What a good day :)

The first day of school was a success! I woke up at 5:30am, which is pretty early - I just couldn't sleep anymore. I literally slept all day and then all night - too much! Anyway, one of my co-workers came and picked me up to walk to work. It's only a five minute walk, which is awesome! There are five other English speaking teachers, which again is AWESOME!! Instant friends! Since they all know each other very well it was a little nerve racking to be the newbie, but by the end of the day/night it was fine. Plus one of the other teachers has only been here a week, so he's pretty new as well.

I'm still in the process of understanding my schedule, but this is what I 've gathered so far: I teach 5-6 year olds from ~9am until 12pm, 7-9 year olds in the afternoon and slightly older kids until about 5 or 6pm. My schedule also changes depending on the day it is, but understaning this will have to come with time.

Yesterday wasn't a typical day for my 5 and 6 year olds. They have this big party once a month celebrating every child's birthday in that month, so yesterday actually was more of a chiatic, crazy and loud day. However, it was a pretty fun first day! We did a little work, but mostly sang songs and prepared for Birthday as they call it. It basically is similar to an assembly. The whole school, which is only about 50-60 kids, attend and watch everyone with birthdays walk in the room with candles lit and crowns on. Then each child gets an opportunity to stand at the front while their classmates bring them gifts. It was so adorable!! After each child has their moment to shine each class goes to the front and sings a song. Usually all of the English teachers complete a play, but unfortunately we didn't have time :(  We then walk back to our classes to eat pizza and chicken nuggets (they call if fried chicken, but it's basically a chicken tender). As for the rest of the day...I observed a few different teachers. Today (Friday) I will be observing the morning classes possibly even teaching the afternoon classes, but I hope not! I still want to observe again and start fresh Monday, but we'll see.

Last night all of us teachers went to dinner at this mexican restaurant called Tequilaz...we had a lot of margaritas! It was fun. Everyone is just so nice, they didn't let me pay for anything; apparently they always take the new people out for dinner, which is great of them! So far so good....now off to work!