Zombie Spelling Test

Happy Halloween everyone!

I have taught my past 3 classes around Halloween. Russia doesn't neccesarily celebrate Halloween, but we still had fun.

 

 

I only teach Level 4 on Tuesday and Thursday, so our Halloween party was early. I was chosen to go get the pizza for me and Sydneys classes. Not much needs to be said, except I don't speak Russian and it took longer for me to order the pizza than it did to make it, even after my students gave me a Russian run down on how to order cheese pizza. They also made masks with Marci while I was getting the food. Needless to say, my class is hardcore.

 

On a side note, these kids are insane.

 



 

This morning, my Private 1 class got to dress up as different things for one of my lessons, and then we also did Ghost Bowling.

 

 

Sadly, my favorite part of the day was when we were getting the kids ready to go outside for a walk. They go outside daily, sun or snow, and it takes a while for all the kids to get bundled up in the many snow clothes they need to go outside.

 

While I was getting my sweater and coat on, Mariana came up and was trying to read my sweater.

 

First, let me explain Mariana again just in case I havent just yet.

 

 

Mariana is a chub. A cute chub, though. She is quite oblivious and mostly lives in her own world.

 

 

She also has an obsession with cats. Either a kitty shirt, kitty pants, or some kind of cat toy is always with her. Mariana mostly doesn't walk, she will kind of slide around the floor most of the time in class.

 

Anyway, Mariana was trying to read my sweater. So I read it to her, 'Aeropostale!'. She looked confused, so I said it again. Then her eyes got big, she licked her lips and said, 'Mmm, Pasta!' And went on her way.

 

These are the kids from our school outside. On a side note, do not ever get into a snowball fight with Russian children unless you are prepared to be absolutely dominated. No details needed.

Then this evening, I had my lovely Level 2s. They were really in the Spirit of Halloween, excpet Yegor. He said his sweater was a costume. He was a man.

 

 

Im the one in the back :)

 

 

In the spirit of Halloween, each of our activities was themed. When going over our new spelling words,  I drew nice little animations in Zombie form to help get the kids to understand. It worked incredibly.

 

 

Yup. Happy Halloween.



 





This is Sparta

Because this will probably be one of the best things that will happen while teaching a class.

 

Now, while I was setting up chairs for class, Maxime picks up a chair and yells "THIS IS SPARTAAAAAA!!!!!!!" And slams it on the ground. I could not stop laughing, so I told him to do it again while I made a video. Not as good making them re-do it, but still hilarious.

 

 

The Russian Circus

Russian Circus?

YES.

 

Ravishing Dancers!

 

 

Gravity Defying Acrobats!

 

Highly Trained Poodles!

 

Fericious Lions that Killed a Man! (Not really)

 

Africal Pole Dancers! (Heh)

 

A monkey in a suit!

 

 

Russian Circus = BOO YA!

 

 

 

"Nailed It" -Pinterest Quote

Planning lessons is hard. Not like life or death hard, but definitely involves some thinking and lots of prior preparation.

Good thing for me, there is PINTEREST.

I pinterested the crap out of my lessons this past week. Some of them were super awesome! For my Level 4 class, I did a science lesson about fire. So we made a candle out of an orange, as seen on Pinterest. We also decided, since it is almost halloween to draw a face on it.

 

His name is Jack.

 

 

 

This is my whole Level 4 class, including Jack our incredible illuminated fruit.

 

 

Later that week, my Level 4s also made pumpkins out of shredded paper. Halloween anyone?

 

 

The top is Vadim and the bottom is Vika. Vadim is a little punk, and I sweat Vika isn't 9 because of how she dresses/acts, she's 30. She's adorable though!

 

 

 

For those of you who REALLY know pinterest, you know that some things you want to try never really come out quite right. For example, my Primary lesson of making spiders:

 

 

NAILED IT.

 

 

Direct Quote from my class after we finished:

 

Miss Ty: Does this look like a spider?

Dasha: Nooooooooo....

Miss Ty: Everyone say, this looks like Junk!

Dasha & Kira: This looks like junk!

Matvea: Dis slash lunk!

 

Almost there Matvea!

 

 

 

We made paper plate spider webs too. We ended up using them as ping-pong type paddles instead.

 

To redeem myself, I DID do two other Pinterest lessons that rocked!!!

 

 

Penguin and Apple lesson!

 

Nailed it!

 

 







 





 

Eating Blini is like Tasting Love

It has been forever since I have posted anything. It is becasue I am lazy. Hey, might as well be honest.

Two weekends ago, we went to the Catherine Palace. (The palace in Anastasiya... boo ya!)

 

I am sorry to say that no matter how many pictures I put up, the beauty will not even be halfway described as seeing it in real life.

 

 

The Catherine Palace is also the home of the lovely Amber Room, a room decorated with wall to wall Amber, absolutely incredible!

 

Then last weekend was our first long weekend, so we went to...

 

DA DA DA!

 

MOSCOW!!!!

 

 

This was taken at Red Square!

 

 

There was so much to see in Moscow! It was a very fun weekend.

 

 

 

 

We also went to a mall called the GUM. It was huge and full of classy shops. Just looking at the stores put me in debt.

 

(Pic by Sydney)

 

 

Our Hostel was pretty fun too. It was called Za Za Zoo. Absolutely freezing, but I loved it!

 

(Pic also by Sydney)

 

 

Side Note: Sleeper trains are their own kind of adventure. The biggest thing I learned about a sleeper train, don't look at anyone else.

