1st day in open class in September

It was an exciting day for me. There are some new kids in Kindergarten. I asked them " what can you see in our school?" They answered loudy " Pen, pencil, book, notebook..." what they said is all about study. By the way, the kids are from 5 to 7 years old. I told them to go outside and saw what are in the school and their classroom or other grades classroom. I could hear they said " Oh, there is a tree. We have desk, we have TV, we have basketballs stands..." So they told me more after they went to observe. To my surprise, one girl told me " there is human beijing in school." at last. WOW! This is what I hope they can tell me. I tried to ask her what kind of human beijing in our school? She could not answer it. So I told them " we have girls, boys, and teachers in our school." They said " Yes!" then they started to see the open classroom.
The same question for Grade one and two. " what did you do in summer holiday?" alomost the same things they did. e.g. took care of their younger sister or brother, did some farmwork for their parents, visited some friends, or played with some classmates. A few students that they went to Beijing during the summer holiday. I forgot to tell them that I went to Ojai this summer holiday.
I am so glad that there are 2 boys study maths by themselves together. But there was another boy came to them and he wanted to do the maths with them, but the 2 boys didn't allow him to be there. So the third boy walked away.
So next step for me, choose some materials for them. Like some cartoon story books can tell them some. And some practice books with stickers. They love stickers so much.
Gang fang school has a new playground this semester and basketball stands. Also there is new road will be built in the village.
We have another two friends Mei lan and Rolf. Mei lan is from America and she worked in an international school in Beijing before, and she spent 8 months to do research in Ri Shi Valley School since last year. She will do the parents training for the town and some village school.
Rolf who is from Swizerland had a school before ten years ago in Brazil and it lasted 9 years. He will do the teacher training for some teachers in the town and village schoool. Because of work visa, they will delay their arrival to Beijing. But I hope see them again in Beijing.

Randy's Start of 2nd Week

Today we continued talking about classroom behavior. Today's topic was "insult." The students defined insult and then brainstormed about why people insult each other. Some of their answers were: stereotyping, being gansta, cool, friends, having fun, fitting in, teasing, anger. I then asked if it was OK to insult someone. Interestingly, most kids said yes. However, when I asked how many like to be insulted, most everyone said they did not enjoy being insulted. There wasn't a firm conclusion to the discussion. We kinda just explored the topic. I feel the more we talk about it, the more the students realize how serious classroom behavior is.

I also instituted a "journaling policy" today. After the students finish their homework, they can earn free play by journaling. I selected pictures of graffiti, national geographic and cartoons. The journal assignment to to select one of the pictures an write about it. Most of the students enjoyed the exercise...or they really just want to play computer games. They did keep asking how long they have to write.

Randy's First Days

Students are back at the program. I decided to start with establishing classroom atmosphere...mostly I copied what Tim (the 5th grade teach at Oak Grove suggested). The first day I gave the students a survey basically asking them "how they like to be treated by their friends/teacher" and "how they studied best." After they filled out the form, we went over the questions and asked them if they'd agree to behave in the manner that they suggested. The majority agreed. Then I asked them who is perfect in the room. Of course, no one raised their hand. So I replied that I don't expect perfection; however, I do expect everyone to try to hold themselves to the rules.



Next, (more Tim) I asked them what "ridicule", "responsibility" were. We looked up the words in the dictionary and then the kids broke up into groups of 4 and made skits about the words. The skits were simple..but reinforced the idea. I noticed that the more I talk the less the kids pay attention, so I really try to make it about them.



The day finished off with "Minefield" which is a team building game where the students have to traverse across a minefield (5 rows of 5 "mines") and have to figure out the pattern. They had a lot of fun.



Yesterday, we started off by defining "reputation". Then we did "pair work" and the students had to come up with types of repuations. They did a nice job..coming up with over 30. They started to yell out more and more reputations as it became more clear as to what a reputation is.



The last activity was some basic Improv. We played "fortunately/Unfortunately"(kids make of stories) and "one word story". We also did 2 truths and a lie. Each game reveals alot about the confidence and ability of the students.



The challenges that I can see are some of the students have a LOT of homework and some have virtually none. So, how do I allow students who need more time to do homework and need my help and still work with the students who have more free time. I feel like I have more control of the classroom this year. I still am committed to have the students self-regulate; however, I realize that I will have to work hard in the beginning to establish what is acceptable and what is not.

flying with dreams

Sorry, I didn't read anything about the materials about teacher academy. I should do this. But when I open the materials, all my memory about Ojai must come out and I start to think of all friends. Maybe 4 or 5 dreams that I dreamed in Beijing about Ojai and some friends I knew in Ojai. I could not read materials without any emotioanl now. Feel happy but feel sad at the same time. It's really hard for me to go on with it. I will try next Monday.

I remember Geetha told me that something happen only once in life. No!!! Only teacher academy happened once in 2008 with all of you. But I don't think it means that we meet only once, Right?

Randy started his work with what he learned from teacher academy. I am so gald, becaue I can learn some also from his blog. I still feel EXCITED. Only because of those sweet dreams. like fall in love... So I am ready armed with my sweet dreams. flying with dreams!

I will go to Bird Nest next Monday morning. will show photos soon! :-)

Take care!

( miss Yeti)

Zhang dan

PS my dog --Mocha looked out of the wimdow this morning. she turned her head to see me, but I spoke nothing, she countinued and turned her head to look out of the window. Suddently, I think she is a human beings. :-D