Kindergarten

I love Wednesdays for one reason: Kindergarten! You see, every Wednesday I can escape the routinely interesting classroom activities that take place in the Junior High School, and go to a little paradise known only as little-kids-love-you-land. You all remember kindergarten I'm sure--nap time, throwing toys, learning simple stuff like A through Z and colors, and of course letting your imagination run rampantly wild. However, at the kindergarten I went to as a kid, I never learned a foreign language like Spanish or French. Heck, I don't think I even learned any English save the alphabet. Well, in Japan it is a different story. I am teaching three, four, and five year old kids the alphabet, colors, foods, fruits, animals, emotions, paper, rock, scissors, numbers, and how to act like a big goofy foreigner. No wonder they make better cars than us, that are more efficient, and cost less....they probably learn about car production and the 4-stroke engine in 3rd grade!





This girl's name is Momo...she is one of my favorites. She always talks to me in Japanese and I just pretend like I understand what she is saying and she just keeps talking in her cute little voice. She is showing me a caterpillar that she caught.

Anyway, I don't really have much more to say except this: I understand why little kids need to go to bed by 7 pm...I think it is because they are so drained from playing, and running, and chasing, and tagging, and shovelling, and imagining, and crying, and eating, and puking, and biking, and swimming, and catching bugs, and crying some more, and dancing, and talking jibberish that there is absolutely no way they can actually stay awake. It is physically impossible!






































A typical day of kindergarten on Wednesday mornings goes a little something like this: I get there by 9 am. The next hour or so is strictly dedicated to playing with them and letting my inner child out, which isn't very hard because I am just a 220 pounder with a 5 year old's mind. In fact, at the end of the hour it is the children that are sitting down and needing a break and me egging them on to come out and play some more. I guess they can only handle climbing on me, and me throwing them up and down, and playing with them with woodblocks and plastic blocks, and making puppets out of stuffed animals for so long. Then the next hour is teaching. There are about 30-40 kids there, and I teach the whole group for the first half hour and then I take a third of the kids (by age) and teach them a little something more specific, like colors and food and stuff. It involves a lot of flashcards and using a loud voice, quiet voice, high voice, and low voice. They get a real kick outta the voice inflection thing.




































Today we watched a very educational video on the topic of "How are you? I am (fill in the blank)" It was a really funny video, except I don't think the children realized the humor in it, I guess that is why I was the only one laughing. The kids absolutely ate it up though...they jibber-jabber and laugh and smile and chuckle and repeat. It is the cutest thing ever! I love it.



















Kids hunting for bugs with their little red hats on.



















This is the last thing I see when leaving the nursery. The kids yelling "Isaac Sensei!" at the top of their lungs and chasing me as far as they can, much like a loving couple separating at a train station and one of them chasing after the train as far as they can. It is really sweet and makes every one of the 5,000 calories I burned worth it.