The Travelling Strawberry: One Week

First, this weekend my volleyball students had their first victory at an away game in Ningbo. SO PUMPED!!! They were well organized and all the extra conditioning really paid off, as the net was higher than what they were used to, and they were not as sloppy during the third match. Woot! So proud of these guys.

Throughout these weeks of coaching, I've noticed that the kids don't understand jokes or sarcasm. During one drill, one of my students was being particularly lazy. I joked with him, "Don't move your feet, okay? Don't do it! Just make sure that you don't move your feet." This is of course ridiculous since you should always be moving in any sport really. He didn't understand that I was kidding, and after making the rounds, I came back to find that he actually hadn't moved his feet, though he was quite confused. The next pic shows another kind of joke that I had with them. I explained that in order to be ready to dig the volleyball, you must be so low to the ground that you can almost touch it. Now before they receive every serve, they make each other touch the ground first. Also, taking these kinds of pictures has really helped them to see how their form is.

Seriously, these kids are the best kids in the world. While our athletics director and I were examining the courts and which one we would prefer to play on, the kids set up their own serve-receive drill and started running it, giving each other advice, and encouraging each other to work harder. So good!!!!

I took my 2nd graders to the zoo!! The zoo was gigantic, which is great for the animals because they really get to actually have a habitat instead of a cage, but not so great for us, as we also had nine first graders with us as well. The maps seriously needed some indication of elevation change; at times we were actually mountain climbing.
- It's a little disconcerting when you go to the zoo, and all the other visitors were taking pictures of us instead of the animals. Although I was quite indignant, I think it may have been even more hypocritical for me to take pictures of them taking pictures of us, so you won't see any evidence of that happening, but know that it was a major part of the trip.
- Also this was perfect, because not only are we studying what living things need in science, in language arts we're also writing research reports on animals, and in social studies we're studying maps. At the end of our visit, all of my students asked for a map of the zoo. The lady was reluctant to hand out so many, but they were probably the most used maps that zoo has ever had. They were glued to the maps for the whole bus ride home and the last hour of school! Also, ever heard 20 six and seven year olds say thank you in Mandarin? Most adorable thing ever.