Wow, am I tired. This has been a long week, but it has been a week of wonderful things happening. October, for those who are not in the know has a week off on the first week for China’s birthday celebration, which left us with class starting on Saturday all the way through to Friday. Yes you read that right, 7 days of school back to back. And it has been a busy one.

To begin with we set the date for our visit to a Senior Centre (October 18^th). Which is why we started practicing some songs to sing there. The children have been practicing a beautiful Chinese song about a momma bird and her chicks. They have a song that is called “Hello How are you.” Both are fun songs chosen by their music teacher. I chose to sing “I love you” from the Barney TV Series. (Non- parents might want to shoot me now) because the meaning is really lovely, and the pace is fairly easy. We also chose “You tickly me” from Sesame street. This is a lively and fun song, but it also challenges the kids to practice speaking / singing faster with their English. I wanted at least 1 song that proved that we are trying to challenge the kids’ language abilities. This does that, and the kids love it.

We introduced Halloween to the students. Their name tags on their desks have all been changed to bats, ghosts, zombies, monsters, werewolves, witches and more. They really liked that, we also had them color some Halloween pictures for our displays out in the hall. The remainder I will put inside the classroom. The students who stay with me on Wednesdays (This week Saturday and Wednesday) after school got to learn more, and play some Halloween games in class. I read them a couple Halloween stories, and they played a monster match-em game.

This week was the beginning of the Parent teacher meetings (Or parent teacher conferences in Canada). We had an average of 3 parents a day on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. We have had a good time discussing each child and looking at their books. At this time it is ok for parents or teachers to raise any concerns they have about the child. This has been interesting to implement, because the standard Chinese way of doing these things (Which has always driven me crazy) is the whole class’s parents arrive on 1 day and the teachers talk at the parents, who are expected to sit, and be quiet. Then they go home. There is no interaction, there is no looking over the work together to discuss difficulties. We are trying to form a partnership with parents and that means both sides (Inside school, and outside) must work together for the best educational plan for each child.

This week the local government came to our school. They have been videoing at least 1 class from every program in every private school in the Chaoyang area. This was not what I expected. They didn’t video a whole lesson, but 5 minutes of a lesson, then they asked to do the same for a Chinese lesson. It seemed a bit impractical to me, but if it makes our school look good in the eyes of the local government, you have to do it.

We spent the preparation time for the video rearranging the class, and the students loved it. We now have our class library carpet down. (It arrived last year and I have been trying to figure out where to put it since.) We have a really nice library set up at the back and our toothbrush center and other supplies have been organized better. I love it, the kids have adapted well to it.

This week was our first “Mommy Lunch” from the new program. What a “Mommy lunch” is, is every Friday, we let a couple parents into the school to cook up something special for the class. This week (Being the first week) we had 6 chefs. Farrel’s Mother, Amy’s mother, Mickey’s mother, Zack’s mother, Fifi’s mother, and Felix’s mother. They cooked up a wonderful lunch for us that had lollipop and flower shaped breads, shrimp, fish and a lot of other delicious food. The kitchen classroom looked like a fancy dining hall from a hotel or restaurant. They had nice music playing, and the kids loved it. I got jokingly called a King by 2 different teachers. Other staff and students who wandered by the room gawked as they looked in in surprise.

On Friday Morning, George’s mother donated some books to the class library. They were all nice looking books and the children were quite excited to dig into them during reading time.

We had a class on how to use some of the functions of Raz-Kids in computer class. Including how to record the stories and send them off to me. What a “flight check” was and what to do in it. The kids were surprised to find out that I can listen to their stories from home when they read them. They thought this was just great, and some of them tried to send me stories from in class.

Today, the last day I will write about this week, even though it is Sunday again, we went to see Disney on Ice. Nearly the whole class went. We were joined by my family and our Director, Ms. Peng’s youngest daughter as well. It was awesome. We sang our songs on the bus to practice, when we got there, there was 3 layers of security. We had people check our tickets to get into the courtyard of the arena, another group of people verifying our tickets were real just to go up the stairs, (with little scanners), then someone receiving the tickets at the top of the stairs where we went through metal detectors and x-ray machines. At this point all of us found a place to eat. We found some chairs to sit at and pulled out our lunches. It’s strange because at arenas like this in Canada and America there is a concession stand or food booths. We didn’t see any of those. We saw a lot of Disney toys being sold (At 5 times regular store price) but no food or drink sold. When we got in, our seat were up far away from the ice, but shortly after the show started some people from the arena invited our class to move much closer to the ice to see better, that was nice of them.

