Life and Work in Bangladesh: First week of school!

I'm starting to get settled in at work a bit. The school's great so far, not perfect, but what school is? It turns out, I'll get to spend time with three different grades over the course of this year, which I'm really excited about! Kindergarten, Second, and Fifth! There's a second grade teacher that is due late this fall, and a fifth grade teacher due in the spring, so it works out well! Crossing my fingers I'll get to step in full-time! We'll see!

So, Kindergarten. Wow is it exhausting! I haven't done a lot of teaching yet, but the teachers have been amazing to watch and are very open to me being an active participant in their classrooms, teaching lessons, helping with reading groups, etc. I really enjoyed watching how the teacher taught a lot of procedures and behaviors during these first few days especially! I have a lot to learn about teaching this age group. Classroom management is so different at this level! Also, I forget how many social and life skills you have to teach at this age.... ie. it is not ok to touch your friends' face without their permission, how to effectively put the lids on markers, how to stand in a line, etc. etc. etc.... So different! And there's SO much singing, and crying, usually not at the same time, but sometimes! Haha! Everyday I come home with another "great" song stuck in my head. My roommates love it when I sing "I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee," and "Baby Beluga in the deep blue sea, swim so wild and you swim so free," etc.

One of my favorite things about this school is the diversity. The Kindergarten classes all have between 16-18 students and they all have at least 10-12 different nationalities represented! SO cool! There are a few students that speak NO English, only Danish, Dutch, and Korean. It's really cool watching these students learn new words and phrases already, after only 8 days of school! Lots of kids speak multiple languages which is also helpful and so interesting.

I'm really enjoying my work so far (Although, I'm really excited about fifth grade for some reason!)! I think I'm about to get much busier! I have a book club meeting this weekend. I signed up for a Pilates class and a "Boot Camp" class, which is apparently very hard work and helps manage weight and food intake and all that jazz. So if nothing else, maybe I'll come back with ripped abs! (Here's hoping!) I think I'm going to become a tutor as well to make some extra money. AND I need to start planning trips for breaks!

Here are a few pictures of the school! I'll try and take more of the classrooms I'm in this week!