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| Ugh! Lesson was a flop! What I ended up doing was flashing the cards, acting them out and then trying to recycle the play dough and play a scultionary (like pictionary but with play dough) . I'm scanning and writing all this stuff to document my thought process for my own future reference, so I can remember what did and didn't work. This first scan is of my stick figures to see exactly what the motion is of the sport. |
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You know that Anna Laura Cantone and the Lauren Child authors are my favorites. So I looked at their books and tired to convert those sticks into that style.
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| I wanted to bring in props items you use for each sport. like a swim cap and goggles, a basket ball (we have a mini one with a spiderman hoop) but, we haven't got a soccer ball, what do you use for running? sweat bands? |
The sculptionary thing might have worked, but not for this activity-i needed something more related to prompting kids to say 'he is ... ' and the sport.
(OMG -this is terrible Sophia is sitting on the couch playing and she asked what's that, indicating the pictures. I told her my drawings and asked what they are doing - and that prompted her to say the exact sentences of what I was supposed to teach....I should have kept it simple! damn!)
I have a million things to do tonight. I feel so tired and overwhelmed. Max is working until midnight. I've already tried to put Viv down once, luckily Sophia went to bed without a hitch. Tonight, the Befana is supposed to come and leave presents or a lump of coal in kids' socks. She went to bed because she wants something good and doesn't want (what she calls) cold rocks. (That's her little kid vernacular after processing my answer to her 'What's coal?' question. I had told her 'Coal is something like rocks to make fire'). Vivienne, on the other hand, has decided she is going to be a pain in the ass. Usually we just throw her in her bed, she cries for 2 seconds and then we don't hear from her until morning . Even if she wakes up during the night, she will usually just cry herself back to sleep. Not tonight. That's probably because, the Befana only got presents for her sister. (I'm getting home too late and have too much homework to do, so I sent Max to do the task. I know it really doesn't matter, Viv won't know the difference. It's more for Sophia's sake. How do you explain why only one daughter got presents and not the other. It's not right and I don't want Sophia thinking that she is more special than her sister-and she's not. We (er the Befana) love them both equally. Luckily Max got books and couple of Littlest Pet Show animals and not clothes. This year somebody is just going have to explain that the presents are for both of them ). But I digress, back to the kids going to bed. Vivienne, on the other hand, has decided that she has spoiled us enough and tonight she is going to put up a fuss. I'm sure if I just stayed with her for a few minutes and cuddled her, the problem would be solved, but I'm so agitated and overwhelmed by what I have to do tonight, I think I would probably transmit some of these negative emotions and just make the situation worse. I've sucked it up and decided to ask the Nonno if one of them could just hold and cuddle her until she falls asleep. I know that they are over the moon, as they don't agree with how we put the kids to bed anyways. So now dinner has been eaten (a whole other story in itself) and dishes are done and the kitchen is cleaned. I'm trying to write my TTC essay. It's really not that hard, I'm sure Isabella just wants us to cover the topics she talked about and she if we can apply them to how the HDEE method works. The problem is, I was up so late last night. By the time the time I got home (and listened to the Nonni's detailed account of how the day went- everything from playing, every morsel that they did or did not eat and how many bowel movements occurred-pardon the pun but, I shit you not on that last part. Nonni and preschools do that here, all the kids are like the Last Emporer. There is a Pooping Chart at a lot of schools and it has the kids name with, the number of times they've pooped and whether or not it was 'caca bella' (beautiful poop) or what have you. At least the teacher's don't have to save it, sniff it and then tell the parents what's missing from each kids diet. But if the kids do a good poop, lots of parents make a big deal out of it, so it's not that far from where the monks adorn the chamber pot with flowers and do a little jig around it. Thank God Soph's preschool doesn't do that. But once again, I digress... So, where was I? I've lost my train of thought. Oh yeah, luckily I can just go back a few lines and read. Anyhoo, by the time that I heard the account of the kids' day, spent some time with them, ate dinner and cleaned up, it was late and I couldn't concentrate. I written the first paragraph like 50 times, I just can't get the words to come out. Plus the Nonna keeps coming by and adding details about the day and asking me stuff I really don't care about right now. To make matters worse, she is deaf as a door nail. I have to keep repeating myself. Each time my sentence gets shorter until I'm just down to a monosyllabic response and my voice gets exponentially louder, so that by the fourth repetition, I am frustratedly shouting loud enough for all the people in China to hear. When Max or the Nonno do this, she gets pissed and does the 'You don't have to shout, I'm not deaf' thing. With me, she tries to be a bit more polite and always explains, it's not that she can't hear, it's that she can't understand the words. Let me translate that for you: it's because I'm a foreigner and she can't understand my accent. Aside from the fact that I've been told that I don't have a strong American accent (not bragging, just stating a fact that will go along with a future story, that I don't have time to tell now), I'm really not sure which part of SI or NO I pronounce incorrectly!
