Teaching Week 6: Thanksgiving and Coloring

This week is Thanksgiving Week and it was weird to not have the week off... 

Tuesday, I taught four classes. In the first class, I taught a little Thanksgiving history. The students had a worksheet where they had to write the correct thanksgiving vocabulary word under each picture. In the second class, the kids continued to work on presenting themselves. Some students came up and presented themselves in front of the class (name, age, siblings, phone number, etc). Then, I talked about Thanksgiving. I even explained that many schools are out the entire week and the teacher got jealous, lol. She joked around with the class saying that we should all move to the US because they are on vacation now... all of the kids agreed haha. After that class, we had recess, so that means cookies and tea at this school! Yum!

My usual third class of the day swapped times with my fourth class because my third class went to visit a museum during the usual time I am there.

In the third class, I talked about typical Thanksgiving food. The kids got pictures of the food and they glued them in their english notebooks. In my fourth class, I talked about the history of Thanksgiving. I talked about the Pilgrims and Native Americans and how they helped each other. One kid raises her hand to add, “well they weren’t always nice to each other...the people that came to America fought with the Indians... and the Indians were put in cages like sheep!” It was an interesting comment from a 6 year old... I wasn't exactly sure how to respond but I did tell her that she was right about the the fact that they weren't always peaceful with the Natives. After the history lesson, the kids did an activity where they got to label a turkey (head, feet, etc). This helped them review parts of the body as well as learn new parts of birds (beak, wing, feathers). The kids enjoyed cutting and pasting the labels. Then, we reviewed some Thanksgiving vocabulary words with a worksheet with images. I wrote all the words on the board and students took turns coming up and circling and reading the correct word for each picture. 

After that class, I went home, had lunch, and then had my Skype classes. In my first Skype class, I had my 5 little groups of 2-3 students. We reviewed clothes vocabulary with flashcards. Then we played a board game to review clothes vocabulary. I created a board game with images of different clothes and as the students rolled a dice, they would have to identify the item that they landed on. After the session, the teacher came to chat with my like always. She told me that the kids really look forward to the English Skype lesson with me each Tuesday afternoon! Hearing that made me feel good and I am glad the students are excited about learning English!

The second Skype class was in front of the entire class. I reviewed colors and animals with little pictures that I drew and colored. I showed the class the picture of the animal and they learned how to describe what color it was in a complete sentence. Then, I reviewed clothes vocabulary with flashcards by showing them the cards and having them tell me the correct word. Next, I modeled how to talk about what I was wearing. So then, each student came up and told me about 2-3 things that they were wearing. I asked each one, “What are you wearing?” and they responded with, “I’m wearing...” It was a little repetitive, but it was good speaking practice for the kids. After that, we had a few minutes left, so then I took some questions from the kids. One asked how to say belt, and another asked how to say boy’s underwear (boxers). 

On Wednesday, I taught three classes, but only one was my usual class. My first class was my usual class, but the other two went to some exposition or presentation in town. I helped out in two younger classes at the school instead of going to the usual two older classes. In the first class, I talked about the traditions and history of Thanksgiving. Then, the kids completed a Thanksgiving vocabulary worksheet. I wrote the vocabulary words on the board and the kids came up, circled, and read the words. Next, we reviewed colors and they did a color by number turkey. At first, some of the kids thought it was a peacock...lol. One kid in particular got creative with his coloring... check out his turkey!

He's got some interesting eyes...

In the second class, I taught little kids who were about 5-6 years old. I taught them colors by showing them little animal flashcards that I made. Then, I gave each student an animal card and they came up in front of the class and described the colors in English. After the lesson, some kids thanked me, and told me that they had fun learning some english today! Moments like this really make me enjoy my job even more :). 

Then came recess...it was very cold. Next, came my last class of the day. I helped out in a class of 6-7 year olds. We taught them about feelings and how to say, “How are you?” We put flashcards with images of people feeling a certain way on the board. Then, we played Simon Says with the feelings and the kids had to mime a certain feeling when I told them to. The kids thought this was pretty fun!

In the evening, Kate, Kim, Fatima, and I went out for dinner at an Italian restaurant. It was nice to chat together and to catch up with Fatima. I had some pizza and it was pretty good.

Cheese, mushroom, and ham pizza

Thursday was Thanksgiving! I spent it teaching four classes about Thanksgiving. In the first class (6-7 year olds), I reviewed colors and I talked about the history of Thanksgiving. Then, they colored a color by number turkey, but with out the coloring key. I cut off the key so that I could tell them verbally what color to use and where to color to see if they understand. About halfway through, I gave them the coloring key and they tried to figure out what color was what. In the second class (5-6 year olds), I did the same activity as in the first class. This time, I had a giant image of the color by number turkey as well as color notecards on the board so that I could point at the part of the body they needed to color as well as the color if they got stuck. 

