Elementary Tuesday

Today I was at 2 elementary schools. Typically, Tuesdays and Fridays are my elementary school days, so today was no different.

In the morning, the school that I taught at only has classes for the 5th and 6th graders so that meant only 2 classes this morning at that school. Yes! It's nice, because at the other elementary schools, I usually teach the full 4 classes in the morning.

The classes went smoothly today and was a lot of fun. I split the lesson up so that we did the regular textbook material the first half, and then a Halloween themed lesson and activity the 2nd half. Booooooo!!!!! haha...

So the Halloween activity is basically learning Halloween characters, then making BINGO out of it. Also, I had the kids do a trick or treat activity and they all loved it!

At my elementary school in the afternoon, I had 2 classes. Typically on Tuesdays and Fridays, I teach at one elementary school in the morning, then a different one in the afternoon. So I headed over to my 2nd elementary school in the afternoon and taught the other 2 classes. I did the same thing, where I split the lesson up in half. Part textbook, part Halloween.

Everyone in Japan loves BINGO (as they should :)...hahaa) It's a fun game and easy to set up. As well, pretty much everyone knows the rules. And if they don't, it's not too difficult to explain or show. So the afternoon was a pretty smooth time as well.

But today's most interesting adventure was at my first elementary school. While we were doing the greetings and saying "Good Morning, Class!!", one kid screamed. Then it was followed by another kid screaming, then another, and soon all the kids were running towards the door and ran out of the room! By the time they were nearly all out, I saw what they were running from....

It was a hornet. Now, in Japan, they don't have just "Hornets." This is a hornet that is literally the size of my thumb. I've seen them before and heard teachers at other schools talk about these hornets in Japan. It's big enough and dangerous enough to kill a person. That's right....the poison from the sting is enough to kill a human being. Sooooo, I guess I can understand the freakout by the kids and the mad rush...including myself...haha.

Here's a link to the hornet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_giant_hornet

We were all huddled outside the door looking into the classroom through the windows in the doors. Everybody was freaking out and just waiting for the hornet to get out of the classroom. We stood out there for a few minutes. Then when the wasp finally went to the outside window and flew out for a second, the main teacher rushed inside and closed the windows. Once it was all clear, we finally all went back inside the classroom and resumed. But that was seriously one of the biggest hornets that I had ever seen! This wasn't the first time that I'd seen a huge hornet like that!

At one of my other elementary schools, I once saw a similar sized horent outside the school and it was scary! Well, it was an interesting day today and I'm glad that no one got stung!