Week 11

June 7, Day 70: On rainy days, almost all of my students wear rubber boots to school. Paired with their school uniforms, it’s a really cute sight. Some boots are red, some are purple, some have strawberries, some have stars. It almost sounds like a Dr. Seuss book. I need to buy some rainboots ASAP!

June 8, Day 71: I’ve worn pink twice this week. What is happening to me?

June 9, Day 72: When I was teaching in the US, I tried doing an origami balloon craft with my second grade class. It was a trainwreck. Tears were shed (not mine) and I ended up finishing 26 origami balloons by myself. Today in Japan, I decided to give origami another shot. I mean, the craft itself is Japanese, so it already had a higher potential. My students sometimes do origami with the Japanese teacher during their 40 minute Japanese class and they often ask me to do origami during free-play in the classroom. We made origami hearts together and they turned out great! We will be using them in our Father’s Day craft, but I’m keeping the finished craft a secret until June 19th. Origami redemption feels good.

June 10, Day 73: suminagashi
We did my favorite form of art at school today! I was first introduced to suminagashi at the Portland Children’s Museum when I started working summer camp in 2019. The word ‘suminagashi’ literally means ‘floating ink’ and it’s a marbling process using ink, water, and paper. SUPER cool results. We marbled some raindrops for a bulletin board I’m currently working on. Excited to show the final product when it’s finished 🙂

June 11, Day 74: karaoke on a Saturday night
I’ll send a postcard to the first person who guesses the song correctly based on the single line of lyrics on the screen in this photo. I sang Dancing Queen by ABBA, of course.

June 12, Day 75:
On Friday, I celebrated my origami victory with PIZZA and forgot to share about it. Dominos in Japan tastes very similar to American Dominos but the crust isn’t nearly as delicious. Perhaps it contains less preservatives or something. I ordered a margherita pizza with mozzarella, basil, cherry tomatoes. It was a nice taste of home 🙂
Today I went to the store, picked up some more stationery, lesson planned, prepped some crafts, cleaned, and journaled. I woke up feeling a new level of low as I thought about home, so I made french toast for breakfast. Feeling better now.

June 13, Day 76: Observation day
Today I had my first formal observation. On a Monday. My supervisor sat in the back of the classroom and watched me teach for most of the day. I have nothing horrible to report and nothing outstanding to report, so you could say it was a successful first observation experience.