Then came recess, so I made some photocopies for my last class and had a quick cup of tea. In the third class, (7-8 year olds) I did the same activity, but while coloring, the kids had to answer questions about the picture. For example, “What color is the beak?” They would answer, “The beak is red.” This activity got them talking and using their english color vocabulary.

After that class, I went back home for lunch. Around 1 20pm I took a bus to my last school of the day. The school put up a Santa Claus! Decorations like this really make me think that Christmas is coming soon!

Santa on Thanksgiving!

First, I reviewed clothes vocabulary with the students by showing them clothes flashcards. Then, each student came up one by one and described what they were wearing. Next, I talked about the history of Thanksgiving. We completed the Thanksgiving vocabulary worksheet as a class. I wrote the words on the board and the students had to come up, circle, and read the words. Next, I reviewed the colors by showing them different colored chalk. Then, the students completed the color by number. As they worked on that, I wrote sentences on the board that described that colors of the parts of the turkey such as, “The feet are....” The students had to look at their picture and complete the sentences with the right color. 

Thursday afternoon marks the beginning of my weekend,

Magdalena

Weekend in Macon...Mâcon, France

This weekend I visited a friend that I met at UGA named Raphaël who lives near Mâcon (which is not to be confused with Macon, Georgia lol).

I got there at about 10am on Saturday morning and Raph met me at the station. He showed me around the city. One of the first things I saw in the city was the Church Saint-Pierre. I also saw some other cool stuff like a wood building that is really old and famous around here. 

Side of the church

Front of the church

Wood House "La Maison de Bois"

Raph and I stopped by this cool bakery that is well-known in Mâcon. It was decorated so nicely! We got a cake there called the Maconnais which is something famous in this region. It's a very sweet, buttery cake.

Pretty pink bakery

Here are the Maconnais cakes with sugar on top

After the bakery, we walked around some more. I saw the river Saône which passes through the city. There were some interesting stone chairs nearby so I had to test one out. 

by the Saône

Testing out a "comfy" stone chair

After the walk, we went to a nearby restaurant for some lunch. We had a three course lunch. For the appetizer, I had this seafood soup. It was interesting... I don’t really eat much seafood so the taste was a little strange for me. It was a mix of crawfish, mussels... and some other mystery seafood. Raph picked a salad that looked rather good. For the main dish, I selected chicken with mushrooms, potatoes, and zucchini. I enjoyed the main course more than the appetizer. The dessert was the best of all though. I had a chocolate lava cake...mmmmmm. It was really good!

Raph with his french salad and bread

Me with my delicious dessert!

After this big lunch, we walked back to the car and then drove to visit a friend of Raph’s. His friend is an animal breeder and he has tons of cool animals. He has tons of tarantulas, spiders, scorpions, snakes, lizards, chameleons, etc. I got to hold some of the animals and it was pretty cool! I got to hold a snake and two chameleons. The first chameleon was pretty gentle and it walked on your hands by gripping gently with its legs. It was obsessed with my bracelet though. It kept looking at it and sticking its tongue  out trying to taste it I think haha. The second chameleon had a stronger grip and longer nails lol. He was a little fussy at the beginning too. I never heard a chameleon hiss before and it was strange to hear that sound come from it. It was also cool to watch the chameleons change colors. They did so very gradually. Unfortunately, they cannot turn into every color (just a few and it depends on their mood). 

Raph's friend holding a snake

He was very interested in my bracelet...too interested lol

Here I am holding the calm chameleon. He is looking straight at the camera.

There was also this awesome cute little mexican lizard there that was very hyper. It would try to get out of its cage by flailing around. It seemed like it was waving at you while it did it so it was very entertaining. I even took a video of it and it started to flail (wave) after it saw me wave haha. I may upload that video to Facebook soon when I get some time.

Cute hyper Mexican lizard

I really enjoyed seeing the animals and Raph’s friend taught us about the different animals which was cool as well. For example, he taught us about how to tell if scorpions are venomous or not. He explained that there are two kinds of scorpions, ones that use their  pincers to hunt/attack and ones that use the poison in their tails. Those that have big, muscular pincers are most likely not venomous (they will also most likely have a rather thin, frail tail) and those with little pincers are most likely the ones that are poisonous (they will have thicker, more muscular looking tails). 

After the visit, Raph and I went back to his house for dinner. We had snails and salad.

This was my second time eating snails and this time I found that they were a lot tastier. These snails were covered in a butter, garlic, and parsley. I can’t believe I ate a dozen!

Here are the snails hidden by sauce of butter, garlic, and parsley...mmm

The sauce was really good with some bread as well....yum! Then, we watched a movie called: The Untouchables in french.

On Sunday, we went to La Roche de Solutré which was an old hunting site (over 25, 000 years ago). Hunters would trap and kill horses and deer at the foot of this cliff. Many horse bones have been found at the foot of the cliff. There is a legend that the horses were driven off the cliff by the hunters but that was proven to be false. 

