playground moments

Life has been rather hectic with school changes, weekend travel, and a teacher's conference at Jeju-do, a Korean island to the southeast of the main peninsula. But in the midst of the chaos, I have a couple of stories from teaching. Enjoy!!

There are two girls in my sixth grade class who have taken to giving me random pieces of candy, or chilling in my room during school breaks. They are delightful to chat with, despite my having to request that they do not practice the recorder while I am lesson planning. One of the girls came up to me after one class and gave me this following picture. It definitely made my day!!


A couple of days ago, after a particularly trying class, I was frustrated with certain circumstances. I figured maybe I could just go hang out with my first graders, who were playing on the school's jungle gym. The students were very surprised that "Miss Joelle" was coming outside and made a big deal over my sun glasses (which I let them try on). I had flashbacks to elementary school when I climbed on the jungle gym with the kids and did flips on the pull-up bars. Let's just say that doing flips on the bars is a little more painful now....

A final fun moment with my students this week was when I brought my frisbee to school. I grabbed a couple of my not-so-obedient second graders and taught them how to throw (and say the name of) a frisbee. Hopefully some of that camaraderie will carry into our next class together.

Right now, life is great. I love my students, my host family, and my friends. I am super-excited that the weather is getting warmer (yay for spring!!) and the flowers are making an appearance. We will see what the next couple of months have in store.