The Return of the "Influenzaaaaa!"

Today I taught at 2 elementary schools. In the morning, I was at Kuniyoshi which is very close to my middle school as well. When I got to school, I only saw that I would be teaching 3 classese in the morning because they had graduation rehearsal for 3rd period. This was nice because then I got to have a little mid-morning break amongst all the chaos that's been happening lately with having to jump from school to school this week. So I taught the 5th graders first period and was getting ready for the 6th grade class 2nd period. Then, I heard the 6th grade teacher tell the Vice Principal that she was going to send 2 of the students home from her class because they had a fever....uh oh.....

I didn't know because I haven't been at my middle school since last Thursday, but the Influenza is back and is hitting my schools now! Back in January when it was big at other schools, my schools were still fine. But apparently they sent home the 1st grade classes from my middle school yesterday and they won't be attending the 3rd grade graduation ceremony at the middle school this week! I think one of the elementary school teachers said that around 20 of the middle school 1st graders were sick! And to make matters worse, I was teaching the 6th grade class today where 8 students were absent!! So I wore a mask for the first time...in Japan, many people wear the white surgical masks even if they aren't sick. It's almost like a fashion statement to wear one. I'm not a fan of it, but I'm not a fan of catching the flu or the influenza either, so I wore one during class. Not only were a lot of students from the 6th grade class ill, I heard that many from the 4th grade class were ill as well! About half the students! (10 out of 21 went home).

A lot of the teachers were also mentioning that the illness was spreading because of sibling contact...so those that had siblings at the middle school were sick. That makes sense, especially since houses in Japan are much smaller and the kids are more likely to share sleeping and chilling space within the house. Everyone is so much closer together physically so if someone is sick, other family members are easily exposed. I just hope that I didn't catch anything from the students last week or this week!!

I headed over to my 2nd elementary school after lunch and taught my last lessons of the year for them today! It was a fun class period today with the 5th grade where we played Simon Says and did Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes...then we played Red Light Green Light!! Haha...it was hilarious! All the kids had fun with it as well. I also had my last class with the 6th grade class! We learned different profession names/titles and then played the gesture game. It was a fun time and I know I'll have fun with the 6th grade class as 1st grade Junior High students next year! And today was a lot warmer and better weather than yesterday! It was so rainy and cold yesterday....:( But I'm hoping that it will get better from here on out!