La Roche de la Solutré

Here it is again

Maybe halfway up... you can see a lot of vineyards and a small village

We walked all the way to the top of it. It didn’t take too long, but it was pretty chilly and windy. We got a nice view from the top though! It was really high up. We could see a lot of vineyards in this area and even places that still had some snow left!

This is at the top!

After that, we drove to a city called Cluny. The road was windy and this area was still covered in snow. On the way we ran into some obstacles...those obstacles being cows. There were two cows loose on the road. We weren’t quite sure what to do. Luckily cow 1 was smart and just moved over... the same cannot be said for cow 2. This cow just stared at us, and then continued walking in the middle of the road for quite a while. Eventually, it moved over when it saw a patch of grass...

Runaway cows

 When we got to Cluny, we got some lunch at a Kebab place. Then, we met up with Raph’s friend Ben for tea/coffee. Afterwards, Ben gave us a little tour of the city and the Abbey that once existed here. It was the largest church in the world (until St. Peter’s Basilica was built) but unfortunately the majority of it was destroyed and the stones were sold to different builders during the french revolution.

Here is where the entrance used to be

This tower is one of the few things that remains from the original

Next, we went to another city called Cormatin and we visited the castle there. The castle had some nice gardens which we explored. There were bushed that were made into cute animals. There was even a maze that we went through.

Castle Cormatin

Animal bushes

You can see part of the maze and castle from the center of the maze

Ben used to be a tour guide there, so he gave us an (almost) private tour of the place. Two other girls showed us for a tour as well. It was a nice little castle and some of the rooms had really intricate and detailed walls and ceilings.

Very detailed wall and ceiling

After the castle visit, we stopped by a nearby cafe for some tea/coffee. Then, we said good bye to Ben and headed off home for dinner with Raph’s family. We had chicken, potatoes, and green beans covered by a sauce! It was really delicious! After that, we had cheese and dessert. For dessert, we had the Praluline (which is a cake from Roanne that I brought) and a Maconnais (which is a typical cake of Mâcon). We had a good, long dinner. I had some good conversations with Raph and his parents. They were really welcoming and friendly! 

On Monday, Raph and I went to some stores around town. I started to do a little christmas shopping :). Then, we had lunch at McDonald’s. After lunch, Raph took me to the train station. We got there a bit early, so we had a tea/coffee as we waited for the train to arrive. Then, I took the train back to Roanne. I was back at the apartment at about 4 30pm. 

I know I say this every time but, it’s always awesome to see UGA friends! Also, I had a good time visiting Mâcon and the surrounding area!

Back to work tomorrow,

Magdalena

Teaching Week 5 and Snow in Roanne!

Tuesday, it was rainy and chilly. I worked in four classrooms in the morning. My first lesson was cut short because a speaker came to talk to kids about racism. Before the speaker came, the students completed a worksheet on parts of the body as a class. Then, we played Simon Says with different commands (the theme being parts of the body: point to your nose, point to your foot, etc.). The kids enjoyed playing that game. In  the second class, the students corrected a parts of the body worksheet and then we continued to have students present themselves to the class. They learned how to talk about what pets they have, where they live, and how to say their phone number. Then came recess! During recess, I had some tea and assorted chocolate cookies from the principal. She always has a new treat every time for all of the teachers. 

After recess, I went to the third class, which is filled with 6-7 year olds. We reviewed a parts of the body worksheet and played Simon Says. At the end of the lesson, I introduced Thanksgiving and showed some images of typical Thanksgiving food. I started to tell them that kids in the US have that day off of school, and sometimes they even have the entire week off. After I told them that, they got really excited and I wasn’t sure why. I quickly figured it out though. The kids thought that they weren’t going to have to come to school during Thanksgiving as well haha! The teacher and I quickly reiterated that only kids in America have the week off and the kids showed their disappointment with a loud "awwww". In the fourth class, the students finished labeling the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans on their maps. Then, I showed the class a powerpoint on American Food that I made which showed typical American breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert food. 

I got a ride home from a teacher and then had lunch at the high school cafeteria with Kate and Kim. It was another satisfying lunch. This time I had some chicken, veggies, and blueberry tart. 

Pretty good school lunch

After lunch, I had two Skype classes. In the first class, I reviewed colors with them by showing them random things in my room. Then, I had them talk about the colors of their clothes. Then, I started to teach them some clothes vocabulary. I didn’t have much time though because I have only an hour to teach 11 students and I see them in groups of 2-3 at a time. So that leaves me about 12 minutes for each group. 

