Wed./Thurs.

I can't believe it's only Thursday.  This has been the longest week.  I think part of the reason it has seemed so long is because I've been so frustrated with my lack of things to do in the classroom.  I haven't taught a single whole-class lesson this week.  Not one.  I met with my teacher and my head today, and we sorted out how to give me more responsibility in the coming weeks.  I'm supposed to be teaching 25% of the class by now, and I'm absolutely not.  The TA has more responsibility than I do!  Very frustrating.  Hopefully it gets better!

Yesterday was "No Pens Day" at St. Michael's.  The idea is to encourage verbal communication skills, emphasising the importance of speaking and listening.  We did things like make puppets for a story, do a mock-interview, discuss ideas with talk partners, big maths, etc.  To put their names on their work, they had to cut their name out off a class list and glue it on their paper.  They really didn't touch a pen or pencil all day!  By the end of the day, however, all the children said they wanted to use pens and pencils the next day because they missed them.  Funny!  I also learned that one of the students in my class speaks Afrikaans as his first language.  I had never even heard of Afrikaans!  Apparently it's spoken in South Africa.

I taught a small group science activity where the children had to choose an object out of a bag and then talk to their talk partners about the similarities and differences between the materials.  One girl had her fingers in her mouth, so I asked her to go wash her hands before she put them in the bag.  5 minutes later, she still wasn't out of the loo.  So I went in there to find her standing in the middle of the room.  I said "What are you doing?"  and she says (I'm not kidding) "Miss Keys, I wet myself."  WHILE SHE WAS STANDING IN THE BATHROOM!  Are you kidding me?  I literally said "Really?  Standing in the bathroom?" and sent her to the office.  Come on.

I also got a letter from a student yesterday.  Here it is:

I told her I was staying until the end of fall term.  Then I asked her what she meant about her brother's birthday.  She said "My brother's birthday is December 1st.  You'll still be here."  I asked if she wanted me to come to her brother's birthday and she said "Well no.  You don't even know my brother!"............. so I have no idea what the point of the letter was, but it's cute!  She even attached a rubber band to the top.... why? I have no idea.  Too funny!

Last night, I took the train (by myself for the first time!) to meet the girls and some people from their school at the cinema in Epsom.  Cost me £3.60 to spend 15 minutes on the train and only go 2 stops!  Seems a bit steep.  Anyway, we saw Crazy, Stupid, Love.  The cinema has a 2 for 1 deal on Wednesdays if you have an Orange phone (Orange is a phone company), so we did that!  The movie was pretty good.  Started out really slow, but was really funny at the end.  I don't know if the movie was just long, or if there were just a lot of previews, but we got to the theatre at 6 and didn't leave until 8:40!  Then we went to eat at a place called Pizza Express, because they also have a 2 for 1 Orange deal.  That also took forever!  Definitely not superb customer service in British restaurants.  (On Megan's birthday, we waited 45 minutes for our check!).  We didn't leave the restaurant until 10 or 10:15.  Paul (Kate's teacher) drove us back to Dorking (because he lives here too).

Today, my teacher was back for the first time in over a week (after her holiday in Barbados).  The children were calling her the wrong name all day because they hadn't seen her in so long!  I observed a dance lesson taught by the head today as well.  I'm teaching dance next week.  No worries though.. it's a CD and we just follow the instructions (hardly counts as actual dancing so I won't scare any little kids!).

I still have a cough.  It's just so hard to get caught up on sleep and get healthy here because 1) the children are gross and 2) I don't want to waste my time in England sleeping!  I feel like I'll be at least a little sick the entire time I'm here.  I need a new immune system.

Fun fact:  The children were playing tic-tac-toe on the bus on the way home from Hever Castle.. but they call it "knots and crosses."

Hever Castle Trip etc.

Today was Year 2's big field trip to Hever Castle, Anne Boleyn's childhood home.  The day started off rough, because the Year 2 teacher was out sick.  So, the headmistress had to take the class instead.  We all loaded into the coach (not bus, coach) at 915ish.  The coach had nice cloth seats (with seat belts!) and an air conditioner.  Much nicer than the big yellow school buses in America!  We only had one out of the sixteen get car sick on the way there, so that was impressive!  Riding in a coach on those tiny windy country roads is not at all enjoyable.  I sat next to a little Year 2 girl on the way there who kept asking me things like "Do they have coaches in Australia?" and "Do you have to wear seat belts in Australia?"  She could not remember that I was from America, not Australia!

Here are some pictures from the trip:

We tried to take a class picture when we got there, but they were a tad bit distracted by the moat.

Before lunch, we all sat down to sketch different parts of the castle.  Castles are a theme in the Year 2 classroom this term, so we were focusing on the different parts of the castle and drawing detailed sketches (with some help from Mums).

Really concentrating.

One little boy thought he needed a closer look, so the head walked him closer.

Then he took a seat in the middle of the gravel and did his sketching from there.  Adorable.

They worked beautifully.

After the sketching, we had lunch and then explored the castle.  We were on the look-out for Tudor roses in the decorations, and managed to find quite a few.  It is amazing how children that age have to touch EVERYTHING.  Even if it's not something cool.  They literally had to touch every wall and every rope and every sign they could!  It drove me crazy!  Overall, they were pretty well-behaved.

