Funatsugawa Elementary 船津川小学校

Today I taught at Funatsugawa Elementary School. It is about a 20-30 minute bike ride South of where I live which is already kind of close to the southern outskirts of Sano. So I woke up real early so I could get there by 8:00am, but I biked too fast and ended up getting there at about 7:40. The woman that was there kept saying Hayai! which means early. I was like I know I misjudged how long it would take me.

I already knew the school was small, but I was surprised when I actually saw how small it was. Not in terms of size of the building, but it only has 21 students total, in the entire school! So in the morning they assembled upstairs and I did my Jiko shokai (self introduction) in front of all of them. They enjoyed it and again were surprised at the same stuff as the kids at other schools.

My average class size up to this point was 35. I taught four classes today, my first I had 8 students (1st and 2nd grade combined), next I taught 3rd/4th grade and it had only 4 students total! After that I taught 5th/6th grade and it had 9 students. So today I taught the entire school hahah. A kid in the 4th grade wanted me to draw him a picture of a naruto character so I asked him who was his favorite. He told me Sasuke, I said sure. Another kid asked if he could borrow my comics of Naruto but I was like I only have one.. haha. I'm not scheduled to be going back to Funatsugawa for another month so I have plenty of time to draw the picture haha.

At recess we played a schoolwide game of dodgeball it was alot of fun. After we played frisbee a little bit. They told me to please bring the frisbee back next time.

The class I had most fun in was probably surprisingly 5th/6th grade. It was funny because we played this taxi scenario game. I pretended to be a taxi driver because the students were learning: "Where do you want to go" "I want to go to _____". So I'd pretend to drive by they'd put their hand up and I'd say "Where do you want go?" Then they'd say for example "The beach". I took flash cards and posted them around the room of the locations then I'd drive around the room with them and drop them off at the place they wanted to go. It was funny, every once in a while I'd purposefully pass it and then be like wait a second and go Beep beep beep and back up.

Tomorrow I teach at a new school, Tenmyo Elementary　天明小学校. Luckily this one is closer haha.

Teaching: DAY THREE

Today I taught my third and final day this week at Ueno. I taught all of the 1st grade classes and the average class size was about 35 students. The first graders enjoyed my self introduction and some reoccuring responses are developing from every class I have introduced myself to I've noticed. After the class the kids came up to me and asked a couple questions and a few of them wanted to touch my beard hahaha.

The first graders were SO FREEKIN CUTE! I taught them about the weather. How's the weather? It's sunny, windy, cloudy, rainy, ect. The kids all had a blast learning because I was being really funny. For wind I would pretend to get blown away they were all cracking up. And during some of the other ones I would do a little dumb dance or mess around and a few kids would catch it and mimic me it was funny.

The teachers had to encourage them to speak louder so when they started yelling I pretended to be shocked and covered my ears. This made them yell even louder hahah then the teachers had to tell them to quiet down. I ate lunch with the kids too, we had some good food today, we had 2 meatballs (ahahha) some asian version of vegetable soup, a small sub sized piece of bread (covered in sugar like a doughnut) and some apple jello. After that I went out to play recess, alot of the kids from my previous classes recognized me and wanted to play frisbee again WOOP!

Shortly after getting outside one of the teachers (Ms. Matsumoto who's 22 like me yay!) told me I had a meeting so I had to skip recess. I was bummed out but its ok because the meeting went well and the teacher Mr. Ayuse kept saying that I was skilled in Japanese. I was like hells no I'm not!

Whenever I'm bored in the teachers room I learn from my Genki textbook and use my dictionary to learn some new words. Even if I don't learn much new grammar its always good to know more vocab. Everyday I've been taking notes of stuff I want to say in Japanese and then adding it to my Digital Flash Card deck, so even though I'm not getting any official schooling on Japanese I'll learn new stuff. I almost fell asleep in the teachers room the past two days, so I should start getting more sleep. It's rough because I eat, then go to recess, then come back and sit for two hours in the hot teachers room and try to study but always come inches from dozing off.

I also am a bit bored at home so I've been drawing more pictures haha, tonight I drew Sasuke from Naruto. Its cool because they will make great prizes for kids in some of my classes. Check em out.

Tomorrow I go teach at Funatsugawa Elementary School, which is about a 30 minute bike ride out in the country side. I'm actually teaching the entire school in one day. It's funny because an average class size I've taught so far has be around 35. Funatsugawa Elementary has a total of 21 students (including 1st - 6th grade). It's crazy, but its great because then I can actually get to know the kids names! Unfortunately I only get to teach there twice a month but by the end of the time I'll def. know the kids names there.


Tomorrow should be fun.
EXCITEMENT!

2nd Day of Classes

So today, I taught at the same school as yesterday Ueno Elementary School (this is my primary school in that I teach here the most). Today was much more fun that yesterday since I taught 3rd graders, which I've heard are supposed to be the most fun to teach. All the kids loved my introduction and wanted to see the stuff after it was over. They think Luke is really cute, that my Mom is beautiful, and are all amazed at the age difference between me and my brothers. They think I'm good at drawing, haha no way, they asked if I was a comic artist haha NOPE! It's funny because alot of the teachers here like Naruto (an anime I watch) as much as the kids. I taught 4 classes today, which is all of the 3rd grade at my school. The lesson plan was almost the same as yesterday. I got to sing head shoulders knees and toes and the kids all laughed because I did mine exagerated. I would open my mouth huge on the mouth part and pull my ears out on the ears part. I also lifted my leg and touched my knees and toes instead of bending down sometimes hahah. The kids are all so freekin cute!

It seems that every class has some sort of trouble maker, which isn't that bad because I can just tell them to stop it in Japanese. Some are just more forward and or weird that others, like one today tried to jump to much on me so I stopped him.

Today I got to go to recess with the kids which was alot of fun. I taught them how to play Frisbee. This one kid, I never got to asking his name, was attached to my hip for the whole recess. Even though all the rest of the kids went crazy for the Frisbee, would throw it and rush to it, this one kid just stood by me the whole time haha. They just crowded and fought over the Frisbee until someone finally threw it. I had to break them into teams so they could actually throw it and catch it without hitting each other in the face. Naturally they wanted a Otoko team and a Onna team (boys and girls) which was fine. After breaking them up they threw it from group to group which was fun to watch.

After recess I had a 2 hour break and then a meeting to make lesson plans for classes next week (4th grade and 6th grade). It went well and I understood alot of what they were saying at the meeting. I also brought my dictionary just in case haha.

After the meeting I posted a note in Japanese that if any teachers want to learn English I'd be happy to teach them, and I put my email on it.

On the way home (on my bike) I rode past a store and some kids inside said NIKORASU SENSEI!? I noticed and waved they all went crazy haha. That right there pretty much made my day that I've only been there two days and kids are already recognizing me and excited to see me.

Tomorrow I teach 1st graders, apparently they don't learn anything, but I'll see what I can do.

First day of Class