Tomorrow is the start of a new school week, so I will leave you all to rest. I hope you enjoyed this week, even though it was long, and I will see you in the morning.

September’s done, and it has been a pretty busy month. The children were introduced to a lot of new things, some new culture, some new skills. We got them out of the standard box-like classroom. This month we introduced the children to each other, they have forged friendships. The students have begun to understand the classroom rules. The students have gotten used to their desks, and classroom facilities. The kids have learned phonics, sight-reading, vocabulary, culture, and diversity. They have learned about change. They learned swimming, baseball, football, roller-skating and basketball skills. We have learned about Chinese culture and historical locations. We learned about organic farming. We learned about How to use a tablet computer. We learned how to make mooncakes. There has been a lot of learning. October has arrived and this month we have Parent Teacher Meetings, Play practice, Halloween, and more experiments.

Rules & Culture

Parent Teacher Meetings

October Holiday Homework

Programs used in Class.

New Culture:

    Anyone who has seen the classroom has noticed that it is different than other classes. Not just physically different, but culturally different. We are a mixed culture classroom, there are still aspects of Chinese culture in the class that are needed for when our students interact with other classes, but for the most part it is an American class culture. Interactive is the term used by most North American classroom teachers nowadays. Get the children involved. .In science class, we have discussions (Children can use their Chinese and have it translated at this point). They had one hands on experiment so far, in which they tried to block light from a torch. In writing class, they wrote their phonics and sentences, then they got to draw the meaning of one of their sentences to show understanding. In social studies they do a daily show & tell, where they learn both speaking skills, and audience skills.

    The classroom we are building together is a more open class, but it is a class built upon respect. Below are our classroom rules we have discussed. And the reason why for each.

1. Do Not Hit: This is rule number 1. It is for safety reasons mainly. This involves punching and kicking. I feel every class in the world should follow this rule, but sadly I am not the majority. Hitting, or pretending to hit others is a violent behaviour and I want the children to grow up finding other means to solve their problems. In the case of play fighting, I have seen many times where kids are pretending to punch and kick at each other, and 1 child underestimates the distance between them and actually hurts the other child. By kicking them in the eye, or face. I know the heroes of stories and (my favourite), Superheroes do a lot of exciting fighting, but I want the children to understand that this is done when all other options are exhausted.

1. Do Not Push: This is a rule I strongly urge kids to follow. Pushing, can cause children to fall, and hurt themselves, inside the classroom and outside the classroom. It tells the person that is being pushed that you feel that you are more important than them, and this is not the type of citizens we want inheriting the world. There have been cases world wide, (Even in our own school in the past) where a child has pushed another kid, and they fell off the play ground equipment, or fell into a sign or other obsticle and got hurt badly. Where this is not as bad as hitting, it is still important. Both I and the children realize that this can happen by accident, and when that happens we have practiced apologizing to each other.

1. Sit Up Straight: This rule has 2 reasons behind it. On the one hand, it is bad for anyone to be slouching. It hurts their back, and makes it harder for them to pay attention, or be active later. Slouching (or laying on your desk) also show the person who is talking to you that you are not interested in them and that they are not important. Sitting up straight shows people that you are interested in what they are saying, and that you feel that they are worth listening to. This is a harder one for children to follow at the younger ages, because their attention span is much smaller than adults, but it is an important habit to get into as the older you get the harder it is to get used to doing.

1. Push Your Chair In: This is simple respect for the class. It can be hard to move around the room with too many chairs in the aisles.

1. Help friends: I noticed in my years in China, and Korea that when a child has a difficulty, their first response (And many time their only willing response) is to run to a parent or a teacher for help. While this is great it can sometimes be a bit overwhelming for the adult. In Canada & North America, children ask each other for help first, then if they still cannot find an answer, they ask the adults. This is more of a guideline than a rule in class, but I am trying to nourish this attitude of helping each other first.