 







 





For our adventure THIS weekend, Sveta (the lovely Sveta!) Taught us to bake Borch and Blini. I should have taken a picture of the Borch, basically its a beet soup that is a Russian Special and incredibly delicious. For those of you around when I come home, I'm making borch for dinner!

And she also taught us to make....

Blini.

 

 

'Blini' is the Russian word for 'pancakes' however these 'pancakes' kick americas pancakes in the butt. These are thinner, fluffy, and filled with whatever you can think of. I talked about blini in an earlier post. Blini restaraunts and stands are everywhere here in Russia! Teremok is frequently visited by us, and my favorite blin is the cabbage and egg.

 

However, this little beauty was filled with Nutella and topped with sweetened condensed milk. I feel like I have finally felt love. (That's pathetic Tylene! I know...) I will be making these quite frequently after I come home. No doubt about it.

 

Another side note: Before showing a class of 10 year olds a picture, make sure your computer ins't set to slideshow mode. Otherwise, you have some explaining to do.

 

Rocket Rollers and Caviar

I love the random things we find here in good old St. Petersburg.

Heck yes, we saw the Navii.

We finally compilled our Russian bucket list, to which we checked one off this weekend when we took a boat ride down the river around St. Petersburg. Most of the sights we had already seen, but the view from the river was incredible and gave another perspective. Plus, boat rides are awesome. Plus plus, in a matter of weeks the whole river will be completely frozen.

The blue building in the background is the lovely Hermitage, which visiting was another item on the bucket list, which we completed on Sunday.

P.S. If you were to spend 30 seconds at each exhibit in the Hermitage for 8 hours a day 7 days a week, you would not finish for SEVEN YEARS.

 

So I feel like what we saw was practically nothing. Sydney took some photos of the Hermitage, but this is the only good one I have. And this wasn't even anything at all compared to what we saw.

MADNESS!!! TOO MUCH BEAUTY!!!

Seriously, the Hermitage was just oozing unbelievable sights.

 

Like us!

 



Another P.S., you have to pay to take pictures in the Hermitage. But we didn't. Shhh.....

 

 

Today in my level 3 class, we talked about Transportation. We had some extra time, so I decided to let them invent their own form of transportation. I illustrated their ideas.

 

Are you ready for this?

 

Excuse my horrible drawing skills....

 

 

 

The one on the left is the propeller-brella. You sit on the handle and steer with a fan, while a propeller on the top flies you around.

 

The one on the right is the class favorite. Rocket Rollers. Roller blades with a rocket on it, a built in radio on the food, knee and elbow pads (for safety), a helmet with an attached TV and disco ball, and to steer you use ski sticks, which have cookies on the bottom.

 

I also taught them what 'like a boss' means. New class catch phrase? Yes.

 

When I came home today, Anya and Artom had friends over. None of them spoke English, but it was still fun having dinner with them. My host family went to Finland this weekend, so dinner was all the food they brought back.

 

I ate caviar.

 

I promised myself I had to try everything here (except alcohol), because it would be good experience to have new foods from a foreign country.

 

But the whole time I ate that little slice of bread with orange caviar on top, I swear I could hear the shrieks of Nemo's lost sibling screaming in my ear.

 

Needless to say, I won't be eating caviar again. But I am glad I tried it!

 

Alena got new books that have English and Russian in it. So I've been teaching her English, while she teaches me Russian.

 

 

We make a pretty good team.

 

 

 





The Labyrinth

So this is a dual-day coverage.

Yesterday was Wednesday. I had my Primary and my Level 2 class that day. Primary ended up being great, because it was only girls, so we definitely had fun.

Then in my Level 2, the challenging child (Yegor) was a complete angel. Seriously, it was an insane transformation. He went from kicking other students papers off the desk to quietly asking if he had spelt his words correctly on his work. Go parental confrontation!

He even decided to draw me a Labyrinth, which he explained to me in great detail.

Yegor is crazy smart, which is probably why he is a little obnxious.

I am also glad to say I dominated that Labyrinth.

I left Level 2 early so I could get home. It was Anyas birthday, and her friends, parents, and brother and sister were coming over for a huge family dinner.

I arrived a tidge late, and realized everyone was really dressed up. So I quickly slid into a skirt and called it good!

The food was absolutely incredible, of course. Anya made bacon wrapped mushroom stuffed chicken breast, along with 2 salads, one tuna and the other baked spinach, and there was also sesame topped german cheese filled crossants.

I was also offered wine. Which I declined, and I got to rock apple and peach juice in my wine glass for all the toasts that were given. I definitely love my host family.

Today was a lazy day. I really did nothing until about 4 when I got ready and headed to my Level 4 class. I do believe Level 4 is my best behaved class, there are quiet, attentive, and quite hilarious if I say so myself.

They have been so good, I decided to teach them how to stand on eggs.

It ended up being hilarious, of course. We all loved it.

The lesson was about pressure, but mostly we just squished eggs.

I came home today to find we had company. I walked towards my room to hang up my jacket, when who do I see?

Good 'ol Yegor.

His mother chatted with me, she is really fluent in English. She told me how she threatened Yegor that if he misebehaved in class, he wouldn't be allowed to go with them to Finland.

Well, it worked.

After  dinner, I decided to go hang out with the kids, since the adults were all speaking Russian anyway and the children I could at least communicate a little with.

 

I found out Alena loves the Little Mermaid.

Boo ya.

I showed her my Little Mermaid shirt and she got so excited, she took out all her mermaid dolls.

Yegor was helping Tima build tracks for their cars. They were absolutely hilarious together.

Alena then showed me some pictures, and asked me how to say things in English and I in turn asked how to say things in Russian.

Basically, I love being in St. Petersburg.