This week in Teaching!

It was a fun week for me because I got to do a lot of Halloween themed lessons with my kids.  I love love LOVE Halloween, and the chance to introduce my kids to the Monster Mash was so wondrous!  What we did was play some Halloween BINGO and listened to the song.  They thought it was funny!  We also made some pumpkin pie, and by "made" I mean put pieces of colored construction paper together to look like pie haha.  We mixed in the cinnamon (small, brown pieces of paper), added butter (yellow paper), and pumpkin pieces (orange tissue paper).  And topped it off with some whipped cream (aka cotton rounds).

With my Levels kids I did a few harder activities :)  Like Halloween Scattergories!  This one is Nika's.  For #4 she was supposed to think of a good name for a witch! Haha!

And some Halloween word search!

Until Next Time! 

~XOXO

-Keeley

My 23rd Birthday!

Yesterday was my golden birthday!  If you don't know what a golden birthday is, it is when you turn the age of your birth date.  I was born October 23rd, and I turned 23, hence the excitement. :) I knew it was going to be fairly laid back because I teach twice on Thursdays, but I was very content with my special day.  I may not have gone down town or done anything crazy exciting, I definitely got a lot of love.

First, I woke up to find a "Happy 23rd Birthday" sign from Kelsey and Kristin.  That made me smile.
Then, when I got to my primary school, Brett had the kids sing to me!  After which, Sveta gave me some flowers!  Flowers are a big thing here!  People get them at the airport after returning home, for a special occasion, and for just about everything else!  When it was time to get ready for the park, the kids sang their traditional Russian birthday song to me and it was so cute!  I just love them so much.  The song is really fun!  I want to learn it!  What happens is the kids all rotate in a circle singing to you, and then you say something and pick someone from the circle to dance with.  They come in the middle and dance!  Then they do it all over again!  It's very cute.

After that I came home and prepared for my Level 5 class.  When I got there one of my students, Alice, said, "Teacher Keeley, I have a surprise for you.  Close your eyes please..."  And she gave me some amazing A. Korkunov chocolates.  They were so yummy!  Then, another one of my students, Polina, came in and gave me a card she had made and some more yummy chocolate! And after class was over, they didn't leave until they sang to me.  I have some super sweet kids.

When I came home, a few girls pitched in to buy some ice cream and we all chatted in the kitchen and ate some ice cream!  We had pistachio, berry, and chocolate!  YUM!

Also, my Daddy called me, and I got a lot of nice birthday wishes from friends and family.  Thank you, All!

Next weekend is our big vacation to Sweden, Finland, and Norway! I am SO excited.

Until Next Time!

~XOXO

 -Keeley

Sickness and Kindness

The last few days have been rough for me.  I've started to lose my voice and have been so congested. I've got a full blown cold, and my stomach hasn't been great either.  Needless to say, I've been dragging.  But I have been working through it and teaching like a champ.  I sure do love my kids, so it helps to be around them in the morning!

I told Sveta that I was feeling sick and she took care of me real quick!  I was given lunch early so I could go home after teaching (we usually go to the park), a throat spray, two vitamin/throat lozenges, and some hot lemon water.  I just love how sweet everyone is at our school!  I finally got a picture of the food they give us for lunch, so I can give you a glimpse of some more Russian culture! I love the food.  Seriously, i'm going to miss it!

Our yummy soup (I LOVE THIS STUFF)

Grichka (buckwheat), what I believe is Cotleti (Meat-ball style meat like fish, beef, and chicken), and tomatoes.

Compote (boiled berry water/juice (usually served warm) YUM YUM YUM

We've been doing a lot of Halloween crafts, and I think the kids have enjoyed it!  Yesterday we made toilet paper roll black cats, and read a story about Pirates!  I only wish we could do a Halloween party with our little ones, but unfortunately we can only do them with our Levels Classes. That will still be fun though!  Do any of you awesome readers have good Halloween game ideas?  I'd love to have some fun Halloween games, activities, and crafts for the kids to do!  I'd love to hear your ideas!

With their cats

Masha

Masha

Michael

Varya, Me, and Jenny

Level 2

Maxim

We had to roll the dice and whatever number it landed on was the feature we had to draw on our monster!

Playing our sight word game!

Ceva

Hermione..I mean Ellya. She looks like Emma Watson and she's so smart

Nika and Vlad haha

Until Next Time!

~XOXO

 -Keeley 

More Proof That Fall in Russia is Better Than Anywhere Else!

I just love the park we go to with the kids, because every time we go, there seem to be a million more leaves on the ground!  It's like trudging through a sea of leaves, and the fall fanatic in me is LOVING IT.  I just can't stop myself from taking a million pictures every single time we go.  Plus, the kids are so dang cute, that I just can't stop taking pictures of them either!

Andrei and I still love playing with the leaves every day.  On Thursday we made roses out of leaves and then made bouquets!  What we did was pluck the stems off of the leaves, roll the leaves up, and tie them at the bottom with the stems!  Then we would find a really huge leaf and use the stem to tie them all together! He loved just carrying them around the whole time!  

She's just chillin'

Masha was protecting me from the other kids!

Andrei

She looks so innocent, but she was punching me! Silly Katya!

HUGE leaves

Our leaf roses!

Until Next Time! 

~XOXO

 -Keeley