Grade 5's

I taught four grade five classes. Three out of four classes were fun to teach. Class 2 was by far the best class. The students were just so excitable and fun to be around. I even played with some of the students from class 2 after school for hours.

Here is class 2. This was my favourite grade 5 class. I can remember the personality of every single student in this class because they all were so special.

Here are some students from class 4.

Here are some of my class 2 students. Class 2 was just the best!!!

Grade 4's

I taught eight grade 4 classes this year. Here is one of them.

We spent the last couple of days just playing games. Here we are bowling!


We showed our kids the water balloon toss. It was something they had never seen before.

Some of the students liked their water balloons so much they made sure not to break them and took them home with them.

Grade 3's

Time is winding down on our stay in China. For my last class I took out almost all of my classes to play outside. I wanted to just have a bunch of fun with my students before I left. These kids were just the best that I could have hoped for. Teaching here has had its ups and downs but the students have been my motivation to work everyday. They made this job fun and whatever was happening otherwise didn't effect me as much because of my fantastic students.

Here is Grade 3 Class 8. They were the only class to organize themselves so well for a photo. Most of the other classes were climbing over and pushing each other. This class was just amazing! A bunch of my favourite grade 3s are in this class as well.

Here are some students from Class 5. We nicknamed the girl in the dress pigtails because she wore her hair like this everyday. She was one of our favourites in her class. Class 5 was the most energized class and at times a little too energized :). Nonetheless they were amazing. I looked forward to teaching their class every week.

Here are my very adorable class 8 girls.

Here we are playing with water balloons outside for my last class.

Here is class 6, which is my absolute favourite grade 3 class. These students made my day every time I taught their class. They are the cutest, most behaved and smartest grade 3 class in my opinion.

Here are some students from class 5. The boy in the orange shirt is one of my favourites. Before every class he would run up to me, greet me and recite what he learned that week in his text book. 'Jenny do you like...? Jenny I can't find my... Where is it? Jenny are you...?' It was so cute! Actually all these students in the pictures are on the top of my list. Class 5 was just amazing.

Grade 1's

Susan, the grade 1 and 2 teacher left in May, which left Jen and I in charge of those grades for the last month. What an experience! It was great to get to know the younger kids. Now, between the two of us we have taught all of the kids from K-6. Here's a few pictures of some of our grade 1's.

The kids went crazy and ran towards the camera everytime we tried to take their picture, so these are the best shots we were able to get of one of our grade 1 classes.

Coming Home

Hello!!

So we have changed our flight and we'll be home in 1 week! Our flight gets in at 6am on June 29th. We can't wait to come home but we are really going to miss our students. Yesterday was our last day of teaching and it was really hard to say goodbye. For the last week we've just been playing with our kids during class to give them a break and so we could all just have some fun together. It's been great!


We'll send a few more posts after this to show the fun we've been having in the last couple of days. After that, that's probably pretty much it for this blog. Thanks to everyone that's been checking it out from time to time to see what we've been up to.


Can't wait to see everyone to catch up and share stories. See you all soon!

Picture day with the Grade 6's

Hello again!
A little while ago it was picture day. Only the grade 6's get their pictures taken since they are graduating. I got to be in the pictures as well, which was really nice. Here are three of the six grade 6 classes I teach.

Grade 6 Class 3

Grade 6 Class 5

Grade 6 Class 6

Nanshan Bamboo Grove

Hello!
In the first week of May there was a holiday here in China. During that week we visited the Nanshan Bamboo Grove, which is just outside of Liyang. We went with Susan and two of the Chinese English teachers, Juliet and Casey. It's a very spectacular place with hills covered in bamboo.

Here we all are at a stop near the top of the hill.

A bamboo forest as far as the eye can see.

Suzhou

Hello Again,

Last weekend Jen and I went to Suzhou to celebrate our anniversary. It's been 5 years since we got together! Suzhou is very famous for it's gardens, rivers and riverside houses and it's silks. Unfortunately it rained for the entire day on Sunday, which was our only full day there. That really cut down on what we were able to see, but it was alright. We were able to do some shopping on Sunday in the rain.

On Saturday we went to the Fishing-Net Master's Garden. It's a relatively small garden built by a high official of the Southern Song dynasty after he retired.

Suzhou is known as the "Venice of the East".

On Monday we went to the Humble Administrator's Garden, which is one of the most famous gardens in China. It was built in 1509.

There was a Bonsai garden inside the Humble Adminstrator's Garden. There were more than 1600 bonsai here. The oldest one was 400 years old.

A weekend in Jinshan

Hello All,

So blogger is finally co-operating again and we were able to finish posting about our February vacation. Now we can get back to more recent events. Hopefully there are still some of you out there who have not given up on waiting for new posts!

When school started up again in March Destiny did not return. A new teacher, Susan, came to take her place. Susan has been in China as long as we have (since late August), but was previously teaching in Jinshan, a district of Shanghai. While she was teaching there Susan made many fabulous friends and Jen and I got the chance to go meet some of them a couple of weekends ago.

We were very lucky to get the chance to stay with Susan's friend Huan Ju (Her English name is Rosemary) and her daughter Lily. It was such a great experience. Rosemary was so generous and helpful and we had a really great weekend with her and her daughter.

This is Susan, Lily and Rosemary.

We went down to the beach where we took this boat out for a spin. As you can see here Lily was taking a turn at the wheel.

After the boat ride we walked along the beach where many shops were selling interesting things like this. Unfortunately it would be a little hard getting this dragon made of shells back to Canada in one piece.

Later we went to a park, which had a few things to do like bumper cars and this viking ship.

More from Beijing

Here are a few pics from our day in the forbidden city after my mother and brother left. Twenty four emperors ruled from this palace over a span of 500 years ending in 1911. There are 9999 rooms in the palace. It is called the forbidden city because only the royal family, concubines, and eunuchs (castrated men who carried out various duties) lived there. Anyone else required royal authorization to enter. There were usually 6000 people that lived in the forbidden city at one time, 3000 of which were concubines.

At the entrance to the Forbidden City.

These branched interlocked cypresses symbolized loyal love. The last emperor and empress of China had their picture taken in front of these trees.

Beijing

Hey,

Beijing was the last stop of our February trip. We only had a couple of days so we visited Tiananmen Square, The Great Wall, ate at a famous Beijing duck restaurant, and did some shopping. The Great Wall was definitely the highlight of our trip.

Here is me and my family at Tiananmen Square. The weather was hazy but we were all smiles.

The Great Wall

The next day when we went to the Great Wall nothing but clear skies.

Here is Josh with the Great Wall stretching into the distance behind him.