Here are some pictures of my classroom:

We're learning about creation in RE, so we made different flowers out of tissue paper, made animals out of K'Nex, drew and coloured animals, made leaf rubbings, and made sky pictures on the computer.

Here is the art corner.

Part of the classroom (with one of my teachers).

Tables and the children's pegs.

That's the end of the excitement for the day!  I did hear that Grams and Gramps have been reading my blog - hope you guys are feeling better!  Glad you're home!  And no Grandpa, I don't have a boyfriend yet.  Gimme a few weeks and I'll see if I can change that!

Today is Megan's birthday, so we're going to celebrate by not doing homework! 

Monday

I was up all last night coughing, which Megan really loved.  She eventually had to go downstairs to sleep because I was still coughing at 3 am. Sorry Meg!  So, needless to say, it was rough getting up this morning.    I'm going to have to take double the medicine tonight or else I'll have no hope of making it through tomorrow.

This morning was pretty uneventful.  When reading with a girl, she was stuck on the word "TV".. so she sounded it out "ta-va" (which are the correct sounds).. but then looks at me really confident and goes "sponge"... uhhh no? Where did sponge come from?  Weird.

I spent the afternoon in the Year 2 classroom so I could get to know them before the field trip tomorrow.  I introduced myself and told them about my family and said that I came from America.  When I asked if they had any questions, these are the questions I got:
"Do they have trees in America?"
"Do they have palm trees in America?"
"Do they have coconut trees in America?"

... really?  After some direction from the head, they asked questions about where I actually came from (where in America I lived, was it cold there, etc).  I'm going on a field trip with them tomorrow to Hever Castle, which is apparently where Anne Boleyn grew up.  Should be fun!  I don't know how to dress though, because the weather has been so odd lately!  It was freezing this morning, but 70 degrees when I got home!  And today was supposed to be the worst day of the week.  With my luck, it'll probably be 80 degrees for the trip!  Better than 50 and rainy I suppose.

Weekend

I love weekends in England.

Friday night, we just hung out and watched the Inbetweeners (a super funny British show).  Then, we went out for a couple drinks and discovered a pub that actually plays American music and has a dance floor.  We didn't stay out late because we were so tired from the week (and I have that pesky chest infection).

Saturday, we went into London to do the Tower of London.

The Tower of London from the outside. 

We walked in at just the right time to get a tour from a Yeoman Warder.  We learned so much!  To become a Yeoman Warder, you have to have served 22 (or 23) years of military service, and retired as at least a Sergeant Major, and you have to have some medal for 18 years of good service.  Then, you just apply!  You also have to live in the tower with your family.  It's like a little town.  They have apartments, a church, a pub.  

Here's a picture of some of their houses.

Outside some houses inside the Tower.  Some of these were used to hold prisoners during their stay at the Tower.  A little further outside the picture is Tower Green, where they did private executions.  One of these houses was built for Anne Boleyn, but she was executed before they finished it.

Cliche guard house picture.  Fun fact - the ER stands for Elizabeth Regina (Regina is Latin for queen).

White Tower had an armour exhibit.  Almost a whole floor was devoted to Henry VIII's armour.  He was apparently really short because all his armour is tiny.

Tower Bridge, one of the prettiest landmarks in London.  

After we left the Tower, we walked down by the Thames River.  There was a festival going on, with all sorts of food and drink tents.  There aren't any open container laws in England (that we know of?), so we could walk around London freely with our autumn cocktails.  We watched some street performers and watched the sun set.  So pretty!

That's all for now!  I think we're having a lazy Sunday of uploading pictures and doing homework.  I'm feeling a little better, but I think a lazy day will definitely be good for me.  I still have a cough, and breathing is more work than it should be.  Fingers crossed this infection doesn't turn into pneumonia!

TGIF

Even after staying home yesterday, Fridays are still just exhausting.  When my Head came in, she asked if I was sure I should be there and I said yes I'm not contagious.  And she said "I'm not worried about you being contagious.. I'm worried about how you feel!  If you feel like you need to come home any time during the day, let me know and I'll drive you home."  They are really the nicest people at my school!  All day she kept checking to make sure I didn't need to go home.  I love them.

When the children came in this morning, there were a lot of "Miss Keys, how did you get the cough?" and "Miss Keys how come you weren't here the other day?"  So cute =)  but it was all down-hill from there!  Haha.

We had a rough morning with behavior.. children that are normally so well-behaved were just being wild.  Rolling around on the carpet, yelling inside, grabbing onto each other.  Apparently it wasn't just Year 1 either.  I walked by the Head's office and she was absolutely laying into 3 Year 2 boys who were slapping each other and pulling each other's hair in line outside.  She's not a woman you want to have yelling at you!  Their little faces looked terrified.  Lesson learned I hope!  But we had some Year 1's pushing each other to the ground in front of all the Mums at the end of the day so we had to have a little chat about that.  I think they were all just really tired and cranky.

Here are some things I've been doing this week with the children:

We have a toy shop in our classroom.  Today, the children got to go choose two toys, write down how much they cost, and write down how much it would cost to buy both toys.  This worksheet was for the middle ability group.

