SunBear News

Our school has 22 students. It's not hard to pass around information and news, so we have no real need for morning announcements. In an attempt to build school unity and give the older students a creative outlet, though, the middle/high school students have produced a weekly Newscast for us every Friday. They're always semi-goofy, semi-informational, and all around fantastic. My kids LOVE going to the high school room every Friday to see what hilarious things will be in the morning show.

However, as the semester draws to a close, the older students are busy finishing up classwork and other responsibilities, and have decided to take a break from the Newscast for a few weeks. So as to prevent any heartbroken 1st graders, I said we'd take a shot at it. We teamed up with the 3rd and 4th graders to produce our very first SunBear News.

Here it is! Enjoy!

(P.S. The new student is in my room (bringing me to a whopping 5!) and he really is as hilarious, energetic, and adorable as he appears. More stories to come from him for certain!)

Sour Milk Ice Cream?

Having taught 4th grade the past three years, sometimes I look at my new curriculum and say, "I really have to teach THAT?" Not because it's something I don't want to or is bad to teach, but because it's something you'd never think someone couldn't know. Haha. How do you not know how to read the words 'a' and 'I'? They're letter words. Also, how do you not know what money is? Teaching Kindergarten has given me a whole new appreciation for parents and other Kindergarten teachers. You wouldn't even believe the list of things that actually need to be taught.

Another example is solids, liquids, and gases. I understand that those are semi-big words, but explaining the definitions and concepts behind each was a lot harder than I was expecting. I thought I'd introduce it and the kids would just throw the vocab on substances they already knew very easily. I was wrong. It took about 3 days before they finally seemed to grasp the fact that liquids were liquidy and solids held their shape. (Even this is not a good definition because they keep finding exceptions like toothpaste and play-doh!) To try and provide real-life examples of the states of matter, I found an 'experiment' online for making ice cream in a bag. It looked awesome, had all the components of what needed to be taught and I could find all the ingredients in Malaysia.

Wednesday arrived. I got my kids pumped for our 'experiment' and even more excited for ice cream. And then, Malaysia happened.
Problem #1: I forgot vanilla. (Ok, so that was my fault, not Malaysia's, but still...)
Problem #2: Boxed milk. It doesn't taste like milk... probably because it's some processed nastiness that can sit in a box on a shelf for months on end. But, that's what we had to work with. Also, I bought low-fat, which a teacher later told me was dumb because we were making ICE CREAM.
Problem #3: Zip-loc bags. You can buy them here, but the selection is very limited and they're way over-priced. Ideally, for the experiment, you have a quart-sized heavy duty freezer bag and a sandwich sized regular bag. We just had two regular sandwich bags per kid. The ice kept puncturing them and water started flying all over the place.
Problem #4: I live on the equator. It's supposed to take 5 minutes to shake the milk into ice cream. My kids hands got frost-bite and we still ended up with a 'milk shake' texture at best. So much for the term 'solid'.

My first student to finish was too afraid to try it (Really? You had just watched me pour milk and sugar into a bag? What could POSSIBLY be scary about it?), so he gave it to a 3rd grader who happened to be observing our craziness. The brave soul took one sip (yes, it was still very liquidy) and got a disgusted look on his face. When asked to describe it he said, "It tastes like salty sour milk." Excellent.

One of my kids said he was never going to eat ice cream again. Doubtful. Another kid said, "Why would you make us do this awful experiment?"
To which I replied, "I made it in America and it tasted really yummy!"
She said, "Well, then can't we make the American version?" Sorry, dear. I wish we could. I wish we could.

We went upstairs to take a quiz after the excitement of the afternoon and they almost all aced it, so it must have been at least a somewhat productive experiment!

Their facial expressions are priceless. :)

Longest Layover

Visiting Saudi Arabia was never on my bucket list. But, since I spent 8 hours there yesterday, I might consider adding it and crossing it off. The past few times I've flown around the world, I've had my layover in Korea. Seoul has an incredible airport. Free hot showers, free massage chairs, free internet, nice lounging chairs, a mall, Starbucks, etc. Saudi has a sort of different feel.... as in, opposite.
The airport (or at least the part 'transfers' are allowed in) consists of one giant room with three tiny cafes. There are tables for eating at, or waiting room chairs for sitting. There are bathrooms and a duty free store. There are signs around that say 'Wi-Fi Zone', but I had no luck getting online. Here are some of the thoughts I had while enduring my 8 hour layover:

