Meeting the little ones

Today was one of my best teaching experiences in Japan. I had no classes to teach so my junior highschool let me leave before noon to go teach with another ALT at her elementary school. When I got there, a little 5th grader with her lunch hat and apron came to get me. She walked me to her classroom where there ready for me was a lunch tray on a desk with the kids. I sat down in this tiny ass desk with my knees up against the top of it and all the kids started cracking up and yelling 'chiisai' (small). Anyway, the tray had seaweed, tuna, crab, egg, rice, soup, and a mandarin orange. Apparently today was sushi day. The teacher told the kids to show me how to make it.

Instructions from student next to me:
"Open", while opening his pack of seaweed.
"First, on" (putting rice onto his seaweed.)
"put on" (putting meat onto the rice).
Then after that he folded it and waited for me to.
Then ate it.

It was pretty funny. Then we all talked and had fun while eating. Right after eating lunch, 2 boys came up and gave me 2 small origami birds. Then another boy came up and gave me his new eraser still in the package while saying, "present for you". Then they took me outside to the field where they play during lunchtime. We played a little soccer, played on the jungle jim, and played tag for awhile. All the while having kids come up and say 'hello' and get high fives from me. Then we went back in and I was joking with the students before class started. One student brought up a book and pen and said 'sign please'. So I signed. Then his friend did the same thing. Next thing i know, the whole class was lined up around the room for me to sign their notebooks. And I made a terrible mistake. I signed one kid's book in large cursive. So next thing I know, everybody got in line again and said 'Big sign please'. After that, we went and did a lesson where we taught about Christmas and played Christmas bingo.

To sum it up, I was like The Joker in Batman. I had that cheezy, permasmile on my face the entire time i was there. This was one of my funnest days in Japan. Next time I'll take pictures and share them with you all.