And this one was for the high ability group.

We're learning the Enormous Turnip story, so the children were to draw a picture about the story and then write a sentence about one of the characters.  Such cute pictures (we don't have a colour copier, but they look much better in colour!)

This afternoon, a little girl found the top of an acorn outside and very seriously, came up and said "Miss Keys does this make a snail?".... "Pardon?" .... "This.  Does it make a snail?  Will a snail come out of it?" .... "Ummm.. no?".... "Oh."  *walks away*.  Where do kids get these things from?  I have gotten much better at saying "pardon?" instead of "what" because all the children have informed me that it is very rude to say "what".  So much more polite in this country!

I also learned that a band-aid is not a band-aid in England.  It's called a plaster.  And scotch tape is not scotch tape but I haven't learned what it is yet.  It's a slow process learning to speak proper English!

I think the girls and I will be going to London this weekend to tour the Tower of London.  The weather is supposed to be really nice, so that should be fun!

The British Healthcare System

Last night I went to bed feeling absolutely awful.  So this morning, I called into school and decided to go to the doctor.  My host mum made an appointment for me.  She called at 1045 and got an appointment for 1150 (amazing!).  So I walked up to the medical place in Dorking.  I went to the front desk and, since I'm not British, I apparently count as a private patient, which means I have to pay.  £47.25 to be exact.  Then I sat down in the waiting room.  Instead of having nurses come out and call your name, they have a screen that flashes your name, which doctor you go to, and what room.  When your name flashes, you walk back to the room where the doctor is waiting.  No nurses to weigh you, take your blood pressure, temperature, pulse.  None of that nonsense.

So Dr. Husein (that's how he introduced himself, his first name. I won't even try his last name.) asked me the normal "are you allergic to anything, what medicines do you take" questions.  I told him I'd been taking Mucinex for the cough because it's supposed to help and he told me I didn't need to do that because I was too young for Mucinex............. what?  Anyway, then he listened to my breathing and told me I have a chest infection.  I got some antibiotics from the pharmacy (which surprisingly only cost £5.50).  While in the pharmacy, I checked out some other medicines they had laying around.  British are just so practical.  There was medicine called "4Head" for (you guessed it) headaches.  And a medicine called "Anusol"... make your own judgements about what that was for.  I literally didn't recognize a single medication in the entire pharmacy.  And I only had to wait about 5 minutes for my prescription!

From the time I left my house to the time I got back to my house, the process took less than an hour.  That's unheard of in America!


I'm now going to sleep the rest of the day away.

Wednesday

I still have this absolutely awful cough, so my game plan is to go to bed by 9 o'clock tonight and tomorrow night and hope it goes away by this weekend!

At school today, we had people from the Yehudi Menuhin School come to teach the Year 2s their first violin lesson.  Yehudi Menuhin was a famous violinist who founded a school in Surrey.  The school is basically for musical prodigies.  It's an international boarding school, and it's all ages, so the students are all ages and from all different countries.  Every Wednesday, a teacher and some students from the school come to St. Michael's to teach the Year 2s how to play the violin.  The Yehudi Menuhin School provides the violins and everything!  It's a really great program!  So the whole school got to listen to a mini-concert by the Yehudi Menuhin students this afternoon.  Here's their website:
http://www.yehudimenuhinschool.co.uk/

We had a staff meeting this afternoon, but I didn't need to be there (thank goodness!), so I got to come home at 4!  I went into Dorking and shopped a little bit.  Shopping is so hard here because I have no idea what size I am in British sizes and there were no fitting rooms... so I just guessed.

I saw someone driving a Maserati today in Dorking.  I would like to be his friend (or just ride around in his car).

I got a package full of food goodies from Momma Keys today!  Thank goodness because I was starting to have easy mac withdrawals!

Now I need to go nap.

Tuesday

So I taught again this morning.. we were doing an activity where all the children had whiteboards and were writing numbers on them.. here's how it went:

Me:  Okay children, erase your whiteboards and listen for the next number.
Children: *Blank stares*
Me:  Erase your boards!
Children: *Blank stares*
Me: Come on children, erase your whiteboards!
Children: *Blank stares*
One brave child: "Miss Keys, do you mean 'rub out' our boards?"

Not a single one of them had a clue what I was talking about when I said erase!

I also made a bulletin board today.  The children painted self-portraits last week and wrote a sentence about themselves.  I don't know why the picture is backwards, but you get the idea =)  It says "We are Year 1."  (The dots on the faces are supposed to be freckles.. they went a little overboard).

Week #3

It's so crazy that we've only been here for less than 3 weeks!  It feels like we've been here forever!

I taught again today, PE this time.  It went much better than my last lessons.  It takes so long to get them ready though, because they all have to change from their uniforms into PE clothes.  25 five-year olds are NOT quick at changing.  We give them 5 minutes with a fish timer (the bowl fills up with water, then after 5 minutes, the fish jumps into the bowl) and only about half of them finish in that time.  Anyway, once they finally got dressed and ready, the lesson went really well.  They were learning about different ways to move their bodies using a hula hoop, and different ways to make short, wide shapes and tall thin shapes.  Afterwards, it took a little longer than expected for them to change back into their uniforms, and we forgot that we had assembly at 215!  All the Year 2 parents were there to watch the Year 2's get their badges and everyone was just waiting for us!  We were only about 5 minutes late, so not too bad.  But our head teacher's disapproving look when we walked in was not pleasant!

