biRRRo, borg, bark, beh, etc

what is hidden underneath "borg" is a "HHHHose".

it looks so not like a horse, i don't want to present it.

they call my hand drawn oiseau biRRRo, yeah, whatever.

better than calling the duck, a "bark" i guess?

how about their green friend fog/hog, and the fish a "sheeps"?

yes, a "sheeps" for sure, since there are so many of them in sheepland it must come in a plural form with an s.

it-s-a-jumper syndrome

well, i'm naming it a syndrome here only because half of my class had this.

we're still learning about clothes (big sigh), with my handmade flashcards (duh!).

"okay, what's this?" holding a pair of trousers.

"pantalon!"

"yes, english?"

"pantaloon?"

"E!" i yelled at the blond kid who sat facing a telly (i dunno why and how) and was having loads of fun posing while seeing his reflection.

"quoi?"

i waved my flashcard, "what's this?"

"it's a jumper!"

...

"come, sit here, by the blackboard!" i wasn't impressed.

he kept doing n'importe quoi while i was asking my brighter girls.

"what's this, E?" holding up a skirt.

"it's a jumper!"

"time for lunch now!" their class teacher came knocking.

i always go with them into the corridor to help them put on their coats and wait till they're all lined up to go down for lunch.

"it's a jumper!" he told me, pointing at L's windbreaker.

"whatever, am not talking to you!"

"it's a jumper!" he was pointing at F's pretty woolly dress.

"E, arrete de dire 'it's a jumper!', c'est plus rigolo!" (stop saying that, it's not funny anymore!)

"mais si!" (yes it is!)

i didn't punish him...

i dunno why, maybe he's too pretty.

the pretty always get away with anything.

l'écriture cursive

it's not the first time that my kids would yell "no, it's not written like that!" while i'm trying my best to spell something for them on the board.

well, if you can tell it's a letter "L", then it's not that bad!

sometimes that happens too often, i'd lose my patience and just write in print.

during lunch ms k was marking her kids' handwriting homework.

it's such a big deal here in france, to have perfect cursive handwriting.

i was already shocked when i first came.

my 6-year-olds have perfect handwriting while i write like a kid.

well, i was taught how to do cursives once upon a time, too. but but but...

come to handwriting, i've got to mention that at my school, there are desks designed for fountain pen users - there is a hole on the RHS corner of the desk to place your ink bottle.

and all of my kids still have a fountain pen, they use them quite often too.

where was i?

oh yes, ms k marking handwriting.

so seeing how she marked all those beautiful "B"s wrong made me ask the obvious question, "so why do you mark it wrong? they look perfectly fine to me."

"well, just cos."

"why do they have to have perfect handwriting? learning to write letters is hard enough?"

"just cos." ms s echoed in matter-of-factly.

no wonder her son would leave his seat and come to the board to tell me "you have to put an extra half circle as the beginning of L" every time i write his name.

so, what next?

i'll try practicing till i re-master it again.

another thing to do in the evenings to kill time.

thanks.

chchchchanges~

we've moved onto doing clothes now.
it's hard to tell them how to distinguish singulars and plurals.
because whenever i tell them "this is a shirt", "these are gloves".
they'll repeat, "this is a shirt", "this is glahbes".
and after a good 3 months, they've already forgotten what 'how are you' means and are starting to throw me back my questions when asked.
so we're pretty much moving backwards, though they remember what colour pink means, which seems to be a relief (ou pas?).

now, besides all above, the forever 'H' topic arises, again.
we got stuck on the word, hat.
"repeat after me, hat."
"AT."
"no, HHHHHat."
"AAAAYYYT."
where the heck did you hear the "i" sound?
"hat."
"height."
"can you do this? hahahahaha."
"hahahaha."
"very good, now, hat."
"hahahahahat."

maybe we need some chchchchanges.

caffeine addict

"can you please help me to zip up my jacket?"
"sure, come here, my petit."
"you know, you should stop drinking so much coffee."
"excuse me?" i had to make sure that i didn't hear it wrong, my kids talk way too fast.
"you should stop drinking so much coffee."
"hello, mum! stop hiding behind little kids, it must be you!" i thought to myself, "okay, but why?"
"well, you know, you smell like coffee."

i'm not sure if i want to get a coffee-scented perfume if it ever gets invented.
cos i could still walk around carrying a cup of coffee and smell pretty much the same.
though i probably should cut back my coffee consumption and go to bed earlier.
thanks to my blunt kids.

la punition

some of my kids got excited (again?!) by the squirrels outside our window who live in the tree that's in the unaccessible back garden.

they went all nuts talking loudly with each other and got walked in on by their class teacher.

uh-oh.

"vous etes tous punis pendant la recree jusqu'au lundi!" (all of you are punished during break till next monday!)

then when i got back to school, i received verbal apologies, and those as shown above in the picture.

they read:

1. je respecte les adultes.

2. je ne fais pas le pitre en anglais. (i will not be a fool in english classes.)

they were read and signed by parents and the headmaster.

while just copying lines, they still made mistakes. after all, they're only 6. what would i expect?

instead of je ne fais pas, one wrote, je me fais pas...

instead of en anglais, someone skipped "en". so playing a fool the english way?

kids are kids, i understand thoroughly why they'd rather be watching squirrels jumping from branch to branch than learning how to say some bizarre word like 'strawberries' in english.

i was that kid, too.

geRaaaasps

"what are these in the picture?" i asked my kids while showing them my perfect colour-in picture.

"raisins."

"very good, raisins, and in english, we call it 'grape' or 'grapes'."

"gray-sp."

"no, gray-ps."

"gray-sp."

"can you say 'psssss'?"

"pppppppppsssssssssssssssssss."

"really good, now, gray-ppps."

"gray-sssppppsssss."

to show that he can read, lucas told me that raisins are called "gRah-sps" in english while staring at the word on the blackboard.

are you kidding me? of course he said that in french.

gRah-sps, though i haven't the faintest clue where the "s" came from before the "pes".

and of course, according to my kids, strawberries are called "flays" in english.

cherries, naturally, are called "sayless".

i'm hesitating whether to introduce more fruits to them.

i might end up confusing them about pineapples and apples, and many more things you would never imagine.

cos one of my kid told me that the colour pink is obviously called "peugeot".

brilliant!

post-holiday depression

can be cured in two ways.

1. have another 2-week break in one month's time.

2. have some of the shops go on sale in two weeks' time.

there is a major flaw in this cure though.

while you were away on holiday, you've already spent so much.

having a 2-week break in between shopping sprees is just not enough unless you live off eating grasses and/or barks.

let's assume you would still have a tiny bit of money left.

how are you gonna be able to afford to go on for yet another trip in another 2 weeks after your 2nd shopping spree?

i miss boxing day sales.

i also envy those people who are entitled to have a tax refund.

even though i'm now officially "one of them", i still want my money back...

oh well, at least it's called value added tax here not goods and services tax.

cos while i was making a purchase, i didn't feel like there was any 'service'.

maybe they should change goods and services to 'good services' tax.

if you don't get good services, you should get a refund for tax?