"Wow. There are only 2 other white people in this whole airport."
"Wow. There are only 2 other people wearing pants in this whole airport." (Apparently dresses are a "thing" here.)
"I've never wished for a traveling companion more than I do right now."
"Soggy chicken nuggets at (what my body thinks is) 6 a.m. is not my meal of choice. I'm glad it was free." (Props to Saudi Airlines for 2 free meal vouchers for my stay! That's a perk Korean Air doesn't provide!)
"Arabs have beautiful faces."
"I really wish I had someone with me to experience this."
"I'm back in the land of squatty potties, BYO toilet paper, and wet toilet seats."
"If you didn't know your gender before arriving, you will by the time you leave!" (There are separate male and female entrances for everything!)
"Is the peel tab top on my soda can more or less effective than the pop top on the cans in America?"
"What am I going to do for the remaining 7.5 hours of my layover?"
"The only thing worse than soggy chicken nuggets at 6 am is soggy chicken nuggets AGAIN at 10 am. At least they're still free."

Needless to say, although it was 3 hours shorter than my last layover, it was THE longest layover of my life to date! However, I survived, and of course, now have stories to tell!

Wants and Needs

We just read The Berenstein Bears and Too Much Junk Food to start our Social Studies unit of Wants vs. Needs. The kids got the concept down really well, so then we moved down the hall to do Centers. A few of the students went to the Play-Doh center to play a new favorite game called Chopped. It's kind of like Iron Chef, in that everyone makes a "food" and the judge chooses one person who gets "chopped" (doesn't go to the next round). They were on their first round and they told me they wanted me to help judge. Being that it was the end of the day and I was exhausted and recovering from our recent Thanksgiving Break, I quickly tried to think of an excuse to get out of it. Trying to pull our day together, I said, "I can't eat any more junk food. It will make me chubby like Papa Bear."
Student #1: MS. WACEKKKK. It's just pretend food!
Student #2: Well, you're already a little chubby, so, it's ok.

Ugh. Thank you, brutally honest children.

Fall Fest Success!

As you saw in my Pumpkins post, it's been a little bit of a welcome challenge to bring Fall to Malaysia. We talk about it at school, we pretend that 75 degree weather and a thunderstorm constitutes wearing a sweatshirt, and we bake pumpkin cookies. To make it even more official, we decided to hold a Fall Fest! Since Halloween marked the last day of the 1st quarter and we have to be off-site on Thursdays, we decided that November 1st would be a perfect day for the event.

And it was! We started decorating the multi-purpose hall of my condo building at 8 am. Families started arriving at 8:45 and we got started with the games at 9:15! First activity was a family photo scavenger hunt. Teams had 30 minutes to find and take a picture of everything on the list. They took off running and had a great time being creative with their finds!

After the hunt, we played a school-wide game of Capture the Pumpkin (a festive-version of Capture the Flag). It was a BLAST! Parents and students were getting into it: dodging, sliding, tagging, falling, guarding, and capturing!

This picture perfectly expresses the intensity of the game!

After 3 rounds of the game, everyone was ready to eat, so we went inside for a huge, scrumptious cookie cake, made by one of the moms. It also happened to be our director's birthday, so we sang to him and gave him some gifts, too!

Then it was time for some good ol' fashioned carnival games! We had apple bobbing, bowling, ping pong toss, knock down the cans, cornhole, face-painting, frog hop, and football toss. We had found American candies for prizes and the kids had fun running around, playing games, and filling up their prize bags!

When the pizza arrived, we rounded everyone up to eat and then said our farewells and started cleaning up. It was only a 3 hour party, but it was exhausting! We had originally scheduled pumpkin carving into the plans, but ran out of time with everything else. So we sent them with families to do
at home. A few of the parents said they'd have to google directions because they'd never carved a pumpkin before and didn't know how!

Great cultural experience for our non-American students! A good memories and stand-in Fall Fest for our American teachers!

Still Tourists!

We have a grand total of six people on our school staff. Thus, when visitors from the home office come to see KL, there's not a lot of opportunity for 'pawning them off' on someone else. :) As a result, Jalah, Clay, and I have become the go-to 'tour guides' of the city for visitors. I love this job! It's so easy for us to become consumed by schoolwork and our daily lives that we forget to take time to appreciate that we live in a foreign, semi-popular city!

