My Last Week of Teaching and A Visit from Home!

  My last week of teaching went very well, but was also sad. I had my last classes with my after school programs on Tuesday and Thursday which made those days a little bit more rough for me. I decided to throw them a pizza party. I also gave them all like bags with stickers, a pencil and Smarties, which they loved.

3rd Grade Storytelling Group!

  My week was very busy. Monday was slow, just getting ready for Francis to come visit me. On Tuesday I had my last story telling after school group and it made me miss realize how much I was going to miss the 3rd graders. Through all of my schooling I have always thought that the really young children were my favorite to teach, but after teaching here in Korea I have realized that I love teaching 3rd and 4th grade. I also said goodbye to my 4th grade classes on Monday and Tuesday. My lesson for them went very well and they put in a lot of work. I had them form groups and create posters about Korea. I told them that I wanted to be able to teach students in the US about Korea and I needed their help. They  were so excited and did a great job creating posters. The posters are packed to make the trip to the US on Thursday!
     Wednesday all of my classes  were cancelled because of the Soongin Talent Show. It was amazing! The children were  great!  Ally and Professor Son put on a great Thanksgiving Party for us on Wednesday night too.

Soongin Talent Show!

Thursday was my last day at Soongin because they had a school holiday on Friday. I said goodbye to the Principal and Vice Principal which made me very sad. I also said goodbye to Ellen, my original CT and now have a great new friend and resource here in Korea.  Min-gi and Philly took me out for dinner on my last night. I couldn't believe how much the reality of not being at the school anymore made me feel so sad. I had a sad last day, but was excited because Francis came on Friday night.
   Friday I packed most of my things and went to get Francis from the airport. After getting everything he brought and we decided to go to Seoul Tower and it was alot of fun. On Saturday we went to many of the palaces that I had already been to before, but it was fun to see things through his eyes.

The week has been fun and sad at the same time. I have learned so much from the teachers and students. I don't even know if they know how much they have taught me. I hope to keep in touch with all of the wonderful people I have meet here in Korea and maybe I will visit again someday!

My last week with 1st and 3rd grade! :(

      This week has been bitter sweet. I am very excited that I will be going home soon, but I will miss all of my students!  I planned some fun activities for the classes and most of my classes were sad to see me leave. My 3rd grade classes made me a thank you/goodbye book. I will treasure it always! I have learned so much about teaching and being more aware of how I talk to students. I have really enjoyed getting to teach all different ages for children and have learned from each class I taught.  My lessons went very well and I can't wait to teach this coming week. 
   I had a dinner with the Principal and Vice Principal of my school on Friday. The dinner went well, they asked me about my experience and thanked me for teaching so many different students. I felt like they liked what I did with the students and enjoyed having me in their school.

    I have a busy week coming up with it being my last week in the school and Francis coming on Friday! I will miss Philly and the other teachers that have helped  me so much through this process. I will also miss my students, but some of them have asked for my email to keep in touch with me and I think that is a great way for them to practice their English. I had a 1st grader email me this weekend and thank me for teaching his class.
   Can't wait until Friday when Francis comes to visit me!

Winding down and getting cold.

      The week started out a little rough, but got better as the week went on. I can tell that the students have gotten used to having me teach their class because they are starting to misbehave more and not want to listen. Monday was hard because the students weren't listening and I haven't been sleeping well so that could be part of my lack of focus.
   Tuesday's classes went so much better than Monday's partly because I changed my lesson plan for second grade. I found a memory game online and used that to help my students remember different feelings.
    Wednesday the Principal told me that she wants to have dinner and a discussion with me before I leave. I'm very nervous, I hope that Kyoungwon or Ellen will be coming to the meeting.
   Thursday was a weird day for me. The schools didn't start until 10am because of the high school students taking the University entrance exams. I still taught both of my second grade classed, but the first one was only 30min. instead of 40 min. therefore I didn't do all of the activities that I did with all of the other classes.
    Friday was 11-11-11, Pepero Day here in Korea! I think it's like Valentine's Day in the USA. I only got one pepero today, but it's because the students were told not to bring it to school. I taught to of my second grade classes for the last time and I was kinda sad. I really enjoyed teaching them and they were all sad that I wasn't going to teach them any more. The teacher called her students 'unlucky' because they don't get to have one more time with me.
    Next week is my last week teaching 1st and 3rd grade. I'm sad, but kind of excited to get back to the USA and hopefully get my own classroom.  I've been working with the teachers and have really enjoyed getting to know some of the teachers. I hope that I will be able to keep in touch with many of them and someday maybe invite them to my classroom. I am glad that I have formed relationships with my colleagues here in Korea because then I will have more people that I can network with in the future.
   The week was not very eventful. On Saturday, Erin and I went to another conference for professional development. It was interesting and it was FREE! Philly went to the conference too and we found out that Koreans don't like it when people say SOUTH Korea and NORTH Korea. They prefer Korea and North Korea, Erin and I found that very interesting.  For anyone that comes to Korea in the future I was highly suggest going to a conference. The conferences are all in English and helped me learn new ways to teach English in the classroom. I am not an ESL teacher, but with the help of the conferences I was able to change my teaching to become a better ESL teacher.
    I can't believe it, but I have officially started a count down to my last day here and in the school. I only have 9days left to teach at Soongin. I will miss the kids and Philly most of all, but that means that I get to go home soon. I have enjoyed my time here, but I can't wait to see my family again. Francis is coming to visit in 12days and I hope to get to show him all of the wonderful sights in Korea. Sorry it's so short this week. I haven't been doing very much other than working and then going home and working on my portfolio. Also it's getting colder outside, no snow, but it's feeling like late Fall now. Two weeks left!

All the wonderful lights!

    This week went very will overall. My lessons with the 1st graders went very well this week. The students worked in small groups to make monsters and tell how many of something their monster had. They enjoyed creating monsters and seeing them solve problems about how many of something to have on their monster was very neat to see. Some of the groups seemed to follow one person where as others used the rock, paper , scissor method to decide. There were some students who had a very hard time not getting their way and cried, but for the most part the students worked very well together.

I didn't know that schools in Korea do not provide paint for the students so when I planned my lesson for the 3rd grade I had them mixing paints on Monday morning. I found out about the students not having paints at school 5 minutes before I had to teach. It was a good lesson for me to learn that I need to check with the teachers before planning an activity. Despite not having the materials for my lesson I was able to create a new lesson  when I got to the class. I had student's graph the different colors they were wearing and tell how many different colors there were in the classroom that day. I did my original lesson of mixing paints the next day and I actually liked the lesson that I came up with at the last minute better than the one I had planned on teaching.

      Less than a month until I came up...I'm very excited, but sad at the same time. I will be sad to leave my students,especially because I just started to really get to know them and settle into the school. I love working the teachers and the school is amazing, I wish I had been able to settle in sooner.

 On Friday night Falyn, Erin, Keely and I went to the lantern festival in Seoul and it was amazing to see the structures people were able to create with paper. I enjoyed the week and the lantern festival was a great end to the week.

AMAZING!!!!