Teaching kids

[By the way, I've mentioned before that I never use people's real names on this blog, so that co-workers and students will be less likely to find it. But I haven't yet made up a name for myself. So I'll call myself... Anne. ^_^]

So, teaching kids... I've complained about it; my three kids' classes take more preparatory work than all my adult classes combined. My little kids (aged 2-3) can be challenging. I have four of them, and sometimes running the class is like herding cats. I'm not very good at getting all of them to pay attention to one thing at the same time. But there are some good things about teaching kids, and sometimes they are just cute.

The kids often mimic what I say and do. The other day, all my little kids started giving the thumbs-up (a bad habit of mine) and saying 'good!'

One mum said her daughter, 3-year-old Mina, would get excited the day before class and say 'tomorrow I'm going to Anne-sensei's class!!'

One little boy's mum said that since he started taking my class, whenever he sees a foreign person on the street, he calls out 'hello!!'

When I come up to the lobby where my little kids are waiting, they all run up to me and give me things (whatever toy they're holding, etc). The other day, Mina called 'Anne-sensei!!' when I appeared. It's the first time a little kid has called me by my name. ^_^

Sometimes I get excited about their minor breakthroughs. For example, I'm always saying colours to them when we're colouring in. But usually they don't seem to notice. Suddenly, last week, the boy started identifying crayon colours (in English) without prompting. I was so proud!

Most of the kids will spontaneously break into song at some point during the lesson. (Songs in English, that is.)

My older kids are sweet too. Last week my 9-year-old gave me a Christmas card. She wrote:
To Anne: I Love Anne from Ayu

Last week I was sick and my oldest kid's class was cancelled. I taught her today. I left the room a few moments before she did. Later, when I went back to clean up the room, I saw she'd secretly left a letter on the desk. It was addressed to 'Anne teacher' and it was a cute little note, in English and Japanese, saying she hoped I was feeling better and I should take care of myself. So sweet! I went around showing everyone because it was such a cute note.

It made me realise that teaching kids does have some rewards after all.