Before home time, one child gets chosen to do the afternoon prayer.  Usually they say things like "Dear God, thank you for the birds. Amen."  Today, the little girl said "Dear God, thank you for the birds and the flowers.... AND the bugs! Amen."  Too funny!

After school, some of the children had street dance class (always entertaining).  Today, however, we had a little one get really sick and she threw up 3 times!  Cleaning up throw-up is not my idea of a good time, so I pretended to be really engrossed in what I was doing in the other room.  If they had asked, I suppose I would have helped, but they had the clean-up effort under control!

My teacher is going into London to see Adele tonight (SO JEALOUS) and then going to Barbados on Wednesday for a week (her husband is a pilot, so she's tagging along and having a mini-holiday).  Such a rough life being British..................

We Americans are going to spend the night doing homework! Joy =)

Friday/Weekend

So I taught my two lesson on Friday.. they did NOT go as well as I planned.  Train-wreck might be how I'd describe them, actually.  Haha.  Friday was just not a good day.  I was sick (I knew I couldn't make it through the first full week without getting sick!) and exhausted and the kids were exhausted and it just wasn't great.  I'll have to redeem myself this week!

The weekend was okay.  We took the bus to Kingston to go shopping on Saturday (after a much needed sleep-in!).  It was about an hour bus ride to Kingston, even though it's only like 20-25 miles (I think?).  Anyway, we didn't look at a map or anything before we got there (great planning, I know) so we just got off the bus and wandered around.  We discovered a store called Primark, which is a really cheap, cute store.  Then we found an H&M and some other little boutiquey stores.  We ate dinner at a little cafe place called Local Heros, which had phenomenal sandwiches and salads.  We got home around 630 and just lounged around for a while.  I skyped with Jonathan, so that was nice!

Kate and Megan wanted to go out, so of course I got peer pressured into going as well (even though I was hacking my lungs up all day).  Turned out to be a really eventful night.  I spent 30 minutes of the night listening to a stranger confess his love for me, and ask me to marry him.  Dorking is full of characters!  (Hopefully I don't run into that particular character again.)

Today, we pretty much laid around.  I skyped Momma and Poppa Keys and did some homework.  Then our host parents made us a fantastic dinner (roast beef and every sort of veggie you could ever want).  We were also introduced to yorkshire puddings, which are really yummy (and not pudding at all). Now onto more lesson planning!

I need it to be the weekend.

Such an eventful day today!  Jenny and I met with my EA supervisor to talk about the logistics of observations and stuff.  I'm much clearer on what I'm supposed to be doing and how much I need to send him.  He was much more laid back this time than he was in our first meeting, so that was a relief!  Then, right after that, I did a circle time with the children.  We shared some toys and then passed around a smile (they love that).  After lunch, I taught my lesson.  It went pretty well.  It was such a short amount of time, but the children did well!  After school, Jenny and I planned out everything I'm going to teach between now and half-term, so that was nice and stressful.  Then, when I got home, I lost my voice, which is great considering I have to teach almost all morning tomorrow.  Hopefully a good night's sleep will help!  In case it doesn't, I bought a pharmacy of cold medicine to make it through tomorrow.

Aminah, my little sister from BBBS, messaged me today from her mom's facebook to tell me that she really misses me.  Definitely made my day!  She says she's on a waiting list for a new big sister, so hopefully that works out!  So sad I won't be able to go back to Winona long enough to keep the match going.  I also got to skype Momma Keys tonight.  All in all, a pretty good night.

Zumba.

The first full week of school seems like it goes on forever!  I can't believe it's only Wednesday!  It was an off-day for most of the kids today.  We had a trio of girls who were just mischievous all day.  They all three cried when they were saying bye to mums this morning, only because they wanted the attention.  Then, during our literacy carousel, they all insisted on walking around and doing nothing!  So frustrating!  My teacher was not being tough on the discipline today either, which was really frustrating for me also.

The children said such funny things today.  Must've been something they had for lunch cause they were just odd!  For example, I asked one little girl to put a dot in the middle of a circle on her paper and she INSISTED that she needed play-doh to do this because it was too hard.  I asked her how play-doh would help her make a dot on her paper and she was on the verge of tears!  Then, at the end of the day, we were lining the children up by birthdays.  We have a girl named Apryl who's birthday is in April.  So my teacher said "Oh Apryl's birthday is in April!" and Apryl says "My mummy and daddy did that so they would remember because they are not very good thinkers." Bahaha.  Too funny.

My supervisor comes tomorrow to tell me exactly what I'm supposed to be doing and lay out a timetable, so that will be nice.  I'm also teaching tomorrow.. and my other teacher will be there!

