My first day teaching

I'm posting twice today!?  Lucky you!  Just kidding ;)

Carla helped me prepare my lessons last night for CVS, which is the Bible curriculum and I actually don't know what that stands for, as well as English and Math.

I walked into class and started talking to Jhing about my lessons, and she said, "Oh, we will just practice for tomorrow."  Tomorrow, we are celebrating Buwan ng Wika (totally stole that from someone else's facebook status), which means Month of Languages.  Each class is a part of it, and each child in my class has a speaking part to say in Tagalog while holding a poster with either different parts of the Philippine flag, or the the national flower, animal, etc.  I assume they are giving information about what is on the poster!

So, feeling a little silly that I had told all of facebook that today was my first teaching day and knowing I was receiving prayers for my big day, I had to brush it off because, in Kenya and now here, I've learned that flexibility is key!  I sat down and waited for Jhing to take over and help the kids rehearse.  Next thing I knew, she was writing this week's memory verse on the board and then came over and asked me if I had prepared.  Change of plans again, I guess we're doing CVS and then they're practicing the rest of the morning!  The kids copied down the verse, which takes a while in itself, and then I went through the verse and explained its meaning.  The verse was, "And I praise You because of the wonderful way You created me."  Psalm 139:14.  I explained the word praise, made sure they understood who we are praising, and explained the word wonderful, and what the verse means by "created."  I read the verse and had them read it with me a couple times.  Then, I read the story out of their workbook about God creating Adam and Eve and asked them questions to see how they comprehended it.  I was happy that Jhing translated a lot of it, but at the same time, I'm not sure if that's what we're supposed to be doing.  Of course I want the kids to understand this subject in particular more than anything, but I think part of the purpose of having us here is to really integrate English into the classroom.  I might have to check on that later.  I can imagine the kids probably ignore me and wait for the translation, because that's what I would do if I were them!

After that, they did rehearse for a while.  Snack time is supposed to be from 9:10-9:25, but I guess Jhing felt good about how the kids were doing so she let them start snack time at about 9:00.  I assumed we would end it before 9:25 since we started snack time early, but 9:25 rolled around Jhing still wasn't in the room (she usually disappears during snack time, and I have no idea where she goes!).  An extra ten minutes for kids in a small classroom seems like a long time to me.  When snack time was over at 9:25 and Jhing reappeared, she asked me if I could do my Math lesson.  So, I taught!  Gotta be on my toes around here!

We did addition, which a lot of the kids already knew even though they hadn't actually gotten to that chapter in their workbook (and Carla had told me this might be the case).  It was good to go over for the four or so kids who struggle a little more, but I did have a bit of a hard time keeping everyone going at the same pace and getting their attention back when some of them wanted to work ahead.  At the end of the lesson, I gave each of them some counters.  They seemed more intrigued once I did that, telling them, for example, to get five of one color and four of another.  We then counted all of them together to get the added number, and I would write the equation on the board and we would read it together.  Towards the end, we had some competitions to see who could get their counters together the quickest.

I spent my hour and ten minutes on Math, and then Jhing rehearsed with the kids for a while more.  All in all, I would say my first day teaching went pretty well!

I went straight from school to get my visa renewed.  The first visa into the country lasts for three weeks, and then after that they last about a month and a half.  It costs 75 buckaroos to get that thing renewed, and I hear that after my third month I'll need to apply for an I-card, which I think stands for immigration card.  That thing will cost about $175.  YUCK.  I guess once I've been here that long and if I DON'T have the card, I could get deployed or something crazy like that if the country goes to war.  Maybe.  I could be totally wrong.  It stinks that I'll have to pay that much money and then only need it for one more month.  Plus, it takes forever and ever and ever for it to come in.  Lauren applied for one last fall when she was here and apparently it still hasn't come in (who knows if it ever will), but I guess if you at least apply, the immigration office will have record of it and you're safe (plus you get a receipt).  I don't know if it's mandatory or not.  I'd be tempted to just not get it!

So tomorrow is the big performance day!  I really want to take a picture of each of my kids when they present, but I think I'll be helping keep them organized on stage.  I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes!