My favourite day of the week is...

My favourite day of the week is Friday. I the afternoon I always go to brass band, then I usually play with my friends and watch TV in the evening.

We're shopping at the department store. It's the ice cream shop. My aunt is an insurance woman at the insurance company. I have insurance.

I'm walking to school. We always have fun. Yesterday, it was rainy. We were at the gymnasium. How's the weather today? It's sunny! We can go to school grounds.

Tomorrow is October 27th; it's my father's birthday. My sisters, mother and me make cake. I want to have fun.

Posted for Miki (12)

Diggers & wheelbarrows

Originally uploaded by ijiwaru jimbo

Today was such a lovely sunny morning we couldn't stay indoors forever. We'd sung the "How's the weather?" song and got a resounding "It's SUNNY today!" response. We 'did' our letter /Mm/ words and could see the mountains clearly from our big windows, with their snowy peaks against the blue sky.

Shoes and coats on for a wander down the riverside, where some workmen were spending our taxpayers money, slowly. The girls were really interested to see the men choosing the right sized rocks for the holes they had, and then knocking them into position & cementing them there. They had a dirty old truck, a clean yellow digger, and an old blue wheelbarrow to help them.

We sang songs from the Billy Goats DVD as we walked - "There's green green grass, over the river" we had to change to 'brown'; we looked for a nasty Troll under the bridge but couldn't see him; and we sang about the 3 Billy Goats living on the mountain yonder!

On the way back, we found a ladybird, which bit Naomi. We counted its black spots before it flew away. We also looked at the buds on the trees - spring is coming, so we'll have to come back and check on their progress in becoming leaves soon.

Back at school we finished some colouring - today we read a Potato Pals book about "In the morning" and our daily routines. We also had a big I Spy with /Mm/, /Ss/ & /Rr/ words...and so much more. The walk was the highlight though, as you can see. We haven't been out for ages and now the weather is getting a bit nicer, maybe we can explore some more soon!

Good day, bad day

I have to admit I'm pretty exhausted today, and also apologise for not scribbling here lately. Been a bit busy (so what's new?). Without going into details, let's just say we have one less teacher at Luna today. Yuki has been magic on the telephone (as ever) madly rearranging schedules & smoothing feathers; Alex & Michelle have also been very good about offering to help.

I woke up this morning feeling like I'd only just gone to bed, and was not looking forward to 12 hours straight teaching. I had to cancel one of my own classes (the first time in about 6 years - I even got back from Hong Kong once in time to teach them!) and pick up three 'refugee' classes. I'm glad I did; I haven't taught Y/H/R for a couple of years and they've really grown up - big eight year olds now - and I have never taught S since he joined Luna last year with his brother. We had a classic laugh & also managed to learn this/that. Then I got the chance to teach Y, one on one. He was teaching me! He used to live in China & his English is fantastic, and he's only in elementary school.

Then I sprinted to a company class & caught with some old faces - and one of them I mean really crusty! Actually, Y is one of the best looking girls I know, as she was when I first taught her when I had hair. K managed to have his dinner and manage collocations & a dictionary rather well.

All of this on top of my regular four 90' classes earlier in the day. My first group were a bit quiet but did start a new pattern for the class - not sitting down until they've chatted about something minor & 'broken the ice' - anything (weather, pop song on the radio this morning, journey to work, last night's sport). My second bunch remembered most things you can lose/waste/miss (including hair), switched readers with each other (a very good program we've set up) & also set themselves up for 'telephone homework': literally have to call each other before next class & arrange/rearrange meetings. My afternoon students had forgotten rather too much of the last unit so we reviewed quite a bit; I'm looking forward to K bringing in some of his 400 photos from his trip to Cambodia. My last group made excuses (good ones) to avoid making presentations this week, and instead did really well with there is/are, some/any etc.

So, tomorrow it's going to be a similar pattern. And start looking for a replacement...and I hope catch up with my old mate Tim, who has apparently returned to these shores. Time for bed!