I went to zumba tonight with some of the other older teachers.  I've never done zumba, so I was a little skeptical.. it was so much worse than I thought it would be! Haha.  I've rediscovered that I have no rhythm, nor can I make my hips move like the latino teacher!  There was an especially horrible part where we had to put on belts with jingly things and do belly dancing moves.. are you kidding me!?  It was a pretty good workout though.  I may go back next week.  It costs 5 pounds though, so that could get expensive.

Time for bed.  It's 10:45 and Megan's already been asleep for an hour!

Tuesday.

Fun Fact about England for the day:  The light at an intersection turns yellow before a green light, not before a red light like it does in America.  I'm guessing this is so all the cars with manual transmissions can prepare themselves to start going!

Nothing very exciting happened at school today.  It was Tuesday.  Tuesdays are the worst day of the week (in my opinion).  Everyone is tired from Monday, and there are still 3 more days in the week, so not even a weekend to look forward to in the near future!

School was pretty uneventful today.  We had more tears than normal this morning.. apparently the children don't like Tuesdays either!  My teacher and I had some planning time this afternoon, so I worked on my lessons for this week.  Both my ICT (technology) lesson and my history lesson are about old and new toys this week, so I'm struggling to make them different and exciting.  But, I think if I let the children touch the interactive whiteboard they'll think whatever we're doing is fun!

I got to skype with Momma Keys today, which was awesome.  I miss her pretty little face.  Poppa Keys gets the pleasure of skyping with me this weekend. Can't wait!

Pictures.

We got to London bright and early on Sunday morning and hopped on the sight-seeing bus!

Our guide, Joe, knew everything about everything in London. It's amazing the things these tour guides know about!

 One of my favorite pictures of the day.  The building is the Ministry of Defense building in London.  I love that you can see the London Eye peeking out behind it.  

My absolute favorite picture of the day. Big Ben with the British flag flying in front.  Fun fact - Big Ben is actually the name of the bell inside the tower, not the clock.  The tower itself is called St. Steven's Tower.

The girls' first ride on the underground!  We successfully navigated through a few stations.

Just me, hanging out at the Queen's house (aka Buckingham Palace) before our tour.

Thinking about sneaking into the Palace? Think again.  There are cameras, spikes, and 2 layers of barbed wire.  Megan though about trying to scale the wall, but then decided against it. Haha.

That's all for now!

Beginning of the first full week.

After such a long weekend in London, it was really rough to get up and go to school this morning!  It was a gloomy morning, pouring down rain, really windy and chilly.  By 10 am, it was sunny and in the 60s.  By the time I left school at 6, it was in the high 60s.  Such weird weather in this part of the world!

We had a couple tears from children not wanting to leave their mums this morning. I think they're realizing they actually have to come to school everyday now.  We sorted it out (England's way of saying "figured it out") and the rest of the day went pretty smoothly.  During afternoon register, all the girls were trying to top what the last girl said.  So first I looked like a princess, then a princess and a fairy, then a beautiful princess and a fairy.. by the end I was a "super beautiful princess and a fairy and a beauty and really a princess."  Too funny!

We ended up staying at school until 6 tonight because we had a lot to get ready for tomorrow.  8-6 is a really long day with little kids!  There's no time to sit down at all.  I did drink 3 cups of tea today though!  I found myself craving it this weekend, so the addiction is starting already.

Another funny thing about living here.. All day, I'm surrounded by people with British accents.  I don't even notice them anymore, until I start talking.  I hear other people say things and think they will sound the same when I say them, but they don't.  It's like I'm surprised by my American accent!

I'm working on my first real lesson (that isn't about myself and America) to teach this week.  It's about old and new toys, and how battery-operated toys are controlled.  Sounds boring, but I think I can make it interesting.  I'm going to have the children bring in a toy that does not use batteries or electricity, and then have them figure out how they could make it electric or battery-powered, and what it would do.  Then they'll draw a picture of it.  I think they'll really like it, because they are really into drawing anything and everything!

Tonight, Jack the dog ate all of our chicken off the counter in the kitchen when we weren't looking.  Lesson learned.. I will never leave food on the counter unattended again!

Weekends in England are not at all relaxing.

It's safe to say we had a pretty hectic weekend.  We went out on Friday night we some friends (yes we do have friends!).  That was a pretty good time.  Saturday, we got up and went into Dorking so Megan could cash her travelers checks and I could get my pants hemmed.  I couldn't understand anything the man said in the dry cleaners because he had a middle-eastern accent AND a british accent.  So hopefully I didn't agree to anything weird!  We ventured into a little fish and chips restaurant and ate lunch.  I chickened out and ordered the chicken (no pun intended) since I'm not a big fish eater.  Turns out, my chicken was gross and Kate and Megan's fish was really good.  Lesson learned.