In the second Skype session, I worked with the entire class. For the first few minutes, I showed them letters of the alphabet and they had to identify them in english. Then, I reviewed the colors with them by showing them random stuff from my room. I played a quick color bingo with the class. The kids all randomly wrote down four colors on a piece of paper. Then, I proceeded to call out random colors until someone had all four of their colors called. The winner said “bingo” and then they read out their colors to me in english so that they could practice their pronunciation. For the second round, a student came up and called the colors. I would show this students an object that was a certain color and they would have to call out that color. Then, I spelled out the colors and the students had to figure out the color that I spelled. At the end, I introduced clothes vocabulary by showing the students flash cards. I had the students repeat the names of the articles of clothing as well as sketch a quick picture of the item.

On Wednesday, I woke up and it was snowing! It didn’t snow a whole lot, but it was still exciting to see it!

Snow!

I taught three classes today. In the first class, I reviewed snow vocabulary because of the weather. The kids were really excited about the snow so they were a bit more rowdy than usual. In this class, I worked with half of the class  and they reviewed how to present their families and how to ask/answer the questions: “What’s your name?”, “How are you?” and “How old are you?” The kids all received a little notecard with name, age, and smiley depicting a feeling. The kids went around and asked/answered these three questions to each other. Then, I had them sit on the floor while I reread “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” This time they read along with me and had to identify the colors and animals. 

In the second class, I also started off by reviewing snow vocabulary (snowball, snowman, winter clothes, etc.). Then I worked with half of the class for the rest of the session. This time, I had them sit in a circle on the floor for the activities. This allowed me to better monitor the kids and it made it easier for me to make sure the kids were paying attention. They behaved pretty well in a circle so I think I am going to try to continue this practice. In this class, I also did the same activity with the little notecards that reviewed “What’s your name?”, “How are you?”, and “How old are you?”. Then, we went around the circle and everyone presented their drawing of their family. After this class, the kids had recess, and it was still snowing! Unfortunately, the snow quickly turned to water when it touched the ground.

In the third class, we reviewed the numbers 1-100. I told them a number and they had to write it on their dry erase boards. Then, we went over a worksheet which had rules about how to say and write the numbers. 

After that, I took the bus back and met up with Kate in town. We got some grocery shopping done, but it was a tough walk back in the cold. When we got back, we had lunch, and then I headed out to get some fruits and veggies at this cute little shop called “the little pea.” This little store was on strike for the past week I think, so I had to go the first day it reopened. I really like the freshness of the produce here. 

On Thursday morning, a teacher drove me to work. Whoo! I worked with the three oldest grades at the school today. In the first class, I talked about the differences between an America breakfast, English breakfast, and French breakfast. I showed the kids a few pictures of typical american breakfast food and the teacher had pictures of typical English and French breakfasts already. Then, the kids took turns saying what they had for breakfast today.

In the second class, I talked about Halloween (yes I know it’s been almost a month-but this teacher really wanted me to present about it lol). I taught kids about “Trick or Treating” and Jack O’Lanterns. Then I taught them some Halloween Vocabulary like pumpkin, witch, ghost, etc. They they did an activity where they wrote out what happens on Halloween based on the picures on the worksheet. Then the kids had recess, and I went to the teachers lounge for a cup of tea with two other teachers. 

In the third class, I talked about typical food eaten at Thanksgiving. Then, the kids translated them and wrote the words in their notebooks. Then, they practiced questions like, “Do you like...?” and answers like, “Yes, I like...” or “No, I don’t like...” with the different Thanksgiving food. Then I taught more random food vocabulary using flashcards. Then, they played a game where the class was split into two teams and they had to correctly say the name of the food on the flashcard in english. Then we played another game where we had three students come up and get one notecard each. The rest of the class had to ask them “Do you like...?” until they figured out which food was on their flashcard. At the end, I taught the students the months of the year Macarena song. It is something I remember doing in the US while helping out in schools there. It is just doing the Macarena while singing the months of the year. The kids and the teacher really seemed to like it! At the end of the day I got a ride home from the same teacher as in the morning.

I had lunch back at the apartment, and then I headed to another school for an hour long lesson. In this class, they worked on a worksheet on the parts of the body. We completed it as a class to make sure everyone was getting the vocabulary down. For the second half of the session, we reviewed clothes vocabulary. I had 21 pictures of different articles of clothing and I showed them all to the class and had them repeat after me a few times. Then, we played a game called, “I Have, Who Has?” I gave each student a picture (I am lucky that there are only 21 students- I had exactly enough pictures!) and I wrote all of the words on the chalkboard as well as the prompts: “I have...” and “Who has...?”. So, I started off by asking, “Who has a dress?” and then the student with that picture responded, “I have a dress.” Then I would circle that word on the board to show it has already been said. Then the student would ask the class, “Who has...? They can pick any word from the board that hasn’t already been circled. This went on until everyone had a turn. The students and the teacher seemed to really enjoy this game! There were a few funny parts during this lesson. For example, there were a few laughs when I showed the kids a picture of underwear...haha. 

