kid-ful day

Due to the fact that I don't speak Romanian fluently, I was given classes that are older because I don't really have to use Romanian in them. While I love these classes, I have really been missing little kids. Because I've been a babysitter for so long, I am used to having kids under the age of 13 around me all the time. But now I mostly work with students above that age. So, yesterday I took a step to change that (even though it was by accident).

I had a break before my last class for the day (the one where I had kids knocking on my door last week... update: it was quiet yesterday!). The weather was absolutely perfect, so I decided to sit outside and enjoy it. A bunch of 1st graders started to gather around me and kind of look at me- without saying anything. I realized they were done for the day so I asked them if they wanted to learn a dance in English. We went out in the yard and I taught them, "head, shoulders, knees, and toes" and, "the hokey pokey". It was so much fun and they tried to sing along even though they had no idea what I was saying. With time and practice I'm sure they'll get it. Then they taught me some songs and dances in Romanian. SO fun and absolutely adorable. They were all begging me to come to their classes and teach them English, so I decided to create yet another English club for them. Students don't learn English until 2nd grade here, but this one will be for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade. We will be playing a lot of games and I will be making a lot of visuals- I can't wait!!

Then after school some of those kids and some older kids asked if I could walk with them to the village that is about 20 minutes from us. I had nothing else to do yesterday so I agreed. There were 8 kids total by the time we got home (3 hours later) and they ranged from 4 years old to 7th grade. We stopped by the river and they went and picked fresh grapes for me. Now I know why grape flavoring tastes the way it does- because this is exactly how these red grapes tasted! They were so sweet and juicy and flavorful. After sitting there for awhile (and dancing some more), we continued walking and eventually made it to the school there (after stopping to pick some apples off the tree). It is only for kids kindergarten-9th grade, and after that they come to our school. Even with that amount of classes, there are only 100 students! It was the smallest school I had ever seen, but it was really nice because they'd just done reparations on it. After a tour, we played on the playground for awhile and I came to the realization that I am so out of shape because I couldn't even do the monkey bars. Are those supposed to be hard??!!

On the way back we stopped in the church I photographed awhile back. They are finishing up the painting inside and should be done soon. I took pictures- and hope to post them. Eventually.

Thanks to the nearly 3 hours of walking, I slept like a champ last night. 8:45pm-7am. WHEW!