1. Look at who is talking: this is a courtesy more than a rule. It is considered rude to turn your back to someone who is talking to you. I again am trying to foster polite habits in the children

1. Quietly line up: While our class is off on adventures, and amazing outside lessons, there are other classes in the school who are stuck indoors. We have baseball, football, swimming, Wester P.E., and roller skating. We have lunches in the cafeteria, while the other grade 1 classes are eating in their classrooms. We are out of our classroom a lot. And while this is good for us, if we are disrupting other classes in the school by being too noisy it reflects badly on us as a class. So, as a courtesy to the rest of the school: we are quiet in the hallways, and line up quietly. (Outside is free to talk.)

1. Work together: This is similar to Rule #5, but when we work together, it means we share our equipment, we help each other. We do not go anywhere unless everyone is together.

1. Hands Up: this is again, a courtesy more than a rule that I want the children to learn. Sometimes the children get excited over lessons, and they all want to talk and add more to the discussion, but of course we can’t hear 25 voices at once. So I ask that they put their hands up in these situations. Calling out can be quite noisy, and it interrupts the current speaker.

1. Everyone from everywhere is equal: This is a North American Rule. We all have different skin colors, and features. Making jokes about these will not be tolerated. It is rude, and it make some people feel upset that their “different” from the others. We talked about how different is good in class, but I would like to expand upon this more as we go.

1. No outside food or drink: This is both a school rule at Zhong De and a North American Rule. This is a safety rule and a hygiene rule. When a child brings snacks to class first thing they want to do is share with their friends. This seems nice, but usually they have enough for a few friends but not everyone. Also, most children do not know if the food they are sharing will cause an allergic reaction in another student. In North America it is so serious, that some students can’t be near certain foods because of their allergy. Even if children do not share their food but eat their snacks alone, they tend to hide the wrappers or left overs (To not get caught eating in class….) but these wrappers and left overs can attract flies and ants into the room. We are trying to avoid this.

Parent Teacher Meetings:

Parent teacher meetings are not the same s the Parent teacher Association. The Parent Teacher Association (PTA) is used to discuss events and classroom activities as a group. The Parent Teacher Meeting (PTM) is an opportunity for a child’s family to come in and discuss their child’s education directly with the teacher. In America this is a one on one meeting (1 parent & 1 teacher). However we are going to be doing things a little differently. One or two parents can come to the meeting, and they will get the chance to discuss with all of the teachers. PTM’s are usually between 15 and 25 minutes. There is a format we follow to make sure that everything is covered.

When a parent arrives, they will great each other, then the teachers will spend a moment showing the parents what the child is doing well at. After this Parents can discuss activities they would like their child involved in related. (If Little Suzie is doing well in “Show and Tell” the parents might tell us that she has always been this way, and suggest she do a speaking part during the play festivals.) After this we will look at what the child is struggling with. We will discuss possible reasons the child is struggling with the subject and possible ways to help (If Little Suzie is having trouble writing, we might suggest some handwriting practice at home, and the parents might ask that we give her time at break time to do some practice.) After this the parents will get the chance to look at the student’s workbooks and notebooks and ask a few questions before we finish. Then the next parents will come in.

You will be able to schedule a meeting during regular school days in October. Meeting times will be between 5:00~6:00

October Holiday Homework:

In English Class on September 29^th ~30^th we read “I Met Ted” in Class. I sent a video of myself reading it in the WeChat group. I asked that each child read me the Story by WeChat. It has to be finished before the 7^th of October.

In addition to “I Met Ted” I asked that each child read at least 1 story from the RAZ-Kids Stories every day. I am able to log in to the app and see who was unable to log in, and what books you have read. The reason I chose RAZ Kids is it allows teachers to manage what the kids are reading, and it lets us hear you read when you do the Practice reading or reading assessments.

Since October 10^th is Columbus day, we will be learning about exploring, and I’d like to see that the children did a bit of that during their time off. Explorers find new things, so I’d like to see what types of things the children can find during their exploring.

We are learning about energy in science class, we talked about how light and sound are bot energies. A fun way to show sound is to make a paper cup telephone. To make this you need 2 paper cups, 2 paperclips and at least 3 meters of string. (The thicker the better.)

1. Poke a small hole in the bottom of each cup
   
2. Put the string into the hole of one cup, so that the end is inside the cup.
   
3. Tie the end of the string to a paperclip.
   
4. Put the string through the hole in the bottom of the other cup, so that the end is inside the cup.
   
5. Ties this end to a paperclip.
   
6. Pull the string so that the paperclip is on the bottom of the cup.
   
7. Hold the cups so that the string is tight, and talk through the cup to the person on the other cup.
   

In Social Studies we will also be learning about community, and how to help the community, the focus is on “helping” and that a community can be as small as a family or as big as a country. We will be making a bulletin board display based upon helping around the middle of October. So please take pictures of when the children are helping around the house, or in the community.

