Is it raining and howling there? I wonder how my tulips are dealing....

The head English teacher was visiting his youngest daughters' preschool this morning, so he entrusted me with three of his classes. I was so busy yesterday I didn't even start making lesson plans until an hour before the end of the day (technically I could stay all night like the "real" teachers, but I choose not too). This morning my stomach was tied in knots and I was sweating. My biggest worry: how do I teach a first grade class all in English when these kids just started English? Officially, they know approximately 15 words. I know that they have been using more in Elementary school with Jaclyn, but I didn't have any idea how it was going to go. I was less worried about the 2nd graders, though still a bit nervous about my mission to teach them how to ask "Did you _____ yesterday?" and the appropriate responses. I don't usually teach grammar, I just reinforce it. Explaining technical rules without using the kids' native lingo is tough. I was less worried about the 3rd grade because they a) are alder b)have had me alone before c) I had an easy lesson plan that worked fabulously on the other "low" course (the 3rd graders are in courses according to ability).

The report: The first graders and 2nd graders were AWESOME. Back to back and I was totally in the zone. I love the first grade!!! They're just fabulous. They made my whole entire day. We laughed for 50 straight minutes... and I have to thank my stars (again) for my experience at Mori-No-Ike (Japanese camp up North MN) which taught me how to communicate with kids who don't realize that they CAN understand what you're saying. That didn't make sense, did it? Let's just say that I was successful at distracting them enough to learn without thinking they were learning. Yay!

Then there's the third year class. It was a mix of the lowest English students and from my three least-favorite classes. NOT PRETTY. At different times during the 48 min (I left 2 min early) I almost: yelled, swore, left, cried or spoke Japanese. None of which I did... impressively, I think. I was so pissed. The kids completely ignored me and would NOT stop talking. I really felt like I was just up there yapping for the hell of it. So I stopped. I gave up on my fun game plan and came up with a totally boring inane writing assignment for them to work on instead. It took me about 10 minutes to get the majority of them just to number their papers from 1 to 5. ARGH!!! I'm still pretty ticked.

Tomorrow's an easy day and I deserve it!! I think I'm going to have to go swimming tonight because I'm sure as hell not running out in this!