A good day...

The better attitude and the increased energy from rest all weekend has made a world of a difference in my classroom. I am now at the point where I am doing different things with the boys group and the girls group because they are different levels and the boys won't enjoy/can't handle some of what I'm doing with the girls. The girls are working on the play at this time and they are really getting into it...acting out in a way that the shy groups from last time hadn't.

In both groups today, we were doing gestures for a bunch of different opposite word pairs. We'd say them together doing the gestures (open/close, hot/cold, long/short, etc.), then I'd just do the gesture and they had to give me the word. The girls were really quick with it and the boys did pretty well, too. Only this was...they started off a couple of feet from me, but as we added on a word, they got closer and closer until I was about to knock one of them out if I put my arms out. They really have no sense of personal space...they were crowded SO close to me I had to yell stop (and of course, they yelled GO!) but I really meant a stop/time out from what they were doing to take two big steps back to give me breathing room! They only had 5 minutes of meltdown when I tried to do the Funny Bones game with them. The rest of the time was pretty good...

It was a treat today to get to spend time with Peter and Hideko. They picked me up from ASIJ when school got out and we went shopping at the Gourmet City grocery store. I stocked up on drinks and fruit, but didn't buy a whole lot more since I'll be leaving soon (and Auntie Leslie will be coming back on Thurs. night). We ate a snack here (yellow watermelon and creamy-textured tofu....not together!) and then talked for a while. I hadn't heard the story about how Uncle Peter and Hideko started going out, so we talked about that and then left to go to dinner. I ate a yummy sukiyaki dish at a Japanese restaurant and we had dessert there as well. It was good food and good conversation. I should head to bed now so I can be sure I can sleep. I'm not going to take a Benadryl tonight and hope that I will be able to sleep through the night. Last night I went to bed early, but got caught up in the last 150 pages of The Other Boleyn Girl and stayed up to finish it!