Oh look, Crystal Jade! (Actually, now that I think about it, I haven't been there in, like, two weeks. But doesn't that look delicious?)
I don't remember which night this was (though I'm pretty sure it was after Crystal Jade), but we ended up chilling out on the roof of the IFC (International Finance Center). Quite a nice place to hang, actually.
So, in addition to the daily departmental things and the special event that a committee must put on, each department must also do a Department Day, which is a specially themed day during the week. Everyone dresses up (think of Spirit Days in elementary school - twin day, hair day, pajama day, etcetera), and there are special activities during the lunch hour. Originally, Team Spelling Bee (aka the English Department) was going to do an Avatar (the Last Airbender, obviously) Day, but apparently our students wouldn't have had a clue what we were on about. x_x So, instead, we ended up with Harry Potter Day. Which, I have to say, was pretty successful! On the left: Hermione Granger and Cho Chang, chilling with our brooms and wands. On the right: the Asian version of Down by the Banks, which starts with "Stella Ella O-la."
Lunch activities! Among others, we had Ravenclaw's Trivia Game (yeah, Cho Chang ran this one), Hufflepuff's Bertie Bott's Candy Mystery (we couldn't find jellybeans in any of the supermarkets, and they're super expensive in the American markets - imported, of course - so we used gummies), Slytherin's Wand Decorating (we decorated chopsticks - some of the students came up with some sick ones), and, of course, Gryffindor's Quidditch scrimmage. Our newspaper hoops crumpled a bit as the game progressed, but the students had a blast. Two broomsticks, three hoops, and a little orange ball. ^_^
Right after salsa class, two of the students were still practicing (Coral and Veronica). ^_^ In the back, well, who knows what John's doing.
Yoyo and Peter, right before Field Trip! :D Field Trip is one of the special events that we do - the Math and Science Department (GMV - Genetically Modified Vegetables) was responsible for this one, and I have to say that they did a FANTASTIC job. :D (Aren't our SB shirts amusing?)
For Field Trip (we headed out to Hong Kong Park, which is an absolutely beautiful park), we traveled around the different stations in families. On the left - Family D! Dangerous Dragon Dumplings for the win! :D Meet Katherine, Sharon, Athene, Rita, Jason, and Ricky! We started off the day in Olympic Square, where we had "Middle" ASM. On the right: the same people, but in this cool water fountain/waterfall thing. In order to complete this station, they had to get into the waterfall and scream cheers, and/or do charades. ^_^
Left: On Saturday, we headed to Tim Ho for dim sum (I think that's what it's called). It's the same place that Binh and I went to, but we finally managed to take another trip back. :P On the right - post-dim sum. I think we were in Langham Place, in Mong Kok? Yay Superheroes! (We bought those shirts together, btw). Also, David's holding a mini turnip. Which vibrates. :D (Yes, that's Tiff in the background.)
One of my favorite moments from class! Week 3 was about the Word Market in Dictionopolis, so I wanted the students to explore how words could look and feel. Synesthesia, right? So, that day was about how words could taste. So, obviously, I blindfolded everyone and made them try different foods, then wrote down all the words they came up with. The funniest bit was when I dropped applesauce into their hands. :P Well, I gave them chocolate too. This is from my second group of students, who were perfectly well-behaved about the whole affair. Well, except for Jade, who screamed with the applesauce. My first group was too much - Peter (see above) started wiping the lychee jelly all over his hands and attempted to chase down some of the girls. Blindfolded. ^_^
Solution M put on a Crazy Hair/Twin Day, which was rather fun, I have to say. Evelyn and I were twins. Can't you tell? Right: a couple of the boys: Edmond, Jason, and...Jimmy? ^_^
Left: Raymond and his hair, being ridiculous. I had difficulties flagging him down for a picture.
Right: A lot of the hair decorating and stuff happened at lunch, which ended with a cat walk. :) This was Yoyo, Karen, Kristy, and Doris. I heart all my students. :D
Okay, so there's this place in TST, called Chung King Mansions. It's supposed to be the most international place in Asia or something, because there's lots of different immigrants who live there. Anyway, Indian food there is cheap, and actually authentic...mhmm it was delicious! We're definitely going back.
