Day 7 - end of one week teaching

Finished for the week. It's been a crash course, rewarding, exhausting but also quite a relief it is over for a couple of days. The biggest difficulty is coming up with enough ideas to keep desk bound kids happy.  Part of me actually finds it a bit ridiculous to be honest, that 5 year olds should be in school every morning during their holidays ! Also, the lack of resources is a little odd.  

Today my translator/ assistant did not turn up at all and only one of the teenagers, Dsong,eventually showed, so I did the morning class largely on my own. Glad she did turn up because explaining hide and seek was a little too far for my miming abilities, with a cast of one!  

Eventually Huung showed up for the second lesson and told me that yes they were aware no one was here and it just happens.  I rolled with it fine tho. Sometimes the translators actually get in the way a bit especially when they solemnly translate everything into Vietnamese, when I want the kids to show they understand a little, not just know it by rote.  They are amazing however, today we did birthdays, and most of the Grade 2 kids knew the months in English!  I think some English children might still be struggling with this at age 7 !

I also did fruit today, and used the ball throwing to get them to answer questions - very successful.

Any ideas for games for the younger kids, using nothing except the blackboard, would be good.

On the song front, Oranges and lemons was a labour, and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star was too simple for some of the kids and too advanced for others. Though Dsong thought it was a good one. My singing abilities are being put to the test that's for sure, coming up lacking I think!  Baa baa black sheep is the most successful one yet!