We left Dorking around 1 and headed into London.  It's a 45 minute train ride, so we got there around 2. We didn't plan out our day very well, so we spent a lot of time wandering around.  We tried to go into Buckingham Palace, but they were sold out for the day.  We bought a bus tour and rode around for a while, then did a walking tour at night.. I forget what it was called, but it was something about ghosts.. we stopped at a few pubs along the way also =)

Today, we got up early and headed into London for day 2.  They are doing construction on the trains, so it was a little trickier to get into London.  We normally go from the Dorking station to London Waterloo, but Waterloo was closed so we had to go from Dorking to Redhill and change trains, then arrive at London Victoria.  We spent part of the morning on a bus tour.  We drove by St. Paul's Cathedral, and they were having a memorial service for 9/11.  We didn't go, but it's nice to know Englanders are remember today as well.  Then, went to a Harry Potter walking tour at 1.  That ended up being way too crowded for our liking (about 75 people on a walking tour through Central London on a Sunday afternoon) so we dropped out and went to eat.  We had tickets to go through the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace at 345, so we did that all afternoon (it was a 2 hour tour).  Buckingham Palace is GORGEOUS!  We got to see the Kate Middleton's wedding dress and all kinds of other cool things.  No cameras allowed though, so no pictures of all the cool stuff.

Getting home was a real treat.  The Victoria Station wasn't running any trains to Dorking, so we got on the train to Sutton (which was a 30 minute ride), then had to get on a bus from Sutton to Dorking (another hour).  Needless to say, we're pros at the train system now!  We ventured onto the underground for the first time today as well.  Our only mistake was thinking we should walk down the stairs into the Covent Garden station instead of taking the elevator.... we didn't know the station was 15 stories underground!

Time to do some homework!

First week of student teaching = complete!

I taught my first lesson today and it was AMAZING!  I was just teaching them all about America and where I came from.  Then I showed them pictures of my house, my car, my yard, a mailbox, etc.  Then I had a "Miss Keys Bag" where I put things like my knitting, and my camera, and a book (and other things). They loved coming to the front of the room and choosing things out of the bag.  I also did the register in the afternoon.  So I got to say "Good afternoon" to all the little children.  The girls were so nice and said things like "Good morning Miss Keys.  You look like a beautiful princess and a fairy."  Made my day!

Also, so funny that my teacher actually called people "poppet."  Really. So funny!  Also, today in the bathroom, a Year 2 child said "Are you from America?" And I said "Yes I am."  And a Year 1 boy got really serious and said "Miss Keys, do you speak American?"  They just can't understand that I'm actually speaking English!  Overall, the day was really good and I'm in such a good mood!

Kate and Megan and I went to eat at a little Italian restaurant in Dorking.  It was really good food!  A little confusion because we didn't know how we were supposed to go about paying the bill, but our server Jim was very nice and we figured it out =)  Now we're going out for a few drinks at our local pub!

A few pictures.

Here's my little school! It's called St. Michael's School in Mickelham.

Cheesy touristy picture of me and Big Ben! 

The London Eye! It started pouring down rain shortly after this picture.

I'll have more pictures pretty soon.. we haven't been doing much except school this week!

Another difference I've noticed.. they don't have screens on windows here.  They just open them without screens because there are so few bugs!

Day 2 - complete!

Day 2 with the children is complete!  It was an interesting day, because my other teacher was in today, so it was her first day with the children.  It's sort of like the children have 2 first days of school, because each teacher is so different.  Jenny is definitely the more structured, strict teacher, but also a little more energetic.  The children were definitely testing boundaries today.  We had to use our behavior chart more than once, and a few students had to speak with the head about their behavior.  It is only the second day of school, so hopefully they'll settle into a routine and won't be too much trouble.  A few little girls will be trouble all year I'm sure though.  Two little girls are like the Mean Girls of Year 1!  Poor little Clea was getting picked on by them every time I turned around!

It's also hard for me to tell what they do in terms of special education.  They don't have a special education teacher or even any paraprofessionals.  There is a little boy in my class who I'm almost positive is on the autism spectrum.  We'll see how that develops throughout the year but he doesn't get much extra help.

Kids in other countries are still kids and say really funny thinks.  During register (attendance), the children have to say "Good morning, Mrs. Butterfield" whenever she calls their name.  Today, little Isobel said "Good morning, Mrs. Butterfield.  You look like a princess."  How adorable!  Then all the other little girls felt like they should tell Mrs. Butterfield that she looks like a princess also.  Later, during circle time, Mrs. Butterfield asked if they had any questions about what they should be doing.  Romilly raised her hand and said "Mrs. Butterfield, how does a brain work?"  Not exactly the type of question that can be quickly explained to a 5-year-old so we told her to ask google =)

This afternoon I sat down with Jenny and the head, Anne, to talk about our plan for the term and what exactly I'll be teaching and things like that.  It was really helpful.  It's a bit trickier to work out my teaching schedule because my actual cooperating teacher is only there 2 days a week, and by the end I'll need to be doing almost all of the teaching.  I'm not sure how receptive Denise will be to me taking over the class when she's there, but hopefully it will work out!

First day of school with the kiddos

The kids came back to school today!  If you think 5 year olds in America are cute, you should see 5 year olds in England. SO much cuter!  Between the little uniforms and the little accents, I am completely smitten.  We have 26 children in our class, with the cutest little names like Eloise and Poppy.  Today we did introductions and then did stations, where we wrote sentences about what we did on our holidays.  They did the most exciting things on their holidays.. 3/4 of the class went to Spain or France.  Much more exciting than anything I do on my summer vacations!  We also did some painting and some numeracy (aka math).  The children were really well-behaved and the day went really smooth.  I'm a little worried that my Monday-Wednesday teacher has different views on discipline than I do.  I feel like she's more old school and gives a lot of empty threats ("This is the last time I'm going to tell you....").   My Thursday-Friday teacher is younger, so maybe she'll be more similar to my style.

