second period each day, starting at around 10:30a, i teach lion class, which is basically the lowest level class in the morning. it's for the kids that are just starting out, who don't even know their abc's, so it's basically the youngest kids in the school.

there's four kids in the class, and the newest addition to class is a little girl named soy (i don't know how she got that name), but she is sooooo cute. first of all, she's only three in a half, and very adorable, but apparently she grew up in america, so she speaks really good english. i'm not used to the kids speaking that well, especially in this class, which is for the beginners. you almost never hear full sentences, and i often have to guess what they're talking about since it's always in korean. today, out of nowhere, soy just blurts out i'm wearing brown pants today. it was the funniest thing, i don't know why she wanted to tell me that, but it was perfect english, the kind of thing i'd hope for from the older kindergarten kids.

as i was leaving class yesterday, one of the girls said bye teacher, see you tomorrow, which really impressed me. then soy decided to enter the conversation by saying i love you to me. that was her first day at the school. man, either she's the sweetest kid ever, or she's getting an early jump on buttering me up for future sticker distribution.

like any american three-year-old, though, she doesn't know her letters or anything, so we're working on that. i came up with a magical scheme lately for teaching them. they love it when i pick them up and throw them in the air, a skill i learned from watching my father play with my cousins growing up. but now i make them go over the latest letter and new words before i'll toss them around. so, for example, if they can remember k, kitten, key, kitchen, and kite, i'll play with them. of course i never turn them away, but i won't play with them until they get it right. i think associating fun with learning the new words has helped tremendously, they're picking it up so much quicker lately.