Playing, painting and peace || York day 5

Disclaimer: We didn't actually paint, we've actually drawn with markers, but the alliteration is an important thing okay? Okay, now we've agreed on that, I'll start the blog!

It's morning and I notice that as long as I've been here, Finn is 5 minutes later for breakfast every day. Billy has a sportcompetition today, so he has to be earlier. Therefore I am earlier at the infant school as well.

'Could you sharpen the pencils please?', Mrs. Rhodes asks me. 'Yeah sure', I answer. I start sharpening the pencils and all the children come in. There's this one girl, Eva, who's always extremely happy and such a cutie, she comes up to me and asks: 'Are you staying with us today?'. I tell her I am and continue sharpening pencils, such an exciting job that is. 'Could you put in a sticker in each of their mathbooks, please?', Mrs. Rhodes asks me. 'Yeah sure', I answer. I stick 32 stickers in 32 mathbooks and continue sharpening pencils.

The kids go do maths. They have to split up two digit numbers. So for example: 64 is 60 and 4, 50 and 14, 40 and 24 etc. I help at the yellow table and one boy keeps calling me Mrs. Kim, which I find really funny. The kids are doing a really good job and after that they can have a snack. 'Kim, if you want to, you can go and grab some tea right now,' Mrs. Rhodes says, ' then you can join us when we go outside.' Outside? Errr... But that was so cold yesterday, I think by myself. 'Yeah sure', I answer. I go to the staffroom and have some tea. The tea is extremely hot, so I add some cold water, otherwise I'd never manage to drink it in 10 minutes; I've experienced that on other days.

I go back to the class and the kids have phonics. I always find it extremely boring when they have that lesson, because they basically learn spelling. I grab myself a whiteboard and just start writing down random things. Connie, a girl in the class, keeps looking at my whiteboard, but I don't really mind, since I'm not writing down very special things or something. After that, the children start learning about the lifecycle of a butterfly. I write down: 'Butterfly = Vlinder' and 'Caterpillar = Rups'. Once Mrs. Rhodes explained the lifecycle of a butterfly, she asks me: 'What's a caterpillar in Dutch?'. I tell her it's a 'rups'. The class repeats it and the she asks me what a butterfly is in Dutch. 'It's a "vlinder"', I tell her. The class then sits down at the tables and can cut, paste and colour the lifecycle of a butterfly.

It's playtime. I go outside because I promised I would. At the beginning of the break I stand by myself, but after a while, Hannah, a girl from year 1, comes to hide behind me and doesn't leave since then. Sofia, from year 2, joins us and sooner or later, we're playing tag with 6 children or something. It's really funny. When the kids have to go inside again, Hannah kind of claims me. She takes me by the hand and leads me to her line. 'But I have to go to Class 6', I tell her. 'You just come with me', she says. So I enter the school with her class and go to Class 6 after that. I kind of feel like I betrayed her though...

The kids go reading and Sofia and Livia, another girl from Class 6, come to me to ask for 'Harry Potter en de Orde van de Feniks', since I let them read it yesterday. Mrs. Rhodes doesn't approve it though, so they just have to read their own books. I go sit apart with the Mrs. Kim boy (I'll try to catch his name tomorrow) and he reads to me. He reads a book about fabulous creatures, like Cerberus, giant squids, dodos and mermaids and we have to guess whether they're real or not. It's a lot of fun. After that it's lunch time.

When lunchtime's over, I go back to Class 6 and, for some reason, 5 girls come over to hug me, which I find super sweet. Then they have to line up to have assembly. They come together with Class 3 to 6 and watch a video about the Big Wolf's pancakes and then they sing a pancakesong together. In the beginning, I don't really know what to expect, so I just sit there very awkwardly. It turns out nice though.

After assembly, the class quickly goes through the lifecycle of a frog and they basically do the same as they did with the lifecycle of a butterfly. The Mrs. Kim boy (aargh why can't I remember his name?!) comes to me and asks if I want to play with him as soon as he finishes his work. So, when he finishes his work, we go to a part of the class with shopping baskets, fake food and fake money and I'm the customer and he's the person working at the shop. He sells me a lot of stuff, but doesn't completely know how the money works. Eva joins us after a while, so we have tea with all the food I've just bought. Then it's playtime again and I join them outside, where we play tag and hide and seek, even Hannah plays with us, even though I didn't stay in her class.

When we come back to class again, some girls come to hug me again, which is so sweet. Connie asks if I'm ever gonna go back to The Netherlands. I tell her I am, next week sunday, and that I'll only be at their school until this week friday. It was kind of sad to tell her, but well...

We have story time, so I take 4 children with me and I read 2 stories to them. We gather in half a circle, with me in the center, so all the kids can look at the pictures in the books. The first book is about the 3 little wolfs and the big bad pig, which is a really funny take on the story of the 3 little pigs and the big bad wolf. The second story is about Dazzle the Dinosaur.

We're having dinner and we have fish with potatoes and peas. I really like it, but Billy and Finn don't. When I'm finished, Julie gives me a marker and says 'Just go to the frontroom.' So I enter the frontroom and start to laugh. Julie has bought a new bed and Billy is lying on one half of the box, like he's the victim of a crime scene, and I have to draw a line around him. After that, Billy and Finn add a knife, a gun, some bullet holes and some blood and then the crime scene is finished.

We still have the other half of the box, so Billy and Finn decide to draw some fish on that one. It's about half an hour later and I've went to my room. Billy comes and gestures that I have to come to the frontroom, where I join in with drawing fish. Billy and Finn have to go to kickboxing around 18:15, but when they come back around 20:15, we continue on the drawing. The time between 18:15 and 20:15 was really quiet and peaceful. When it's 21:30, Billy and Finn really have to go to bed, but I believe we're not entirely finished yet. It was really fun to draw (see, not paint) with the boys. They drew Spongebob, Patrick and Squidward (also a lot of other things) and I told them that Squidward is named 'Octo' in Dutch, something they pronounced as 'Oxo'.

Now I'm just gonna read a chapter from Harry Potter, maybe two, and then I'll go to sleep.

I'll write again tomorrow!