Using September as a month to settle in and really get
going, we hit October full on. It took about a week or so to really get
comfortable with being up in front of my kids and teaching them something that
literally comes naturally to me. However, after some careful planning, I
finally began to get the hang of it. In the first period of teaching I covered
topics of introduction (asking names, favorite things, where they lived), and
weather. Each day (except Wednesday) there are afterschool activities. Tuesdays
there are two slots reserved for the Americans to take over, one cultural, and
one hands-on. We took turns each week covering each. Elizabeth and I covered
Kentucky one week with a reading of B is for Bluegrass and some derby coloring
sheets, as well as making Halloween masks and watching kids Halloween films. In
the hands-on, I taught the kids Dodgeball, Ninja, and how to make ice cream in
a plastic bag. We will continue these until Christmas break where we will be
covering topics that we choose over the course of the second half of the school
year.
It’s not
October without Halloween! My kids were overjoyed when I turned on the
projector to show a Halloween presentation complete with a picture of me in a
clown costume from several years ago, and a French Halloween song my teachers
used to teach Halloween vocabulary words in my high school French classes. I
also took this moment as a way to plug in Transylvania University's 'Pumpkin
Mania' which astounded the children. On the last two days leading up to our
first vacation, we held Halloween parties in the two countryside schools and
learned just how much we (and the kids) love Spooky Bowling, regular bowling,
but with bottles decorated to look like ghosts. The night before vacation we
participated in the Deauville Halloween party that was held in a WW2
German-occupied villa in town. The party included a pumpkin carving station
(ran by the TAs), a haunted house, mystery boxes, and a haunted underground
bunker.
Using September as a month to settle in and really get
going, we hit October full on. It took about a week or so to really get
comfortable with being up in front of my kids and teaching them something that
literally comes naturally to me. However, after some careful planning, I
finally began to get the hang of it. In the first period of teaching I covered
topics of introduction (asking names, favorite things, where they lived), and
weather. Each day (except Wednesday) there are afterschool activities. Tuesdays
there are two slots reserved for the Americans to take over, one cultural, and
one hands-on. We took turns each week covering each. Elizabeth and I covered
Kentucky one week with a reading of B is for Bluegrass and some derby coloring
sheets, as well as making Halloween masks and watching kids Halloween films. In
the hands-on, I taught the kids Dodgeball, Ninja, and how to make ice cream in
a plastic bag. We will continue these until Christmas break where we will be
covering topics that we choose over the course of the second half of the school
year.
My creations this year!
During this month I did a decent amount of traveling both
with the girls and alone. I took a weekend to surprise a sister from my host
family in Lyon and used my layovers in Paris to revisit some sites (since the
last time I was in France was 2015 with Sister Cities). Afterward, a local friend
gave me a tour of the neighboring cities of Honfleur and Le Havre (where I also
spent 3 days during the first week of vacation). With the first big vacation
coming up at the end of the month we all decided it was a good idea to get out
of Deauville and see some close by cities and countries. The first weekend we
all hopped on the train to Paris where the girls spent a weekend while I
continued to Reims to see some old friends. I then continued on to Le Havre,
and a teacher at the Deauville elementary school gave the girls a day tour of
Honfleur. The second week the travel bug was really getting at us, so we booked
tickets on Brittany Ferries, and sailed off to London where we spent 5 days
discovering the city, eating lots of fish and chips, pies, and drinking lots of
tea. While the two weeks of vacation have been nice, we are excited to be back
home in Deauville and are already looking forward to our next adventures in
Europe and in teaching.
-Andrew
Palais de Justice and Notre Dame Basilica in Lyon
London!
London Bridge wasn't falling down that day!