Programs

All of the programs are available on the APK-Pure Market for Android.
Other markets have varying results. The iTunes market seems pretty stable for iPads & iPhones.

We use the “Kids A-Z” App (Also called “Raz-Kids”) for reading.

School name: beijingzhongdeschool

We will be using “Skoolbo Common Core” near the end of October, and early November. It focuses on vocabulary, language skills, and maths mostly.

School Code: BD938FM

The other Apps that we use, while fun and educational do not allow the teacher to check up on a student’s progress, so I will not post them here for now.

The week of the 12th, although short was full of fun and surprises. The three day weeks can be a bit more hectic than the normal weeks, as we try to fit everything in. On Monday I taught the children the new words, and tried to fit Show & Tell in. I managed to get everyone in, but it left only a short time in the mornings for an introduction to new ideas like how to make “I am / I’m “sentences. We had some work on the alphabet, and learned how to thank and be thanked by people.

During P.E. we had basketball dribbling skills, where I had the students bouncing balls and jogging. I used our new footballs for this, as we have 25 of them, enough for each student to have a ball. Footballs don’t bounce as easily as Basketballs do, but they suit our purpose just fine. We continued this during the last week and added in bounce passing for the student to practice bouncing the ball back and forth to each other.

In science, we discussed the Energy of Light, and how to stop light. We did experiments with using different materials to change the light or stop it altogether dung the following week.

We learned how to make some basic strokes in calligraphy class, where I was able to test out a couple of my own strokes to the amusement of the students and Mr. Liu. Students are getting used to how to properly hold pencils and paper, which is a skill most of us don’t think about anymore, we just do it. But when your 6 years old, learning to write in any language, these things don’t come naturally to all.

In Baseball class the student got to do some batting practice, along with some base running. Everyone had a turn, including me. It was a lot of fun.

In Art class on the 13^th the children made Lanterns for their Lantern Festival. I didn’t get to see these until they were completed, but they looked lovely.

On Wednesday the 14^th, the children got to wear Red, Orange, and Brown colors instead of their Uniform. This was to celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival, They also got to make mooncakes! I can say I had never made mooncakes before that day, it was a lot of fun.

No matter how much fun that week was this past week made me more excited. This week, our English Library arrived for the back of the room, the children immediately took a liking to the books I chose, and spent time sharing stories with each other. They were so enthusiastic about the books, I had to create a class job for 2 students each do to tidy the class library, because the books would get so messed up, they would end up on the floor.

And speaking of jobs, I posted some class job signs on the front of the class, alternating the student names each day. They include so far: fetching the Yogurt for the class break, tidying the library, tidying the art section of the room, and cleaning the board. I didn’t imagine I’d have to put names on these, but we would actually have student argue over the right to do these jobs during the break time before, so I had to assign them just to keep the peace.

This week, the children start using their tablet computers to reinforce classes, they have only had the one class with them so far, but we talked about basic safety, and usage manners. They got to look over the programs, I need to set up each and every tablet on the classroom Wi-Fi next week. I had spent about 2 weeks installing the programs, but since I did it during the children’s other class periods they all have the office Wi-Fi set up. I will make available all the programs the children use for the parents to install for practice at home, if each family is interested.

We learned about how different people come from different places, and that different is not just normal, but good for the world. We talked about the countries we had been to, or are from, and colored flags from some of these countries, and areas.

We have had not 1 but two field trips. Thursday we went to Tiananmen Square, as an introduction to Chinese culture and Community for Social Studies class. We had a good time, if tiring. There was a lot of tourists there that day, both Chinese and foreign. The foreign tourists spoke to the kids and took pictures, the Chinese tourists, just took pictures. We had a lot of people ask how old the class was. And I tried to convince the student that my home was in the Forbidden City, but of course they were too smart for that.

Friday we went to learn about organic farming, and agriculture. We took a tour of a farm, just outside the city, they showed us how they grow the fruit and vegetables without chemicals. They let the children pick carrots, peanuts, pears, and some leafy vegetables, that I’m not sure of the English name for. Then the children got to play on an old style wooden playground. It was a lot of fun.