Hugs!

When I came to Pak Chong and found out that I would be teaching P1-P3 (6-8 year olds) I was a bit nervous about not having any older kids.  Mostly because the younger the children the less English they understand and even when I'm making an effort to speak simply some more advanced vocabulary comes out.  Yesterday, for example, I was telling one of my P3 boys to sit down in his chair and eventually had told him to do so so many times that eventually I found myself saying "Post, sit in your chair properly." Yeah, 8 year old Thai children don't know what the word "properly" means.  But while there have been some language struggles with the small ones it also hasn't been all that I feared.  In fact, for the most part I've grown to love teaching the small ones!  For one thing, they are extremely easy to please.  If I let them write on the board I'm a hero and we can listen to the same song week after week and it never gets old for them (it gets a bit old for me but then I get to see them laugh and smile and its all worth it).  The best thing I do for them though is I have this stamp set from IKEA that I use to stamp their workbook exercises and it pretty much makes their day if I put a little stamp on their hand also.

Aren't they cute?! From left to right: a paw print, a heart, a flower, a frog face, a sun, and a ghost

But with all this success in our teacher/student relationship I still wasn't getting the physical affection that I got in Chaiyaphum.  I missed the hugs!  This week however that has changed all thanks to one little girl.  It literally took them seeing one other child hug me and me returning the hug for all my P1s to decide that I deserve a hug every time they see me.  It's awesome.  I'm also sick for the first time all term but still, I wouldn't trade the hugs and love for anything.  

Teacher Caroline, Teacher Bee, some P1 girls - So cute!