"Yes, Jesus can see if you don't use soap"

The kinders and I love our art time together every week. While I wish I had this time to prepare for my other classes, or just sit down and relax, I do love this time with the kiddos. No stress, no lesson plans or chapters to get complete in a certain timeline. We just listen to our music (current favorites are Jack Johnson, the High School Musical Soundtrack and the Lion King soundtrack), talk to each other (well, as much conversation as you can have with 6 year olds. "Yes, I do love high school musical. Do you?" "Please stop picking your nose. I've asked you three times already." "Yes, you may go potty. Again." "Did you wash your hands? Something tells me you did not. Go back. Use soap." "Yes, Jesus DOES see if you don't use soap." "Stop trying to drink my coffee. You will be that tall forever if you take even one sip!" Haha!)

Seoul Grand Park

Today we visited Seoul Grand Park with two other couples. The weather has been beautiful and today was HOT! (I have an unfortunate sunburn to prove it!) Despite the heat we had a really fun time talking around, seeing all the animals and admiring the beautiful background of Seoul.
Seoul Grand Park is the 10th largest zoo in the world. The zoo houses over 3,400 animals from over 340 various species. There is also a rose garden, a children's zoo and a nearby amusement park here. Here are some pictures from our day:

This is near the entrance to the park. Koreans LOVE hiking and now that the weather is nicer hikers are EVERYWHERE!


Entrance






More hikers!





Monkey area

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More play area for the monkeys




Jackass Penguin


Many signs in Korea are worth laughing over. One of my favorites is that whenever a new store opens the signs always say "Grand Open" not "Grand OpenING". I am pretty sure this sign means "Don't feed the animals". :)






The picture looks like this sign means "Don't feed the animals" but I guess it means "Just a moment please" Strange!



This is a tram that we took from the back side of the park back to the entrance. We were thankful for this ride. The park was much bigger than we expected and we walked quite a bit. It was nice to relax for a few minutes and enjoy the scenery.


It's easy to think of Seoul as just city (which it mostly is) but the green hillsides are beautiful.



What a fun day! We have spent the rest of our afternoon relaxing around the house and watching some movies. Josh has the next few days off work for Memorial Day, but I'll be working. Boo! Tomorrow we are having a large May Festival with the kinders and their parents. The kids have been working on some songs, memorizing books to present and we have certificates for all the kids to recognize their hard work and improvement. I am the MC, but it should be a fun time. The kids are always excited when their parents come to school so it will be nice to show the parents what we have been working on. I'll be sure to post pictures.

Wild Flower Farm Field Trip

Today the kinders, Ms Flora, Ms Julie, Ms Hanna and I went on our monthly field trip. This month went to a wild flower farm. Before leaving I checked out the website, which from the pictures, looked really beautiful. When we arrived I was pretty surprised to see how the actual location looked NOTHING like the website- haha! However, we all had a wonderful day outside in the warm weather. We ended the day with a nice picnic lunch outside.
Here are the pictures from our fun field trip day! :)

Sean was super excited!


Jamie and Daniel on the bus

Koreans have a strange obsession with visors. Where I am trying to get all the sun that I can, Koreans like to be whiter and try to avoid the sun. This is Daniel modeling Jaime's seriously cool visor! :)

Friends


Angela and Sarah

Our field trip started with a fun craft. The kids had cloth, leaves and spoons. The leaves were laid between the cloth and they basically just hit really hard with their spoons. The color and shape of the leaf were transfered from to the cloth.


Jun, Jamie and Sean


Do they ever listen this well in class? Never! Haha! They were busy learning about their craft project, plants growing and leaves.


Our bus drivers are really sweet. They are so kind to the kids and never laugh at me for my horrible attempts at speaking Korean to them. (Well, he laughed once, but said he was sorry!) Haha! They even got in on the craft fun!

Here is another bus driver helping Jenith. Our busses are more like little shuttles that hold about 8 kids, so we have multiple drivers.

Sean's finished product




Daniel, such a sweetie


Jamie

Erin, Dorothy and I


Jun was a bit apprehensive about his new ltitle cactus.

And for good reason! Right as we were abotu to take our picture he moved his cactus up and it got him right in the eye. But, he was so brave and was barely phased. :)

Erin, Henry (both in our youngest kinder class) with Daniel and Sean. Sean's face in this picture is priceless.

Ms Leah and Daniel



Everyone got a plant to take home, even teachers.


Daniel. Hilarious.


Finding tadpoles to release at the nearby small stream


Lunch time



Daniel and Iris. They are twins.



Sarah covered in chocolate cookies

Hide and seek after lunch time


Angela


Andy's mother is very cautious. Bless her heart. This was Andy's first field trip and she wrote her phone number on his upper arm in case he got lost. :)

Busy busy busy

Here are some random photos that we have taken around school lately. The weather has been getting much nicer and I’m hoping to get the kids outside for some classes soon. The elementary kids have been busy with term tests (quarterly tests that they take in every class) and the administration has been running around like chickens with no heads over making sure the parents are pleased with the test scores. (It’s hard to blame them though…these parents pay A LOT for their kids to come to this hagwan). I’ve been working on creating these tests, grading them and also working on a total of 152 report cards. We have a parent presentation coming up also, so we want everything to be perfect. Yuck! I will be SO  glad when the next few weeks are over, as it’s just a really high stress time around here.Then we start new parts in our book and it's like a new school year all over again!

But, on the bright side the kinders and I are taking a field trip to a local wild flower farm tomorrow, which should be a great time. A great field trip for the wonderful weather we have been having. I will be sure to post photos in the next few days! 

Hope everyone is doing well. Josh and I are both working like crazy (Josh about 60 hour weeks and my weeks are about 50-55) and really looking forward to our vacation back to the states in about two months! This weekend we are hoping to check out the Seoul Zoo and a baseball game!

 

Kevin and Joshua, grade 1

 

Kinders Sarah, Brian, Angela and Sam

 

Art with Jun

 

Erin, such a sweetie

 

Just love this little face

 

Henry. It's hard to find a photo where he doesn't have this signature pose.

 

For art we made Chinese lanters,but they quickly turned into hula skirts after Sean was running around with it around his hips. This envolved into skirts and purses for the girls. If I've learned anything as a teacher it's to just go with the flow. So, we turned on some hula music and practiced our moves. :)

 

Dorothy and Erin,our youngest kinders

 

Angela

 

Iris always has to have the best art project. If someone can make 10 lanters, she will make 11. Some of the kids have even taken to helping her in art so she has the most. Oh boy. Anyways, here she is with her many lanterns. 

 

Lantern making

 

Iris, Sarah, Erin (the older Erin) and Angela

 

Erin, Angela and Sam posing with the prize box. They were awarded the best RDB presentation. They memorize a book, have hand motions to go with it and have a presentation every month. 

Next week parents come to watch the RDB presentation so we have been working really hard to make sure it is the best one yet!