The flat next door was up for rent when we moved in, but a few months later someone else moved in. The subject came up in conversation about our new neighbors a little while later. Ever since the Nonno has talked about how he wants to rent the place, how it's too bad he missed out on the opportunity. Well not to be cruel, but we're not. They are really sweet, but I could NEVER live with them within such a close vicinity!!!!!
So now, the Nonno is sitting on the couch behind me with Vivienne on his shoulder. Clearly both are sleep. Me: Nonno, you can put her in the bed. Nonno: What? Huh? Oh no, I'm going to wait until she's in a deep sleep, otherwise will wake up when I put her down. All I can do is shrug my shoulders, turn back to the computer screen and try and concentrate. Things are quiet for a minute, but of course their breathing gets heavier and heavier and it becomes more distracting. Me: Nonno you can put her in bed now. Nonno: 'Ma, voglio aspettare finchè si dorme bene, bene'. Which means 'I want to wait until she in a deep deep sleep'. And repeat the same scene a few more times with their breathing getting louder and louder. Any deeper of sleep and both of them would be in a coma, so finally I am like Goddammit: 'NO-NNOOOOOOO (said as if they are two separate words) I can't concentrate could you put her in bed PUHLEAAASE'. And of course he says 'Oh' and teeters off upstairs. Why didn't I just do that the first time? Now it's way after 11 and I have hardly written a thing and I still have my EFI project to do. I fizzled out on the last project, Isabella was not impressed, I know I need to kick it up a notch, but I am just too tired to do anything. As I've said before, I'm not one of those people that work well under pressure, I need lots of time to think things through and work out. That is, unless, I get lucky and get hit with a random lightening bold of an idea.
It's much later now, it must be three-ish: I've finished my essay, I was going to leave it all choppy with my half written ideas, go to bed a bit earlier and fix it in the morning, but I've decided to finish up just now instead. It's so late, I can't get up any earlier than 6:30 or I won't have had slept at all. My project is for 3 year old EFI kids, the pages I got are to learn about a family members (the teddy family) and clothes. I'm thinking about stealing the stacking cups from Sophia and attaching pictures of the four family members on, with the Papa Bear being the largest and down to the little brother bear. I don't know, it's not that great but I'm out of energy, esp the creative kind. So for the clothes part, I'm going to paint the kids to look like bears or paint their hands to be a bear hand puppet, (I know that some kids don't really like this. Sophia hated having her face painted at this age, but we're actually all adults pretending to be kids and so no one will really care) and (then I've stolen some clothes from the kids' dress up box: a bright pink barbie dress, because i know that that's a favorite here and that expandable bright shirt my mom got for me in China. (Sorry Mom, I've never worn it, it's not my color and when I put it on, I look like some weird, out of water puffer fish. But it's not gone to waste, the kids use it all the time ) and some random shoes, socks and etc. I couldn't find any shorts since we have none in the dress up box and the kids stuff summer stuff is put away. I'll hide them in obvious places and have the 'kids' be the bears hunt for them (the verbs are really shop and put on-but I can't figure out how to work that into the game). I wish I could find adult sized clothes, but I don't have enough time or stuff at hand. Since I need to create dialogue I'm going to hold up the stuff they bring and repeat/try to have them repeat the name of the item when they hand it to me. Hmmmm, if I paint the kids faces to look like bears I can have them put on the items to be the Mom (purse), Dad (tie), boy (hat), girl (hair bow)-but it's not that great of an idea because only the sister and brother put on the clothes in the story. Anyways, I gotta ask Max for a tie in the morning.
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