They all asked really funny questions too.. halfway through the day and little girl looks at me and goes "Miss Keys, do you speak English?".. and later on, I asked another girl to do something and she looked at me alarmed and said "How do you know my name?" Too funny!

We also had 4 tea breaks today.. this is not a joke.  I had tea at 10 and 11.. then I got offered tea at 12:30, 3:30, AND 5.  I can't consume that much tea in one day!  I think they have a bet going to see how many cups a day I'll be drinking by the time the term is over.

When I finally got home from school, at 545, I ran to the grocery store.  It's so funny walking on the sidewalks because in America, when you meet another person on the sidewalk you move to the right.  So here, I move to the right.. but the other person always moves left and we almost walk into each other!   Then I get really weird looks.  I'm sure I'll get used to being left-brained after a few weeks.

Whoops!

So, being the nice roommate I am, I tried to make dinner for Kate, Megan, and I when I got home from school today (around 5:30).  I was just going to make some alfredo out of a bag (like a pasta side).. and I was making two packages.  So I ask Sandy, our dad, for a measuring cup and he gives me one.  I measure out the milk and water and put it in the pan.  I thought it looked like a lot of liquid, but I measured right so I just kept going.  Turns out, the measuring cup was pints? or something? In any case, I put in 3 times the amount of liquid I was supposed to.  I had to cook down the noodles and sauce for like 20 minutes to get enough liquid to evaporate for it to be edible.  Next time I'll clarify that I need a measuring cup that measures actual cups!

Inset Day #2

I've figured out who the governors are (sort of).  Essentially, they are similar to a school board.  They're made up of parent governors, church governors, a chairman of the governors, and then just regular governors (I think?).  Anyway, 5 or 6 of them came in today for a meeting about the school improvement plan.  We did a lot of group discussions about the direction the school was heading, who should be involved in decision-making, and things like that.  I, obviously, didn't have much to contribute because I've only been there for 2 days, but it was really interesting to hear their ideas!

During one of our morning tea breaks (we had 2 during this 3 hour meeting), one of the TA's was asking me about America and said "Do you guys really go to school on those big yellow buses?"  It's so funny the  things they notice about America.  They don't have any public transportation for their schools.  They said that in some places, they have things called carriages that the children can ride to school in.  I think those must be similar to just a car pool, because they aren't actual carriages or buses.

After the morning meetings, we had the afternoon to plan and organize the classroom.  There was a lot of copying, cutting, and laminating.  We also spent a lot of time figuring out the daily schedule (or timetable, as they call it).  It takes a lot of time to figure out who's doing what when you have a job share like they have in this school.  The Year R class is the only class that has only 1 full-time teacher.

The children come back tomorrow and I absolutely can't wait!  I also get to teach my first lesson on Friday.  I'm going to teach them about myself and about America, so it should be pretty easy to write (and teach)!  I'm a little nervous about the handwriting aspect of teaching.  They teach them cursive right away in England, so they start learning cursive in Year R.  Also, their cursive is different from the cursive we learn in America.  Some of the letters are formed differently, so I'll have to to practice!

Interesting fact about people in England:  When telling time, they never say "10:05".. it's always "5 past 10".  Or 5:45 would be "quarter to 6".  I'm sure I'll be doing that by the time I get back to the States!

I'm sure I have more things to write about but my brain is just too exhausted to type anymore..

First day of school!

We went to school today!  My supervisor, Tony, picked me up at 8:30 this morning to drop me off at school.  My school, St. Michael's Infant School in Mickelham, is the cutest little thing.  It's up on a hill, hidden from the roads, and surrounded by trees and pretty scenery.  It's a tiny school too.. only 3 classes - Year R, Year 1 and Year 2.  Each class has two teachers.  So, in my Year 1 classroom, one teacher is there Monday-Wednesday, and the other teacher is there Thursday and Friday.  The two teachers in my class are great!  Jenny is my cooperating teacher, and Denise is the other teacher (obviously I'll be working with both of them).  Denise is also giving me a ride to and from school on her days.  The head teacher (aka principal), Anne, is giving me a ride the other days.

Most of the teachers there are older ladies, except for Anna, who teaches Year 2 a few days a week, and Jenny, my teacher.  Anna is really funny.  She doesn't fit in with the other teachers at all.  Most of the ladies are in their 50s and pretty plain, whereas Anna is probably in her late 20s with bleach blonde hair and fake eyelashes.  The first thing she did this morning was try to put volumizing dry shampoo in everyone's hair.  Then she looked at me and said "Has everyone in America got white teeth like yours?  How do you do that?"  Apparently they don't have Crest white strips in England because she was amazed when I explained them to her.