Then I took the bus back, and later on that evening Kim’s boyfriend arrived to visit her. He is really nice and we all hung out together. I also learned how to make pesto salmon thanks to Kim! It turned out really yummy! First, you get something to cook it in (I just used aluminum foil) Next, you put the green beans on the foil and the salmon on the green beans. Then, you cover the salmon in pesto. Next, you add olive oil, lemon juice, and salt. Then you cover it tightly in aluminum foil and put it in a hot oven for about 25-30minutes. And voila!

Pesto Salmon

On Friday, I did some lesson planning and a little shopping in town. I bought a hat because it is started to get pretty cold here!

Hope it snows more here soon,

Magdalena

Churro Bouquet and French Hospitality

On Saturday, I slept in and then spent the afternoon in town with Kim. We looked around at a lot of shops and she helped me find a really nice sweater :). Then, Kim and I decided to try some churros from this food stand in town. There were two sizes small and large so we decided that it would be a good idea to share a large portion of churros. So we ordered the churros and waited in line for a bit. We saw the lady in front of us get her order and it looked like a large amount to me but it turned out that her’s was the small one! Kim and I both started to think that the small probably would have been good for us... but we had already ordered the large one and it was already in the process of getting cooked so it was too late to change our minds. Anyways, after a few minutes, we got our churros... and it was a lot! It looked like a bouquet of churros.

With the churro bouquet. It doesn't seem too big in the photo, but there were a lot of churros in there!

It was really cold outside so it was nice to eat something warm. I don’t think that these were the best churros though; I have had better in the US. 

On Sunday, I went to mass in the morning. It went well. The usual crowd was there; the old people, kids, and I haha. After mass, I came back to the apartment to get ready to go to lunch. Hector invited Kim, Kate, and I to a traditional french lunch with his family! The lunch was really delicious! We had chicken, rice, carrots, mushrooms, and leeks (I think it was kind of a Poule-au-Pot). Then, there was this really good sauce that covered it all...yummy! I really wish I could get the recipe! It was that good! I ate up all of my food and even cleaned my plate with a piece of baguette. Then, we had dessert. For dessert we had cooked pears in a sauce, chocolate mousse, and a cake that tasted like angel food cake. After that, we had some coffee/tea. It really had to be one of the best meals I have had in France so far. During the meal, we all got to chat together and Hector and his family were so nice and welcoming! 

After the meal, we went out and took a walk in the french countryside. It was pretty chilly, but I enjoyed the walk nonetheless. I got some nice photos of some french countryside.

Countryside

Here's the group walking along

Cows

Cows close-up

Field and trees

We were outside for a while, and we even got a little lost in the forest, but we made it back to the house! When we got back, we all warmed up with another cup of tea/coffee. Then we all chatted and sat by the fireplace. Then Hector took us back to our apartment because we had do some lesson planning. Overall, it was a great day and I am glad that we got to spend the afternoon with such as kind, welcoming family. 

In the evening, Kate and I watched this french movie called: Les Choristes (The Chorus). It was about the experiences of a music teacher at a boarding school for poorly behaved boys. The music in the film was very good and I would definitely recommend it!

On Monday, I got to sleep in and then I planned some lessons. Later on in the day, I got a little grocery shopping done and Kate and I went into town. Kate and I had tea with Jack in the afternoon and then I did some more lesson planning.

Back to work tomorrow,

Magdalena

Teaching Week 4 and The French Strike Again

So usually I work on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. This week I only worked on Tuesday and Wednesday so the recaps of those days at school are below. I didn’t work on Thursday because the teachers were on strike against the four and a half school day week. Before this year, all primary schools had Wednesdays off but this year some schools have started being open Wednesday mornings. Teachers and parents alike don’t really like having school on Wednesdays here. I think teachers like having Wednesdays off to prepare lessons but I do not know why parents like the Wednesdays off (maybe they are just used to it idk). Anyways, so I did not work Thursday because of this strike. I just slept in Thursday and tidied up the apartment.

On Tuesday I went to work as usual. I worked with four different classes. In the first class, we worked on labeling parts of the body with a worksheet. The kids got to cut and paste labels on a picture. Then, I introduced Thanksgiving and showed some pictures of typical Thanksgiving food. In the second class, the kids sang “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes song for their teacher (because she was absent last week). Then, we talked about how to present yourself (name, age, where we live, pets, siblings, etc.). The teacher and I modeled in front of the class. Then, the students wrote down their personal answers to these presentation questions so that they could present themselves in front of the class. After the second class we had recess, so I got a cup of tea and a short break. Then with the third class, we reviewed parts of the body and completed a worksheet as a class where students got to cut out and glue labels on a picture. The kids really seemed to enjoy this! In the fourth class, we talked about the map of the US. The kids found Georgia and colored it. Then, they labeled Atlanta on their maps. Next, they each got a picture of downtown Atlanta, and they labeled the buildings and city hall. After the fourth class, the teacher gave me a ride home! It is nice to not have to wait on the bus every time. 

