And we made edible modeling clay from peanut butter, sugar, and honey. They molded it into various shapes, according to their fancy.
My girls Jeongin and Dabin preferred to spell out the name of their favorite Korean boy-band members:
J Loves Chanyeol.
D Loves Dyo.
My darling Saturday-Jeongmin did a progressive clay-modeling project. First, he molded a pumpkin, referencing our earlier conversation about how hard it is to carve pumpkins:
Pumpkin, and Peanut-Butter Spoon.
Then he flattened his pumpkin and made it into a circle with a flat center and a crust. And he took a butter knife and shaved off little pieces of a chocolate bar he had, as a topping:
Lovely.
See? He made a pumpkin, then he turned it into a pumpkin pie. And he sliced the pie and offered me the first one: "Teacher, I made a pie. Would you like to try a piece?" I ate it, and praised his cooking skills. He's so creative and thoughtful. After all, he did return my umbrella in that singularly sweet fashion a while back:
The 2nd-graders were good. 1/3rd of the kids (mostly girls) played their phones the whole time, but the rest of us had a hilariously awesome time. I came in to the 2nd-grade room and asked if they wanted to separate into Boys vs. Girls again, and Daehoon said, "Geon and HH are out playing basketball. Maybe we could wait until they show up. Then you can yell at them. *high voice* "Guys!""
I get teased so dreadfully for that. And sure enough, when Geon and HH got into class, they smiled at me and whisper-yelled "Guys!" in mimicry of my call-to-attention. I glared at them, but I was smiling too, because they're pretty funny and they know it.
The three boys from the other middle school had fun, too--Jeongbin, Changhwan, and Minki. They're incredibly smart and good at English, and they had fun playing my games, and my boys had fun explaining me to the other boys, even though the other kids have seen me once before.
I heard Daehoon saying, "Leigh-Sem this" and "Leigh-Sem that" to the other boys and I asked what he was saying. He explained that he was telling the boys they should not get their hopes up for the winning the games I was playing, "Because Sem always makes it where the points can switch". I told that that today there wouldn't be any point-switching---the team with the most points would get their peanut-butter dough first, and that was that.
But how much do I love the fact that my kids are explaining me to other kids? Two weeks ago, they were bragging to the other boys about how their teacher was learning Korean and this week they were discussing their extensive knowledge of how I operate class games.
The Scattergories answers had me gasping for air, as the boys came up with increasingly funny things that fit the category--
"Expensive Things That Start With "L": Louis Vuitton, Lamborghini, LG, limbs, leg, life experiences.
"Cheap Things That Start With "M": Mustard, maps, mayonnaise, my glasses (Seohyung), math textbooks, middle-school uniform, mushrooms, macaroons.
Daehoonie started a small war when he said that mushrooms are actually expensive in Korea, not cheap, so when I erased the word "mushroom," the other boys nearly executed Daehoon for the betrayal.
During the break, I got out the UNO cards and played with 2 girls (Smart-Yejin, Sweet-Suyeon), plus Other-School-Changhwan and Daehoon. We played two viciously competitive games, and then HH and Geon came running in from yet more basketball. As usual, HH can't abide being left out of anything, so he slapped his hand down on the table and triumphantly declared, "I'm playing the next game!" As expected, the addition of HH made the game even more competitive. There was shouting. There was cheating. Yejin viewed us all with great suspicion.
Then they all crowded around while I mixed up the sugar-honey-peanut-butter dough. It was like we were a big family in the kitchen. HH kept stealing the honey bottle on the grounds that I was putting in too much, Geon kept stealing the honey bottle to try to eat some himself, and Haneul (girl), kept grabbing it back to add more to the bowl.
Daehoon: Teacher! It's a calorie bomb!
Me: Yes, it's my goal to make you fat.
HH: It's too sweet.
Me: You don't have to eat it.
Haneul: More, more, more...
Me: Geon, don't eat that!
Geon: Awwww.
A lovely, loud time was had by all.
And in other news, at my favorite coffee shop, you can buy lattes that look like bears.
Cup-Bearer.
