Winter?

Perhaps Mid Autumn Festival is really the middle of autumn here in Beijing. I stepped outside today and was a bit surprised. It was cold. The seasons are beginning to change so quickly. I was warned that Beijing's fall didn't last very long, but I wasn't ready to say good-bye to the lovely fall weather we have had the last few weeks. I noticed as I walked through my little suburbia that all the people who guard the apartment building were all in heavy coats. The Australians arrived to work all bundled up and all the local teachers and customer relation staff members were all in their nice Winter coats. No one told me Winter was to begin on October 17th this year!

My first class of the day was a small stars class with an open door where the parents watched the class. I felt that it was a pretty unfair representation of my teaching since two of the boys haven't been to the class in two months are were completely unruly. The parents complained that the material they are learning is too simple. I am only allowed to teach the specific small star curriculum so at least I was able to back myself with that information. I talked to my co-teacher Stephanie after the class and she told me that parents are crazy and that she doesn't even like that class. It made me feel better. I really admire professional preschool and early elementary teachers now!

My next two classes were much better. I had my oldest aged class create children's stories that they will illustrate next week and my afternoon elementary class created pretty awesome looking board games to learn instructions and prohibitions! I read them one of the Halloween books that my Mom sent and they loved it and begged me to bring more books to read to them! EF isn't really into reading to students because they are being passive (I don't believe that all... I think their brains are working pretty hard because they are not as use to being read to here), but I am going to be rebel and read to them every once in awhile!

Captain's Log: 23 Weeks!