The BCIS blues (teacher version) :
I’ve got the BCIS blues
It’s just so hard to plan for school.
Sight words and craft time make us laugh
Cause we just want to go and nap
We’ve got the BCIS blues
I’ve got the BCIS blues
We’ve reached the end of Jazz week two
Pinterest ideas all day long
Hoping the kids just get along
And we’re just here singing the blues
Well, week two brought more laughter, tears, paint stains, late nights, chocolate cravings, and stories. In our exploration of the Jazz age, we visited Van Gogh, Langston Hughes, the Charleston, Rhapsody in Blue, Ella Fitzgerald—and our happy place every time a student tried to wipe their sweaty heads on our laps, show us the “something sticky” they found on the floor (spoiler alert: it was a booger), or run around frantically shouting in Mandarin.
Wednesday marked the halfway point of camp A and we were met with mixed emotions of “wow this has gone fast, I don’t want it to be over!” to “Only halfway?” It has been a challenge to find new lesson plan ideas day after day. China has given us a chance to see what this thing called teaching really entails: many hours at the printer, many hours cutting out shapes that students will inevitably use incorrectly, and finding your perfect “teacher voice” to sweetly silence the students.
Art teachers Sarah and Ashlyn took on the dangerous task of allowing kids to use paint (they do not have washable Crayola out here, folks). They also helped the kids complete a replica of Starry Night out of hundreds of tiny pieces of paper. Collaboration was a great idea until the older kids decided the hour of work the first graders had put in was not quite up to par and swiftly covered it up with work of their own. One of our vocabulary words the next day was respect (sing it loud and strong, Aretha).
As for other fun and games in art class, the kindergartners were loosely instructed to work on still life (uhhh, draw some fruits and vegetables, kids). Maybe something was lost in translation, but the interpretations of fruit and vegetables were quite abstract. Some students ventured towards the potato, others a black hole. One disadvantage of not speaking the native language of the kindergartners is that you miss the little comments. Luckily, the teaching assistants often translate after recovering from fits of laughter. One student kept asking “What the heck are these other kids drawing?” as he looked on to the more loose depictions of fruits and veggies. Clearly, he wasn’t meant for the abstract unit.
Katherine and Kara taught the kids the ever-so-popular Charleston to the tune of the Great Gatsby soundtrack (video to come. Trust me, its worth it). Not every student has the same grace, but the enthusiasm is there to make up for that. However, the kindergarteners had to migrate from the dance room to a classroom where there were no mirrors to distract them or curtains to hide in constantly. In a series of eight counts, Katherine and Kara attempt to work their magic and create some kind of composure out of all the chaos. If nothing else, the students are learning to count to eight in English really well.
In music, we learned about the blues, syncopation, Rhapsody in Blue (Thank you Fantasia for gifting me twelve minutes of silence from the students as they watched your animation). Any attempt to teach the kids scatting was thwarted by the constant silence in response to “Okay who wants to try?”. Oh well, at least they know the song from Tarzan (Sho bop she doo). If teaching scatting was hard, getting the kindergartners to sing anything was all but impossible.
A glimpse into our music classroom:
Teacher: Okay can you sing after me? There were ten in the bed…
Students:
Teacher: Alright lets try again, maybe that was too big of chunk to learn.There were…
Students:
Teacher: I really need your help to sing along with me!
Students:
Teacher: Alright lets listen again. There were ten in the bed…
Students:…… Teacher?
Teacher: Yes CiCi? Do you want to try it?
Student: go pee pee?
Teacher: okay thats fine time to play musical chairs.
We would have attached a video of the kindergartners singing on Family Friday, but it is basically just the teacher’s voice while the students stare off in the background and take turns jumping off the stage. Their cuteness saves them.
For family Friday each week, we attempt to show the parents that the kids are actually learning something or other at camp. They sing, dance, paint and all while speaking English! One component of this is the presence of the parents in the last rotation. For music, all had gone well until one student began to cry that her mom was not there. Another began to cry the her friend had (insert Chinese phrase hear that I could not understand). Then the friend began to cry. Then there was a sympathetic crier in the mix. And of course, the others had to start making crying sounds too because we were in the music room after all and sound is amplified. I’m sure the chorus of whaling in the last five minutes of class convinced the parents that we really are working them to their breaking points.
We laughed at the tears because we felt it on the inside, too. We never stop learning from the students or from our failed lesson plans and successful games. Each day has a piece of “what am I doing” (okay, a few pieces) but there is also a healthy dose of “I think they are getting it” or “I saw so and so smile today” or “Mason can recognize his name in English now!” We get excited about these students as if we have had them for a whole school year. They never stop surprising us, impressing us, stressing us, and bringing us joy. As we head into week three, we have more things to plan and so much to fit into our last few days. Short on sleep but very filled.
