Kinder-horrors

Song sheet plus Artwork for Itsy, Bitsy Spider
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Actually thats probably not a very fair title.. They're really not all that bad!

The last week was very easy as the Kindergarten had it's Spring Break. And while that doesn't involve the students heading for the coast of a week of drinking and debauchery a la American collegers it nevertheless gave me an easy week of no morning classes. Alas though, no drinking and debauchery for me. I still had work to do. Korea run their school years from March and it so the break gave us a chance to rearrange our classes accordingly. Students from each of my afternoon classes graduated into the next level up, freeing up my 2pm class for a new intake of first graders.

Every morning at 10, they come charging up the stairs into the classrooms and don't stop for a single second.

This was a huge favourite: 10 little penguins. Every week I had to draw in some more tiny little animals for them to find. I admit to stretching it a bit and adding pictures of snowmen and telephones.
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Back to the Kindy.. At 10am every day I teach the "elite" class. What this basically entails is a class of up to 10 students whose parents want them to have more intensive English lessons with an English teacher. They are split into two classes which Eun-Gyeong and I alternate each week. So far so good, but they are horrors. I seem to be having particular difficulty in keeping them under control. Obviously the language barrier doesn't help (so, so much for the benefit of having a real-life English speaker). Every morning at 10, they come charging up the stairs into the classrooms and don't stop for a single second. It as if someone released a bunch of Duracell bunnies on Red Bull.

The old classic, Wheels on the Bus
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Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday I have classes over in the Kindergarten itself. They have about 8 classes, the kids are assigned according to age range and each class has a colour for its name. During the break our classes here were also rearranged so I've gone from a greeny-purpley range of classes (Green, Violet, Pink, Purple) to a more pale yellowy one..(White, Orange, Yellow)..;-) White is the scariest (!) as they are brand new to the school and only about 3yrs old. On my first day in that class, I walked in, they took one look at me and started howling. They didn't stop for the entire 20 minutes.. I didn't expect them to be so small and so my introductory story book of how "Cinderella dresses in Yellow" wasn't appropriate... Yellow & Orange are 4 & 5 yrs old, so old hands at the Kindy game. Some of them I recognised from before the shuffle round and so I was greeted with plenty of "Hi Jen". Phew..

A definite favourite of the tiny 3 yr olds. It was a huge accomplishment to hear them ask for this song in class!
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Monday is story day, and also when I try to teach them any new vocabulary. Wednesday is Phonics, so lots of chanting the alphabet.. and Friday is song day. I feel quite fortunate that the kids are young enough not to recognise tone deafness when they hear it, but to be on the safe side I try to go for songs that they are guaranteed to know, to save on the embarrassment of being the only one singing...