One of the complications of running an American Program in a Chinese school is that the students still have a lot of activities that are cross-program. Ceremonies, Morning exercises, and some subject classes require that the kids understand some of the commands in Chinese. This week also began the registration for after school clubs and classes. We met with a lot of new subjects, and teachers this week, and got the kids addicted to Hide and Seek at lunches.

Lining up, crossing arms, and standing at attention during ceremonies, these are things that I had actually forgotten I’d need to teach the kids the Chinese words for. Where I had been teaching the English commands for these things, I needed someone to teach the Chinese terms. Luckily I have 2 ladies on my team, Ms. Zhao, and Ms. Qian, who knew that the kids would need these, and taught them for me. I’m still trying to remember the Chinese words myself for these and it is nice for someone else to help out.

Luckily, another member of my team, Shirley, took on the responsibility of registration for the clubs and activities. On Friday Morning, she had no idea about any of the programs and she deftly learned everything she could about the available classes, to help the children and their parents choose appropriate clubs.

The kids had a slew of new classes Including their first Show and Tells. Most of the students took the opportunity to tell us all about their Holidays. Almost all of them did it in Chinese, this week, which is fine, as standing in front of your class and talking for 2 minutes is a terrifying experience for most. We got to see a lot of cool things brought in from photos of their holidays to a basket of cloth flowers, to a bottle of Salt water from the sea. It was quite entertaining.

On Monday lunch time I played Hide and Seek with the children, but there seems to be some cultural differences between Canadian Hide and Seek and Chinese Hide and Seek. In Canada, 1 person is it. He counts, then tries to find the others. If they can get to the starting spot they are safe. The following game the first person found and tagged is the next “it”. The kids decided that if I caught them, they should catch people, and try to drag them over to me to catch the next person. I think we need to spend some time clarifying and talking about why this is a bad idea.

The kids had art and musical classes, and sports this week for the first time. They warmed up to the piano, singing and art teacher well. They learned how to handle rhythm and pace in a musical setting. They made hand painting pictures in Art Class. Some of the kids were not quite sure how to behave around Mr. Liu our Calligraphy teacher, but I believe they got off to a good start. They played baseball, football, and went swimming. The children got to start a lot of cool sports this week.

We spent some time on lunch-room etiquette, and how to be polite to the staff in the cafeteria. The students will be picking up their own lunches from the lunch line next week and we wanted to be sure there wasn’t going to be any difficulty for them. We shall find out this week.