Some of the Mysteries of Teaching Infantil

Here in Spain, Infantil is the same as preschool in the states, but the kids aren't playing and taking naps, they're working from books all day.  Except for, of course, my class.  I have had no materials so far and half of the time I still have no idea what I'm doing.  So, for your reading enjoyment, here are some of the things I've discovered about teaching 3-5 year olds.

• I can say the same thing repeatedly, and the students won't understand.  Their teacher can repeat it, and BOOM, they get it.
• Even the worst class of 3 year olds will stay quiet for a video, but not even the best class of 5 year olds will watch it.
• The kids talk for the sake of talking.  It doesn't matter if anyone is listening, they just talk all the time.
• Wearing a skirt seems to be dangerous.  They will try to lift it up over their heads, and then if you try to stop them more will try, but if you don't stop them they will continue doing it.
• If another teacher they have is pregnant, so are you.
• If one of the students has a newborn baby brother or sister, the whole class seems to become obsessed with breastfeeding, and they openly show their obsession.
• And, finally, it's sweet when they run up to give you a hug before and after class.

Like Dreamers Do

My, how time flies. Or crawls, depending on your perspective. My last three day weekend was in May. What did I do with this time? Well, I decided to get out of the country and visit the UK. Liverpool, to be precise. I was fortunate enough to have Sarah come visit and explore the city with me while I was there.

Now, you may have heard about this little volcano in Iceland. The day I was leaving, it seemed like it was closing down airports left and right. My flight was delayed, and I decided to sit down in view of a screen, but not so close that I could read it. I noticed before that all of the canceled flights were coming up in red. The flights closer to the time my flight was leaving were all starting to come up in red as well. I panicked, and got closer to the screen only to notice that the red on those flights meant that it was boarding, not that it was canceled. That was good news. My flight was delayed over an hour, and once we were in the air the pilot came on and told us that Madrid's airspace shut down five minutes after take off. We barely made it!

Sarah and I decided to meet at our hotel. Since I was late, she spent some time in the city. It was so good to see her! After we got settled, we decided to walk up to the 'new' cathedral in town. We walked up through a cemetery/park area, and then had to retrace our steps since there appeared to be no way to get to the front of the cathedral from the back.
When we went inside, a woman informed us that there was a concert going on if we wanted to stay for it. We hadn't eaten yet and declined. We meandered around the grounds of the cathedral, then headed towards Chinatown, where we had decided to eat dinner.
The Chinatown wasn't very large, but it had a beautiful Chinese gate. We walked down the street to check out the restaurants then went to one that Sarah had read about online. We got a joint meal that came with an appetizer, and three main plates.
After dinner, we walked back down to the hotel. The hotel was right on one of the waterways and had a nice view of Albert Dock.
The next morning, the first thing we did was go to Albert Dock. It's a World Heritage Site, and home to the Beatles' Story museum.
We did things a little bit backwards and went through the gift store before going into the museum, mostly because it was the first thing we found. Once in the museum we read and listened to the Beatles' story, which made the name of the museum even that more appropriate. It was sort of information overload, but I'm glad I went through it. They had recreations of places where the Beatles had played and showed all of the steps to their fame and dismantling.
And can you believe that Lennon's glasses sold for a million pounds?
On Albert Dock we found a creperie called La Crepe Rit (nice play on words, eh?). It was pretty good, but I'm still craving a crepe from France.
After eating, Sarah went along with my feeling to be dorky and as we say in Missouri, Go Ride the Ducks! Liverpool has a sense of humor, too - they called the car/boat the yellow duckmarine! We drove through the city, got some of the history, were told some corny jokes, and got to ride on the water.
Then, it was time for Sarah to start to get going. We picked up her stuff from the hotel and made our way to the train station. Along the way we stopped at a few shops and eventually we parted ways. I decided to go to the 'old' cathedral in town. Doesn't the older cathedral look more modern than the new one?
I also wandered back to the part of town where the Beatles played when they were first getting famous, The Cavern Club. The bricks outside the building had a ton of different band names on them, and it turns out that all of the bands with a brick had played at the same venue.

I then walked back to Albert Dock to get some dinner.
I also noticed a sign that read "Humped Zebra Crossing" for the first time when I went back. All it means is that there is a speedbump/crosswalk, but I found the visual that comes to mind downright hilarious!
The next morning I went to the other part of the Beatles Museum that featured more information mainly about Lennon's life and family (with what I thought was a lack of sufficient information about Yoko Ono, probably due to the fact that his ex-wife funded the museum). To finish it all off there was a nice 4D movie featuring Beatles music all about a guy in Liverpool trying to make it from The Cavern Club to Albert Dock in 5 minutes. It was a cute film.

Then it was off to the airport in the hopes that I wouldn't be able to make it back to Spain ;-). Unfortunately my wish was not granted, and I was stuck teaching the kiddos again the very next day.