Winter already!

It the course of a few days the weather turned from nippy to chilly to downright cold and then it went back to chilly.  I can tell by the lack of leaves on the trees that winter is definitely here and I'm already counting the days until winter vacation.  The one thing that makes winter bearable is knowing that I will have more time to do things I like in January and February.  What do I like to do in winter?  Let's see.  I like to make soup, bake stuff, write my blog, and study Chinese!  Well maybe not that last one. :)

My street a month ago and now.  What a difference no leaves make!

In the meantime I'm enjoying teaching children.  I really do enjoy it, I just don't enjoy the commute and all the time it requires.  I still have a couple of kids that I teach one on one.  Lately I've noticed how much their ipads are involved in their lives and even thoughts.  In my last class with my nine year old student, Gita, she learned the word treasure. (财宝).  I asked her to use treasure in a sentence and she said "Ipad is my treasure."   A little later I asked her to use this sentence structure: (plural noun) don't belong in (place).  I gave her an example: Cell phones don't belong in movie theatres.  Then she said "Ipads don't belong in classroom".  On a different day I showed her a poem I thought would be a good teaching aid in writing her own.  We read it together, discussed the meaning, then I asked her to substitute some words and make it her own.  Here is the original poem:
Autobiographia Literaria
by Frank O'Hara

When I was a child I played by myself in a
corner of the schoolyard
all alone.
I hated dolls and I hated games, animals were
not friends and birds flew away.
If anyone was looking for me I hid behind a
tree and cried out "I am
an orphan/"
And here I am, the
center of all beauty
writing these poems!
Imagine!

Here is Gita's adaptation:

When I was a child I played
with my ipad, on my sofa
all alone.
I loved Minecraft and I loved
Muffin Knight, monsters were not
friendly and zombies made me
run away.
If any monster was looking for
me I killed it and screamed
out "Don't come back!"
And here I am, the monsters
all around me, I'm dead.
Play it again.

I think I almost like her version better.  It really does give you a peak into the mind of todays children, doesn't it?

Words to remember:

dōng­tiān （冬天）= winter

shī （诗）= poem

cái­bǎo （财宝）= treasure

ipad (ipad) = ipad (Hey, I bet you already knew that!)