Smoggy Thoughts: CNY, enter holiday.. almost!

Since there is no Christmas holiday, we get our winter break during Chinese New Year. This year we get 9 days off from work! Wooo-hooo! We booked a trip to Beijing, China to get away for a while, but before leaving we had to get through til the end of the week. The holiday started on Saturday, so after Friday classes we were free! Wednesday was Parent's Night Performance for my Treehouse class which meets 3 times a week, so Friday was a typical American "bullshit" day in class where we did nothing productive. Many kids were missing from class as well. After spending seriously allll day with my TH class on Wednesday, 6 hours to be exact, getting everything ready for their performance, I simply was in no mood to spend the 2 hour class time on Friday playing with them. What could I do? Make and print off a word-search for them to do, of course! This entertained them for around 45 minutes, and no one even finished. I did play a game with my class in the beginning for a while, before walking with them across the street to the Hi-Life, a convenient store, and letting them each choose an ice cream treat! Naturally as soon as one student picked something out, they all ended up with the same item. After we were back in the classroom they were busy with their ice cream cones, and man are kids messy! It was ridiculous how they can manage to just smear it everywhere. They were very happy, and it was pretty adorable. Once they were done I shoved them off to the bathroom and let them deal with their messes on their own, it worked out.