Since we had just done a tour last month with other visitors, we decided we'd hit the hot spots, but also try to throw in some new sites. We started with the Petronas Towers, which never disappoint. They're so beautiful and one of these days we'll actually pay the money to go across the bridge near the top!

From there, we headed over toward Independence Square. The stop we had to get off at was Masjid Jamek (Jamek Mosque), which is one of the oldest Mosques in KL. Built in 1909 (thank you, Wikipedia!). At first we weren't sure if we would be allowed to go in because we were not dressed for the occasion, but we quickly saw a sign saying they loaned out free robes to visitors. Had they mentioned that said robes were made out of a leather/polyester mix, we may have decided it wasn't worth sweating to death just to see the place, but we had to learn our lesson the hard way. It was a really pretty piece of architecture!

After a quick trip around, we handed in our sweatsuits and continued on to Independence Square. After a quick look at the clock tower, the world's largest gong and almost seeing a man get hit by oncoming traffic, we decided to walk to Chinatown. I had walked there once before, from a completely different location, so felt very confident that I could lead get us there once again. Thankfully, I was able to get us there, but not before we saw an interesting looking structure. We decided to investigate and happened upon one of our new favorite tour stops! For whatever reason, no one had told us about Central Market, which is like Chinatown, but better. First of all, it's air conditioned. Secondly, there are restaurants there. Thirdly, the products being sold are not knock-off American brands, but handmade Asian crafts and goods. Fourthly, there is a fish "foot massage" booth here.

Are they sharks or fish?

 I'm not sure if any of you have done this whole "fish eat the dead skin off-your-feet thing, but I was a little nervous. Beside the fact that the fish were HUGE, the whole concept just kind of weirded me out, and I knew it would tickle. The boys did it first and based on their reactions, we knew it just too unique of an adventure to pass up. My preconceived notions were pretty spot on. It was the WEIRDEST feeling ever. Imagine a fish the length of your hand with a suctiony mouth nibbling at your big toe... or heel... or calf... or any piece of you that had skin. About halfway through our "exfoliation" we discovered that there was another tank next door, with the smaller fish that most people would imagine for this experience. Oh well, live and learn! Jalah and I couldn't keep our feet under the water for longer than it took to take a picture, so we just let them nibble on our heels. Even that was almost too much. When we got out, though, and our heels were sparkling clean and so fresh, we decided that next time we'd go all in, no matter what. :)

Above the massage or exfoliation, I think our favorite part of this stop was watching other people's reactions! There was one British guy who made the CRAZIEST sounds and facial expressions and even accidentally kicked a fish onto Jalah when he started flailing his legs!

Another KL tour success! We keep getting better at them! By the time YOU come and visit, we'll know ALL the hot spots! So, when's it going to be??

Rainy Season!

I LOVE IT! Malaysian rainy season is quite amazing. It's not what you're probably imagining  (and what I thought I remembered from Indonesia) of just non-stop rain for 6 months. We don't have 'drizzle' (or 'dribble' as one of my kindergarteners likes to say!) here. We have all or nothing.

Every morning, the skies are a beautiful bright blue, with maybe a cloud or two. By around 2, the clouds roll in out of nowhere and the sky gets DARK. From 2:30-3 we have the BRIGHTEST lightning and the LOUDEST thunder I've ever seen and heard. We live on the 19th floor. It sounds and feels like it's going to split the apartment right in half. I LOVE IT! Sometimes it's a looooong rumbling thunder. Other times it's an eardrum-shattering splitting thunder. It's so remarkable.

About 10 minutes after the lightning and thunder start, the rain rolls in. Huge drops, often moving sideways. It may actually be raining cats and dogs. You get soaked in an instant if you're caught in it. But then, after about 15 minutes, just as quickly as it came, it's gone. The skies go back to a beautiful, cloudless blue and the wet ground is all there is to show for it.

The storms do keep the temperatures cooler and usually brings a nice breeze... we like to claim it as our own little version of Fall. I tried go get one on video, but it just doesn't do it justice. You still have a few more months to come check it out for yourself! ;) 

The "static" sound is the rainfall. The foggy-ness is the rainfall. The thunder is one of the 'rumbling ones', but not nearly as loud as a lot of them. I'll try to get a better example over the next few days.

The other teachers and I have made a goal to play in one of these rainstorms over the next few weeks... without getting electrocuted, of course. :)