Word Market! We combined the CDC (both sets of students), and they were AMAZING. I mean, 1A is so much more outgoing than 1B, and 1A basically inspired 1B to be loud and excited about the project. It was actually one of my most amazing teaching moments. I mean, I'd never seen some of the students talk so much before! Absolutely inspiring.
. I guess I'll start from the beginning. So this whole week, I was doing different ways to look and think about words. It all culminated in this project! Each student got to pick 3-4 of their favorite words, which they then had to "sell," because that's what happens in The Phantom Tollbooth. Well, Milo goes to Dictionopolis, where he wanders around and almost buys bags of "but's," or "happy's." It's all very exciting. Anyway, each student decorated 3 words (so, like, Black was done with black pencil, and each letter of Butterfly looked like a butterfly. Or a flower). I then asked all the free staff members and admin to come in during class. I gave each "consumer" a stack of Monopoly money and told them to go shopping. In terms of incentives - each time a teacher bought something, they got a piece of chocolate, and at the end of the day, the students got to buy candy with the money that they'd made.
Anyway, this project was already a lot of fun for the students on its own, but I got especially lucky, because the teacher who shares my classroom teaches economics. That day, he actually asked the other teachers and me to come in to his class, which happens right before mine. We ended up doing an economic simulation about buying and selling, and talking about the "ideal price," or something. So, right before the students actually put on a Market, which was supposed to be English based, they got to practice their Economics knowledge, which also helped them learn about how best to price their words, or supply and demand (two of the students were selling Time). For those two class periods, the students got this combination of econ and English and math, which was pretty damn cool. I love combining different subjects!
Family time! We played Reverse Chair Dance, which I found on an Improv website. :) It's kind of like Musical Chairs, but it's cooperative - everybody has to fit onto the chairs. I hadn't realized that people could stand for this game, which they did during Olympics. So my family sat. This is 7 people on one chair. :D
My 1A class, hanging out with Steven, the guy who shares my classroom. Aren't they adorable? They're working so hard!
Olympics! Our first station: getting all the students through the holes in this "web." First up was Raymond, who was lifted through a hole. Afterward, we all lined up for a two-family picture! Families D and I! We're so cute!
One of the next stations: Could we flip a towel (sorry, magic carpet) while standing on it? Naturally, I played dumb and let my students boss me around. Family G was pretty smart about it, so they tended to finish first (we had to do it a couple of times - towards the end, we were all twisting it while standing on one leg). My family took the long way around, but it made for some pretty amusing photos!
Reverse Chair Dance, but this time with TWO families! How many people can we fit? :D
Aww, Rita and Devily! Two of my favorite students from my CDC (well, to be honest, I love every single student in my CDC. They're all so awesome!).
Family Dinner! After Olympics, we were all bussed to Mong Kok, where we all went to different restaurants and ate with our students. It was a lot of fun, and it was nice to see the students outside of Summerbridge. I felt so bad for them, though, because they all speak Canto, but we had to force them to order and communicate in English. Obviously, they didn't understand why.
So, once a year, Hong Kong has this GIANT book fair, which takes over the ENTIRE convention center. Most of it's in Chinese, but there's a significantly large section in English. Anyway, it was pretty cool - I've never been to such a big book fair before! The line for the fair actually stretched over FOUR buildings. Imagine one of those giant intersections in New York or something, with a skyscraper on each corner? Basically, the line wrapped around EVERY. SINGLE. BUILDING. But it moved pretty fast, so we weren't waiting that long. On the left: the Math Monkey! (And a tiny Asian child. XD). Oh, on the right is a set of girls who were dancing - one of those kiddie dance schools who perform at random places, like the mall...or a book fair.
Well, that's pretty much it for Week 3! I'll try to post about Week 4 soon, but we're powering into Celebration.
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