After I got back to the apartment, I had lunch at the high school cafeteria with Kate and Kim. The lunches here are really good! They seem pretty healthy and balanced.

Chicken with a sauce, pasta, bread, salad, banana, mousse

After lunch, I had to prepare for my Skype classes that I have each Tuesday afternoon, but the internet at the apartment was messing up! I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to Skype with the schools, but then one of the rugby players, Tim, somehow helped us fix our Livebox (router) so I had internet! My first Skype class is usually at 1 30pm, so I was waiting for the school to connect. It turned out that the school had been having internet problems today as well! We ended up starting the Skype class about 30 minutes later than normal but the lesson went really well. I completed a worksheet about parts of the body with groups of 2-3 students at a time. Then the students practiced pointing and saying different parts of their body. After the first Skype class, I had a little break before my second one was supposed to start. The second one was scheduled for 3 30pm, but the school was having internet problems! I called the teacher and she told me that many places in France today were apparently having internet connection issues. Unfortunately, we couldn’t Skype but I had already emailed her the worksheets so she was able to do the parts of the body lesson with the class herself. 

In the evening, I went to my host family’s house for dinner. I helped cook dinner this time because they want me to learn some french recipes lol. I helped prepare a Beouf Bourguignon. It wasn’t too difficult and here’s what I remember as the recipe (I may have to just ask the host mom to write it down for me next time I see her). First, you saute some onions with olive oil. Next, you add the beef and some spices (herbes de provence, basil, etc.). Then you let that cook for a while. Next, you take out all of the meat and add a bottle of red wine to the sauce. then you add a little flour to thicken up the sauce. When it’s mixed well, you put the meat back in and let it cook for maybe 40-50 minutes-can’t remember exactly. Next, add some mushrooms and let it cook a little longer.Then, it’s ready to eat! Before we started eating though, we had an aperatif (which is an alcoholic drink before a meal). My host dad made a yummy fruity cocktail! I need to remember to ask him how to make it next time. Anyways, then we ate the Beouf Bourguignon with some mashed potatoes. It was very tasty! Then we had cheese and bread. After that, we had homemade apple sauce for dessert. Yum! I stayed the night at my host family’s house and they drove me to my school in the morning.

So Wednesday, I got dropped off for at my school which was nice because I avoided the bus yet again. I worked with three classes at this school. In the first class, we reviewed family vocabulary yet again. I had half of the class and I had students partner up and practice presenting their families. Then, some students presented in front of their peers and after that, I reread Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? This time the kids read along with me and had to tell me the animal and color on the next page. While I was doing that, the other teacher reviewed feelings with the other half of the class. In the second class we continued talking about different foods. I had a poster with a variety of foods on the board and each pair of students also had a page with foods identical to the poster. I would say a food and the kids would point to it on their papers. Then I taught the students how to say what foods they like and don’t like by using complete sentences. Next, I worked with half of the class and I had them draw pictures of their families. They will continue to work on presenting their families next week. After the second class, they have recess. I went outside during recess and I felt so popular. So many kids were excited to see me and they all wanted to talk to me. After recess, I worked in the third class. We reviewed the days of the week and the months of the year. Then, they practiced asking their classmates, “When is your birthday?” The students got to walk around and try to find someone born in the same month as them.Then that was the end of work for the day!

I stopped by a Boulangerie to buy a baguette before heading off to wait for my bus home. As I was waiting by the bus stop, I saw some of my students and their parents pass me on the street. I am finally starting to recognize my students and I have learned some names! It has just been difficult because I have so many students. 

Then when I got back to the apartment, I had some lunch and then I finally picked up my credit card! I have been waiting for it for a while. I went grocery shopping and decided to use my new credit card. I went to the same cashier lady who I usually go to ( I have no idea if she recognizes me yet). She scanned all the stuff and then I started to give her my credit card because I thought that she had the card reader thing near her. She then pointed to where the card reader thing was so that I could swipe it myself. I went over to it and tried to swipe my card and nothing happened... I was  really confused. Then she told me that my card had to inserted from the bottom of the machine, and she helped me do it... then I had to put in my security code which I haven’t memorized yet...so I scrambled to find the letter with the code in my bag and when I found it I peeked at it and then put in the code. The entire thing looked really sketch... and the line at this cashier was getting long at this point, haha... whoops. Anyways, somehow I made it out of there and now I know how to properly use my card haha. 

Today (Friday) I did not do much. I went to lunch at the high school cafeteria with Kate and Kim. The food there is pretty good! Unfortunately it is getting cold here and it has been rainy for the past few days.

Veal with a sauce, bread, green beans, salad, yogurt, and mousse

Enjoying my five day weekend,

Magdalena

Rainy Weekend and Musée Visit in Lyon

This weekend was pretty chill and chilly.

