Teaching: First Impressions

I have no idea what I'm doing.

At all.

I speak English, so I at least have that part pretty much covered, but other than that I'm faking it, hopefully until I make it. Which is hopefully pretty soon.

My main class, Dolphin, is pretty legit. We have class from 9:30-1:40, which includes lunch and playtime. Usually we do some phonics lessons, practice conversation, do some sort of coloring/art activity.

And in my case, a lot of yelling.

The school places a lot of value on the kids being, for lack of a better word, trained to sit quietly. Unfortunately, the kids have other plans. I feel bad trying to force them to sit all day long, since they're only 6 years old, but seriously. I feel like 10 minutes at a time isn't asking too much.

I think one of the kids legitimately has ADHD, poor guy. They're supposed to get a bad point whenever they get out of their seat, but this kid would literally be expelled if I kept track of all of his minus points. My new strategy is to do some sort of activity in between each sitting-down thing.

Worksheet done?

Head, shoulders, knees and toes!

Read the story?

Ants in the pants dance!

Wrote 2 sentences?

Jumping jack race!

So far (the two days I've tried it) it seems to be working, let's see if Dolphin class can keep the good train rolling.

This week my strategy is going to combine the above with shameless bribes. If the whole class can go one full day without a SINGLE bad point, they'll get.... something. I haven't decided yet. I thought candy or ice cream, but the last thing those maniacs need is sugar.

Suggestions are welcome.

Lately, their phonics lessons have been WAAAY too easy for them. The last three have been about matchign upper case and lower case letters. Seriously?

So I make them do those really quickly then I try to teach them to speak in full sentences. I've been shamelessly taking worksheets and lesson plans from other classes, looking stuff up online, and generally just making it up as I go. So far, they've been soaking up everything I give them like psycho little sponges, fingers crossed it's not a fluke, right?

Also, my drawing skills need to improve. I have an impressive range of stick-man pictures, but apparently there's some cultural thing that makes stick figures the funniest thing on earth, so the kids crack up every time I try to draw anything. Maybe I should just print out pictures of what I'll need before every class? Sorry trees...

I only wish mine were this good...

Funny story-- we were matching letters with pictures of words that started with that letter, and one of the problems was F---football.

And none of them knew what a football was. Or what football (the sport) is.

Ruh roh.

I ended up acting out a quarterback throwing, tackling, and a touchdown... Mostly just jumping and shouting and an intricate endzone dance. The kids might be more confused than before, but at least they thought it was funny?

I like to think they're laughing with me.

They are, right? RIGHT???

Oh, and did I mention that the principle wanders the halls and watches classes through the windows? If he ever happens to pop in during one of my charades sessions, I'll probably be institutionalized.