Meet My Little Monsters

The weather here has been so hot! It’s especially too hot for school! All my shenanigans (shenanigans being singing, dancing, and generally making a fool of myself) in the classroom causes me to work up a serious sweat. Last time I was there, I was trying to stay cool in the staffroom while I graded some workbooks, but the fluorescent lighting kept blinking on and off. Turns out, all of the administrative staff have air conditioners in their offices, and every single one of them was running it full blast, thus overpowering the generator and causing all of the lights to blink.

School is almost over. All of KG1 (that would be me) have just finished learning the last letter of the alphabet. Some of you may wonder why learning your ABC’s would take up to 9 months, but you have to understand that these kids are learning a foreign language, they’re only 4, and I only get about an hour and a half with each class everyday. Not to mention the fact that every time they learn a new letter they have to learn the upper and lower case version of it, how to write the upper and lower case version of it, the five vocabulary words that all begin with that letter, complete a zillion revision pages in the workbook, and find time to squeeze in oral drills, as well as verbs and worksheets from a separate workbook. My days are full! But since we’re finished with the alphabet, I have a little bit of time to catch up on anything I may have missed, or only skimmed over. My kindergarteners will be taking exams the first week of May, and then they disappear. I’ll still have to hang out at the school to do some grading for a few weeks, and I’ll have to debrief the KG2 English teachers so they know where my kids are at, but that's it.

Anyway, last week I had some free time with my classes, so I thought it would be a good idea to take some photos before the year is over. The kids were more than happy to ham it up for the camera...maybe even a little too happy considering that a fun photo-op turned into a lot of pushing and shoving. If it looks like I was having trouble framing the shot, it’s because I was. It was utterly impossible to get any of them to hold still.


This is KG1-C, my favorite class. My assistant wanted in on some of the action, so she volunteered to take this picture for me, unfortunately, none of the kids are looking at the camera and half of the class is cut off...hahaha! She really liked playing with the camera.


This is Sief, he's only adorable. I drew a turtle on the board for the letter "T" and he began shouting "ninja! ninja!" as in "ninja turtle". Thought some of you nerds out there might appreciate that.


This is more of KG1-C bothering me while I try and grade workbooks. Names from left to right are as follows: Mahmoud, Seif, Yousef Tarek, Yousef Hamdy, and Nour. Mahmoud is destined to be a dancer because he can't seem to do anything else during class. Yousef Tarek has made a lot of progress considering that at the beginning of the year he refused to participate in anything, he'd make that clucking noise with his tongue and shake his finger at me. We've since become friends. Nour is one of my favorites. She's a member of the A.D.D. twins. I ask her to sit down and stay quiet, and she'll try so hard that she makes little fists and starts shaking. Her sister is exactly the same way.


Yousef Hamdy (left) is one of my top students. He's incredibly smart and loves to draw. Nour (center) and Mahmoud (right).


Yousef Hamdy and Omar Rafat. Omar is a sweetie. Just want everyone to know I taught him that thumbs up.


These are the girls from KG1-C. Names from left to right: Yesmeen, Nour, Hagar, and Hlla. Yesmeen is incredibly bright and loves to translate for the rest of the class. Hagar is super sweet and very sensitive. She was terrified of me for the first couple weeks because she had no idea what I was saying. Hlla is also a star pupil and has the most beautiful blue-green eyes.


This is what my classroom looks like. It looks far better in the photograph than it does in real life. The shelf in the back is the only piece of furniture in the room other than the desks you see here. I liked this particular picture because it captures Ghassien "the Blur" perfectly.


Meet Ghassien. I love this little dude. He is so cute and clever and very, very, ornery. It is impossible to get him to sit still, but he's just so silly, I have a hard time scolding him without cracking up, thus ruining his whole "talking-to".


Karim, Ghassien, and Nour. Karim has a skin disease that makes him all blotchy, and his poor parents were so worried he wouldn't make any friends, but he's just so damn smiley you can't help but love him. Every time I walk into the class he says "Miss, bosa! Bosa!" or "kiss me!".


This is my other class KG1-E, at least the boys anyway. They have some behavior issues, which can drive me crazy, but I love 'em none the less.


These are the girls from KG1-E. All of them are incredibly bright and put the boys to shame. It is impossible to keep them from blabbering to one another though.


This is Eiad, one of my all time favorites. You can't help but smile when you're around him. He loves to tell and act out long drawn out stories in Arabic. For awhile I kept trying to explain to him that "Miss. Katie only speaks English", but now I just say "sa-h?!" or "really?!"...and then the story goes on and on and on.

Oh Ahmed! This one is just too smart for his own good and is always getting himself in trouble. Such a cutie though. How could you get mad at that face?

So those are my little monsters. I was kind of hoping to teach older kids at first, but I have really warmed up to this age. 1)I'm way bigger than they are, which means it's a lot easier for me to be the boss. 2)They're super cute. 3) The best part, society hasn't had an opportunity to taint them yet. They love hugs and kisses, they're happy to play with anyone and everyone, and they have unfathomable enthusiasm.