On Friday, Melissa came into town and we all went over to an english assistant's place to celebrate his birthday. There we also met another english assistant named Clare. She was really nice and she even baked a delicious cake for Jack’s birthday. 

Jack cutting his cake!

All us girls! Me, Kim, Melissa, Kate, and Clare

Then after hanging at his place, we all went out for some drinks and then to a club. It was another long but good night.

On Saturday, we all slept in and it was rainy all day. So, it wasn’t a very productive day and it went by really fast. I got up around noon and I think that’s the latest I ever slept in here so far.

On Sunday, Kate, Kim, Melissa, and I went to Lyon for the day. Unfortunately, it rained on and off throughout the day. We arrived just around lunchtime and we had a delicious lunch at a restaurant called the Hippopotamus. I had a yummy burger, fries, and delicious crème brûlée. 

Delicious food

Melissa and I enjoying some Crème Brûlée!

Later, we met up with a friend of Kim’s named Stefan who is also a german language assistant. Then all of us went to visit the Musée des Beaux Arts. It had a lot of different kinds of art. I liked looking through the collections but it was a little bit of an art overload for me. There were some people there who seemed to really reflect on different sculptures/paintings. I kid you not, there were people who had chairs and just sat and stared at the same piece of art for a while. I guess they were really just taking it in or something. 

Here's what you can and can't do in the museum

Cool lion statue

Nice painting of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus

A modern art painting

Interesting statue outside the museum in the little garden area

After the museum, we all walked around Lyon some more and then found a cafe where we had some tea/coffee. We stayed there chatting for a while before decided it was a good time to start heading out. Luckily for us, Stefan offered to give us a ride home to Roanne. It was an entertaining ride home and it was interesting listening to a GPS in German for the first time lol. 

Rainy Lyon... the sun started to come out a little late in the afternoon

When we got back to Roanne, it was already dark outside. We all had dinner then chatted and went to sleep. 

Monday was a bank holiday but I never work on Mondays anyways. Practically all of the stores were closed today. It is definitely not like in the US where there are sales pretty much on every holiday. So today I didn’t do much, but Kate and I did go on another 30min run to the port. It was a little more challenging because it is getting colder outside. I also planned some lessons for this upcoming week. 

Ready for another three day school week,

Magdalena

Teaching Week 3: Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes Overload...

Most people probably went back to work on Monday, but I have Mondays off! I did run a lot of errands in town though. I went grocery shopping, got a bus pass for school, and got a lunch card so I can eat at the high school cafeteria. I tried to go to the bank but it’s closed on Mondays. I always forget when things are open and when they are closed here. I also went to the boulangerie to buy a baguette, but all they had left was this spiky one. It looked pretty cool, and it tasted good but it’s edges were sharp!

Interesting baguette

On Tuesday, I felt the effects of a small strike in France. I ended up getting a few minutes late to work because the buses were running late (or there were fewer of them running or something). Normally, on weekdays, the buses run every 20minutes, but this morning that was not the case. I ended up waiting about 25 minutes for the bus (so technically it should have passed twice in that time frame but it was no where to be seen before then). It was annoying but I’m glad it eventually showed up because I almost started walking to the school (which is probably around 45 minutes away on foot or more). I ended up getting to school only a few minutes late though which was good! The bus driver seemed like she was trying to make up for lost time... she was driving faster than normal lol. 

I taught four classes this morning at a school. In the first class, I reviewed the parts of the body with the students. Then I had the students come up and point to parts of their body and call on classmates to tell them the english word. Then, we sang the “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” song a few times. I sang it for them first, then we sang it together, and then I had students come up and lead the class in the song. It went pretty well. Surprisingly, this song is a big hit with all the kids. In the second class, there was a substitute so he just sat at his desk and let me teach the class by myself. I did the same thing with them that I did with the first class and the kids really seemed to enjoy it. 

After recess, I had two more classes. In the third class, I taught them commands in English (sit down, stand up, raise your hand) and they all practiced them. Then, we played Simon Says so I taught them a few more commands like (turn around, stand on one leg, touch your nose, etc.). The kids really enjoyed playing this game! In the fourth class, all of the students took turns presenting themselves to me. They all said their names, number/gender of siblings, and their siblings’ names. I helped correct grammar and pronunciation mistakes as the kids took turns presenting. Overall, the three hours at school passed really fast today!

After I finished work at the school, one teacher offered to take me home because she lives close to my apartment (here in France many people return home for lunch-teachers and students). It was nice to get a ride because of the bus issues and also because it was rainy and cold today. 

