Our First Day at School

Today was our first official day of volunteering at the primary school in Chiang Mai!! Robbie and I are paired up with another volunteer named Steph, and we taught two classes today. The kids at this school come to our class just to learn English, and we have full control over the classroom. We will do all of our own planning and lead the classroom ourselves. Even on the first day the head Thai teachers left us alone!

At 9:00 we had about 25 second graders. We introduced ourselves and played a little game to let each child introduce themselves in English. This was the childrens' first day back to school after their summer vacation, so we decided to review the alphabet with them. We also practiced writing different words and closed up the hour with a little drawing.

At 10:00 we had 13 4th graders. These kids didn't know very much English either, so after introductions we reviewed how to sound out and write the letters of the alphabet. Next, each child made a name tag for their desk.

Points of Interest:

• Robbie isn't allowed to wear shorts because they are "too short"/don't go past his knees. He thus has to wear pants in 100 degree weather and isn't very excited about it.
• Maggie wants to wear pants because she has so many bug bites, and believes pants are the only way to hide her body from the fierce Thai mosquito/ants.
• There was a dog in our 2nd grade classroom. Not a dog like Rex, but a stray dog.
• The Thai teachers were very welcoming and gracious. They provided us with ice, drinks and snacks. We were even invited to a teacher meeting...which we didn't understand any of. Haha.
• All of the kids have Thai names that are very long which they received at birth from a Monk, but they all have English nicknames that they go by. Some examples are: Not, Bye, Toon, Jom, Kim, Wanchai, Kanoon, Sai, Rung, Fon, Monkom, and Ton.
• We ate our first street food today (food from a street vendor.) We got 8 chicken wings and two bags of rice for 110 baht = $3.50

We hope you're enjoying the blog so far, we're still working on getting some pictures up.
Love,

Maggie and Robbie