter trying to pronounce "hhhaunted hhhouse.") The kids were so sad when the bell sounded for the mid-morning break.

At the break, Murielle, la directrice, reminded me that the CP class was on a field trip this morning. So... I did not get to teach my lesson on numbers after the break. Instead, Murielle asked if I had brought anything for Thanksgiving. She decided that she'd rather take advantage of me being there than have me just sit and observe a lesson in French, which I thought was really nice of her. Thankfully, I had brought the 2 books my mom sent me for Thanksgiving, just to show her and the other teachers at the lunch time. I showed them to her before we went back inside, and she and the other teachers were so funny... they thought the pictures of the pilgrims and Native Americans were great and enjoyed hearing about what we eat at Thanksgiving.

Although I hadn't really prepared for how I would explain Thanksgiving, I did so in French first because I figured the kids would be completely lost if I had just started with the book in English. My explanation was probably painful to listen to... it's hard thinking of the words for pilgrims and religious freedom and starvation and squash... but we got through it. Then my 9-11 year olds all gathered around my little board book, the kind you read to really little children... and they were so engaged. I thought, hah so funny. This book is so simple, but then again, even the simplest explanation of Thanksgiving in English is really, really difficult for them. They thought the pictures were cool and asked if we still dressed up like Pilgrims and Indians. (Murielle actually asked if I'd be dressed up on Thanksgiving lol).

And then to finish up with this group, we switched gears to explaining the regular American school day because we got into a little discussion about how many days we get off for Thanksgiving... and the kids realized that American children go to school 5 days a week instead of 4 on a regular basis. Murielle was appalled that we only got 30 minutes for lunch. The kids thought it was so cool that American children get to bring their lunch to school (one kid even shouted out, "It's like a picnic!"). And even though the kids in America get much less break time during school hours, my French students thought it would be pretty awesome to end the day so early (they don't finish until 4:30 here, but granted they do get a 2 hour lunch break and 2 recesses).

At lunchtime, Murielle showed me all around the maternelle (pre-k classrooms), which becomes part of the after school childcare. She said that children start here in preschool as early as 2 and a half! She also explained that her own kids (she has 3 ranging in age from 2-6) have to go to the babysitters until 6:30 or 7pm because she gets paid to stay much later than the other teachers... which lead us to talking about if I was ever free to babysit (which obviously I said yes). So we'll see if she ever needs me, but I've already met her kids and it would be so much fun if I got to babysit them. I'd even work for free, if there was some sort of French meal involved of course:)

Besides the tour of the maternelle, I thought lunch was much less awkward than usual. Even though I mumbled through a few comments, I was at least involved in the conversation, as opposed to just pretending to understand what was going on. I also shared some of my pumpkin bread with them... which got them talking about all the things they were going to make for me:) What a great idea it was to share such an American delicacy: Pillsbury Quick Pumpkin Bread Mix. Yumz!

And now I'm home... I don't want to go back out to make more copies of my very important documents, but I need 2 more for tomorrow, just to be safe. Ugh, I can't wait until this darn visa process is over!

Reste cool mes amis:)