I had lunch, and then I had two skype classes in the afternoon. In the first class, I worked with groups of 2-3 on the parts of the body. It worked out pretty well and the kids really listened to everything I said and followed my directions. In the second class, I also worked on parts of the body, but this time with the entire class. It was a bit hard to see everyone though but we made it work. It was harder to control the class in this type of setting because I could only really talk with a few students at a time so the rest of the class would be only partially paying attention. We did end up singing the “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes” song a few times. The kids showed me the motions too. The kids had a good time overall and at the end they all got to tell me something that they like to do. This helped me get to know the kids a little better and I taught them those sentences in english. 

On Wednesday, I taught two english classes instead of three like I usually do. In the first class, we played Simon Says with classroom commands (listen, stand up, sit down, etc.). Then, I reviewed family vocabulary with the students and they drew pictures of their families. I took half the class and had them pair up and describe their families to their partner. Next, some students presented individually in front of their peers. At the end of the class, I read the book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See? 

I didn’t teach english in the second class because they had some special presenter there that day. So instead, I went into another class and helped out with a french reading lesson. The kids were reading a book about a wolf and seven little goats or something. They read a few pages as a class, and then they wrote sentences describing the pictures in the story. I walked around and was surprised at their cursive handwriting! These kids were about 6-7 years old and their writing was very neat. After this class, we had recess. During recess, these new kids from the second class kept following me around...lol. 

After recess I taught the oldest kids about the American Flag. We discussed when it was created and what the stars and stripes mean. Then, we talked about the significance of the colors. At the end of the lesson, they all got a picture of an American flag to color. 

After this third class, I stopped by a boulangerie and I bought a yummy raspberry chocolate croissant. I ate it as I waited for the bus home. The bus was extremely crowded at this time (around lunchtime)! 

Then, when I got home, I changed clothes and went for a run with Kate to the port. It was a nice 35-40 minute run. On the way back to the apartment, we were running and some guy sitting outside lifted his leg up in our way and told us to jump... lol, but he was kidding and he put it down soon after making that comment.

After lunch and a shower, I went into town with Kate, and Kim to meet up with Fatima. We had a good time catching up and I got some delicious red fruit tea which came in a cool teapot!

i want this teapot!

For dinner, I made quiche for the first time ever. My friend in Clermont Ferrand made a vegetable quiche when I was there visiting and she showed me how easy it is to make. I made a vegetable quiche with potato, carrot, onion, and zucchini. I ended up burning it a little but it tasted really good!

Me with my masterpiece

On Thursday, I couldn’t get a ride with a teacher so I took two buses to work. I got to work too early but I guess that’s better than being late. I got to present myself to three new classes today. Today, I worked in three classrooms in which every teacher was a man. I think there is only one woman teacher at this school. 

In the first class, I presented myself in French and took questions. These kids were the youngest of the school (6-7 years old). I got some interesting questions so I will post them again at the end of this post. The second class was the principal’s class. The kids were a little older I think (maybe 7-8 years old). I presented myself in french and took more questions from the kids. In the third class, I presented myself in french because these kids were older and knew more english. The teacher translated if he noticed that the kids did’t understand something. This teacher is quite a character. He was constantly joking around and he even asked me if I brought him a Coca Cola (because the headquaters of Coca Cola is in Atlanta) lol. Then, the kids sang some english greeting song for me. After that, I taught them this week’s theme song: “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.” They really enjoyed it and we repeated it a few times. 

Then, after the third class, I took a bus back home to eat lunch. This afternoon, I had to go to another school for an hour long lesson. The small problem was that I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be there at 1 30pm or 2pm because I had two schedule papers that had these two different times written on them. I ate quickly and decided to try to get their around 1 30pm just to be safe. Of course when I got there, the principal was a little surprised to see me... I had come too early. The kids weren’t even back from the lunch break yet haha. Well now I know to come here at 2pm. 

With this one class of 10 year olds, I taught them about the parts of the body. I taught them the names of different parts and then I had them take turns coming up in front of the class. They got to point at parts of their body and ask their peers to tell them the word in English. Then we sang everyone’s favorite song... “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.” I sang it alone at first, and then I had students come up in pairs to lead the class. Then, I had a group of three, then four, and then even five come up and lead the class. The kids really enjoyed it! Near the end, the kids wanted to keep on singing and to try to sing the song fast. It was pretty fun to watch and the kids had a great time! 

Some more questions I received from french kids:

“What do kids play in the US?”

“What kind of clothes do kids wear in the US?”

“Do you like to write?”

“Do you like to draw?”

“Do you play any sports?”

“Do people eat with chopsticks in the US?”

“Do people in the US eat with a spoon?”

“Have you been in a forest?”

“Have you been in the jungle?”

“Do you know the names of any trees?”

“Have you been to a dinosaur museum?”

“Do you know what McDonald’s is?”

“Are there crossword puzzles in the US?”

After school, I went to carrefour with Kate and bought myself a chocolate eclair. I have really been wanting one for a while!

Yummy eclair and tea!

So that was my week at work and now it is already the weekend for me! 

Love having Fridays off,

Magdalena