Today was an inset day, so we started the day off with a staff meeting.  We all got there around 9, and Anne gave us until "half past nine to have some tea."  We had tea 3 more times between 9:30 and 12:30 when we broke for lunch!  I guess I'm going to learn to like tea while I'm here.  I did drink coffee this morning that the teachers made and learned that they like their coffee strong and bitter over here!  That will take some getting used to, since I don't really like coffee in America that's not strong or bitter!  We spent the morning going over health and safety policies (learning about fire extinguishers and those kinds of things).  Then we did topic (or theme) planning and organizing who has playtime duty and who gets to use the hall (or auditorium) on what days.  There aren't any music, PE, or art teachers, so those responsibilities are split up between the teachers and the head.  After all that, we went down and did some planning in our own classrooms and set things up, like putting the children's (they aren't called students here in primary school.. it's either children or pupils) names on their hooks and printing out different things.

One thing I've noticed about this school (it could just be my class and teachers) is there is a lot of ability grouping.  For the different subjects (literacy, numeracy, and reading) the students are split up into groups by ability.  So there is a high ability group, middle ability group, and low ability group.  In our classes at Winona, teachers have really stressed not grouping students by ability, but we'll see how it works out in this class.  Tomorrow is another inset day.  The governors are coming to talk with us about a school improvement plan.  I think the governors must be like the school board? Or something? I'm not really sure but I'll figure it out tomorrow!

I also ventured into Dorking alone today (because Kate and Megan were still at school) to buy notebooks and pens.  They have different sized paper here, so it wouldn't have done any good to bring paper from the US.  They also only punch 2 holes in their papers instead of 3.  So many little differences!

Dorking night life/London

We ventured out to a pub last night for the first time.  We started at a place called the Queen's Head, where Ollie works.  He wasn't working, but we met a bartender named Gad and he was very friendly.  Then we ventured to the King's Arm, and ran into Ollie and Chris (Chris is Ollie's brother).  We ended up hanging out with them all night and made some other new friends too!  But..... we learned that our alarm clocks are not the best here when we woke up at 9:38 and had to be at the train station at 10 to meet Paul to go into London. Whooooops!

We roamed around London and saw places like Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, and Big Ben.  We'll have to go back by ourselves and do some real exploring!  We managed to make it back to Dorking on the train by ourselves, an impressive feat after getting to the station and realizing we had no idea how to read the train times!

Now we're going to have dinner with our new family!

Dogs

Three of the four dogs!  George is the black one, Jack is the brown and white spotted one, and Alfie is the German Shepherd.  

The fourth dog, Easy, wanted to be in her own picture. Fitting, since she's the only girl!

Dorking, Surrey, UK

This is us, fresh off the plane at Paula and Tony's house in Redhill.

We're all settled into our house in Dorking now.  Our Mum, Linda, is still on holiday, but she'll be back tomorrow.  Our new dad, Andy, is very nice!  They have a ton of animals.. 6 cats, 4 large dogs, ferrets, and 2 hawks (yes, hawks).  There's another girl staying here too.  She's from Poland and really shy.  We also met one of their sons, Ollie, who lives here too.  It's a full house!

Today, we went exploring around Dorking with Paul, Kate's teacher.  He's a lot younger than we expected (late 20s probably).  Megan and Kate got a cell phone (Tony gave me one so I didn't have to buy one) and we had lunch.  Then we went hiking up Box Hill and it was GORGEOUS.  It is hard adjusting to the amount of walking here.  They keep telling us things are "just a 5 minute walk" away and it takes us 10 minutes to walk there.. we're used to being lazy Americans I guess!

We're walking back into Dorking in a few minutes to go grocery shopping so we don't starve to death.

Paul is taking us into London tomorrow so we can do all kinds of cheesy touristy things.  Can't wait!

We made it... finally!

After a REALLY long day of traveling, we arrived safely in London!  We left Minneapolis at noon on Thursday and flew to Atlanta.  Then we left Atlanta at 6 pm on Thursday and arrived in London at 7:15 am local time.. it was an overnight flight so we should have been sleeping, but the little girls in the seats behind us had other plans for the flight.  They kicked our seats almost the entire way.. so we were groggy and exhausted when we got here.

Paula, an Educators Abroad coordinator, picked us up at the airport.  Her and her husband had to bring two cars to fit all our luggage (we may have overpacked.. oops!).  We came back to her house, which is in Redhill, not too far from where we'll be living.  We walked to downtown Redhill and did some exploring.. mostly shops and restaurants.  They did have McDonalds, KFC, and Subway so it wasn't too different from home!  After exploring, we came back to shower and lay around for a while.  Later this afternoon, Paula and Tony are going to take us into Dorking so we can meet our host family and check out our new stomping grounds.

My fingers are too tired to type any more words, so that's all for now!

We're off!

The day is almost here!  Momma Keys and I drove up to Minneapolis today, after saying goodbye to all the family and extended family, and we're staying in a hotel tonight.  I spent my last day in America at the movies, watching The Help (which is a GREAT movie!) and hanging out at the Mall of America/Ikea.  After a few snags (broken hotel printer, ditzy front desk lady), I finally got my boarding passes printed!  Megan, Kate, and I are meeting at the airport tomorrow morning at 10 am!  We'll all be phone-less for this part of the trip (we're getting pre-paid phones in England - should be cheaper than taking our phones).  I can't even remember the last time I went anywhere without my cell phone, so that will be new!  Hopefully our flights go smoothly, and we land safely in England on Friday morning!