Kindergarten Excursions

Teaching kindergarten is probably my favourite part about working at HESS, and one of the perks of it all is the excursions. Every month the children have an outing to somewhere relevant to the theme that they are learning. Last month we were learning about rooms of the house and furniture, so we took a trip to Ikea. All I really had to do was say stuff, like "this is a bed, this is a desk. What room am I in?" This week were moved onto food, so the children look a trip to the local mochi factory where they had a small guided tour, and got make some themselves to take home. I actually get paid to go somewhere cool.

Usually on the bus I'll be required to drill them with flashcards, but that can get dull pretty quick (for me anyway) So now I also point out the window and say "look at that, its a bus, bus, bus, bus it is a bus." I think they need to learn more words relevant to their lives. The other week I was teaching them "Half a cup of coffee" I don't know who the bright spark was who decided that it was a great idea to teach children how to ask for coffee.

It was all pretty relaxed, until main office suddenly decided that teachers  were slacking off on excursions, and now we have to fill in a form stating what English we will be teaching. An office girl handed me one when I walked in the door after an excursion, and I must have given her my "What the f**k is this?" face. Like there isn't enough paper work that we do for free. If they want me to fill in this sort of paper work, then they should at least tell me about the excursion more than a day before. I'm actually quite lucky that they at least tell me the day before, because they need me to come early. My co-worker on the other hand usually rocks up with the reaction "What, are we going somewhere?"