June Field Trip

Last Thursday we took our monthly Kinder field trip. We arrived at LCI and loaded onto three coach buses. After driving for nearly 50minutes we arrived at Yongin Agricultural Theme Park. It was a huge garden area full of flowers, playgrounds, fountains and activities. The day was so warm with a cloudless blue sky. After walking around for a few minutes all of the kids were hot and wanting a break. Luckily they were able to run through some fountains to cool off. Next we headed to an area with traditional Korean games. The kids had a great time playing and exploring the park. Finally, it was time for lunch. Each class was perched in a hut above the gardens. Each kid came with a lunch of gimbap (rice and veggies rolled in seaweed), fruit, veggies and snacks. Each mom had sent enough food to feed the entire class so we had a huge buffet. All of the students wanted to share with each other and with me. Hailey's mom has also packed me a HUGE lunch with 3 sandwiches, cherries, fruit skewers, iced tea, water and snacks. After sharing with a lot of others, we still couldn't finish it all. The kids were all ready to head back to LCI. Many of the students slept or relaxed on the way home. Field trips are always fun but very tiring. After chasing 10 6 six year olds in the hot sun for hours, it is hard to focus and teach for 5 more hours! It was a very memorable day. It is hard to believe that Fred and I only have one or two more field trips at LCI!

Open Class

A few weeks ago LCI had its yearly open class. Each class has one day when the moms and family members come to watch the class. Fred's class was on the first day and mine was a week later. As teachers we had a lot of prep work to do. We had to teach all of our usual work while preparing our students for open class. This means simply teaching them the exact work for that day. The students need to be so rehearsed that they have all of their sentences memorized. Many of our supervisors kept changing our open class lessons and games so it was very stressful. I had all of my work practiced and got a lot of it changed the day before open class! Once the day came, all went smoothly. My students were a bit shy but they sat well and participated a lot. I was very happy with my students and all that they have learned over the past 3.5 months. Once all of the teachers had finished open class, we had a staff party at a traditional Korean restaurant. We enjoyed a huge six or seven course meal. It was a great relief to be finished.

It is offical that Fred and I are NOT staying for a third year. We were asked multiple times to stay for another year. After some contract debates, we said that we would stay for six months. However, our owner really wanted us to stay for a year. We said that was too long so she wanted us to stay until June 2012. She had watched our open classes and was doing just about anything to get us to stay. We said that 11 months longer is still too long so we decided that we will not extend our contracts. Our last teaching day is Tuesday August 30th. After that we are heading straight to Bali, Indonesia to start our travels. We are going to be traveling Southeast Asia for a few months before heading to South America! I am very excited to start this next adventure!

Hiking in Suji