I’ve got the BCIS blues
It’s just so hard to plan for school.
Sight words and craft time make us laugh
Cause we just want to go and nap
We’ve got the BCIS blues
I’ve got the BCIS blues
We’ve reached the end of Jazz week two
Pinterest ideas all day long
Hoping the kids just get along
And we’re just here singing the blues
Well, week two brought more laughter, tears, paint stains, late nights, chocolate cravings, and stories. In our exploration of the Jazz age, we visited Van Gogh, Langston Hughes, the Charleston, Rhapsody in Blue, Ella Fitzgerald—and our happy place every time a student tried to wipe their sweaty heads on our laps, show us the “something sticky” they found on the floor (spoiler alert: it was a booger), or run around frantically shouting in Mandarin.
Wednesday marked the halfway point of camp A and we were met with mixed emotions of “wow this has gone fast, I don’t want it to be over!” to “Only halfway?” It has been a challenge to find new lesson plan ideas day after day. China has given us a chance to see what this thing called teaching really entails: many hours at the printer, many hours cutting out shapes that students will inevitably use incorrectly, and finding your perfect “teacher voice” to sweetly silence the students.
Art teachers Sarah and Ashlyn took on the dangerous task of allowing kids to use paint (they do not have washable Crayola out here, folks). They also helped the kids complete a replica of Starry Night out of hundreds of tiny pieces of paper. Collaboration was a great idea until the older kids decided the hour of work the first graders had put in was not quite up to par and swiftly covered it up with work of their own. One of our vocabulary words the next day was respect (sing it loud and strong, Aretha).
As for other fun and games in art class, the kindergartners were loosely instructed to work on still life (uhhh, draw some fruits and vegetables, kids). Maybe something was lost in translation, but the interpretations of fruit and vegetables were quite abstract. Some students ventured towards the potato, others a black hole. One disadvantage of not speaking the native language of the kindergartners is that you miss the little comments. Luckily, the teaching assistants often translate after recovering from fits of laughter. One student kept asking “What the heck are these other kids drawing?” as he looked on to the more loose depictions of fruits and veggies. Clearly, he wasn’t meant for the abstract unit.
Katherine and Kara taught the kids the ever-so-popular Charleston to the tune of the Great Gatsby soundtrack (video to come. Trust me, its worth it). Not every student has the same grace, but the enthusiasm is there to make up for that. However, the kindergarteners had to migrate from the dance room to a classroom where there were no mirrors to distract them or curtains to hide in constantly. In a series of eight counts, Katherine and Kara attempt to work their magic and create some kind of composure out of all the chaos. If nothing else, the students are learning to count to eight in English really well.
In music, we learned about the blues, syncopation, Rhapsody in Blue (Thank you Fantasia for gifting me twelve minutes of silence from the students as they watched your animation). Any attempt to teach the kids scatting was thwarted by the constant silence in response to “Okay who wants to try?”. Oh well, at least they know the song from Tarzan (Sho bop she doo). If teaching scatting was hard, getting the kindergartners to sing anything was all but impossible.
A glimpse into our music classroom:
Teacher: Okay can you sing after me? There were ten in the bed…
Students:
Teacher: Alright lets try again, maybe that was too big of chunk to learn.There were…
Students:
Teacher: I really need your help to sing along with me!
Students:
Teacher: Alright lets listen again. There were ten in the bed…
Students:…… Teacher?
Teacher: Yes CiCi? Do you want to try it?
Student: go pee pee?
Teacher: okay thats fine time to play musical chairs.
We would have attached a video of the kindergartners singing on Family Friday, but it is basically just the teacher’s voice while the students stare off in the background and take turns jumping off the stage. Their cuteness saves them.
For family Friday each week, we attempt to show the parents that the kids are actually learning something or other at camp. They sing, dance, paint and all while speaking English! One component of this is the presence of the parents in the last rotation. For music, all had gone well until one student began to cry that her mom was not there. Another began to cry the her friend had (insert Chinese phrase hear that I could not understand). Then the friend began to cry. Then there was a sympathetic crier in the mix. And of course, the others had to start making crying sounds too because we were in the music room after all and sound is amplified. I’m sure the chorus of whaling in the last five minutes of class convinced the parents that we really are working them to their breaking points.
We laughed at the tears because we felt it on the inside, too. We never stop learning from the students or from our failed lesson plans and successful games. Each day has a piece of “what am I doing” (okay, a few pieces) but there is also a healthy dose of “I think they are getting it” or “I saw so and so smile today” or “Mason can recognize his name in English now!” We get excited about these students as if we have had them for a whole school year. They never stop surprising us, impressing us, stressing us, and bringing us joy. As we head into week three, we have more things to plan and so much to fit into our last few days. Short on sleep but very filled.