School Life..

Work is going well... I know there are lots of teachers reading this, so I thought I would give you a little "picture" of what the teaching is like over here!
Outside of the academic realm, I'm doing two after school clubs... Monday afternoons I do French club with grades 3 and 4. There are only 9 in the club, which is a nice small number to work with! It's very easy, and I'm using lots of "Jolie Ronde" material/ideas with them (French program I taught at Gad's), so no prep or planning needed! (After 3 years, I can do it from memory:) The other club is girl scouts (Brownies). There are all different age groups, and the boys are doing it too - from grade 1 through grade 5 or 6. This one I was kind of roped into doing, as they needed more leaders to lead different groups! But I am enjoying it.. I have 9 kids (some grade 1, mostly grade 3) and we work on different "badges" every week. So it's pretty easy, and I'm doing all the "easy, low prep" badges first!!
Next quarter, (the school year is divided into 4 quarters - 2 quarters in the first semester which goes until December, then 2 quarters in second semester, which goes from Jan-June) which will start in a couple of weeks, (no holidays between 1st and 2nd quarter unfortunately!) I'll be continuing on with Brownies, and also doing Student Council - ahhh I don't know what I've just gotten myself into!! But it sounds fun anyway... Planning theme days, and "social" kind of events.. I will hopefully delegate a lot of the work to my council!! I'll keep you informed of how it goes...:~
As far as the academic side goes... the workload is SO much lighter than I'm used to! It's just that I find I'm "caught up" so much quicker... A few factors that maybe contributes to this is that I only have 11 kids, so the marking gets down much quicker... Also, we finish at 2:55, so the day is shorter, meaning less "teaching" time. The other grade 3 teacher and I agreed that I would teach her Science and she would teach my Social Studies, which means I only have 4 subjects to prep for! Makes life that much easier:)
I must admit, I really do miss teaching different classes of kids and also my French and DT I taught at Gad's.... I really enjoyed that! But at the same time, I am thankful of the lighter load, so that I have the time also to just settle into a different culture, and form friendships ect.

Speaking of settling in... my plans this weekend? To finish painting my bedroom! I love colour... and so the bedroom is a sage green, and the bathroom is a lavender purple... I also bought fabric to cover the cushions of my couch - a local lady is making the covers for me ... RM 5 a cover! (That's less than a pound!!) How could I NOT get it done at that price!! Can't wait til they are finished... I will post a picture when my living room is "complete"!!
I must head home now... it's Friday afternoon... What am I still doing at school??!!