School exchange and madness on the tram

Yesterday, a trip to the beach was in order. The weather was gorgeous (about 79 degrees) and super sunny. After this beautiful day, on my way home, I was on the tram that was super crowded for that time of the day. Apparently, there was a little school trip of smaller children and they were coming home in the group with their supervisors on the tram. After many annoying minutes of children laughing and being dumb, the supervisors kept threatening them with some sort of punishment. Finally, one of the supervisors decided to tape some of the kids mouths closed. This wasn't really malicious since she pulled the tape right off. What I found really entertaining was the fact that some of the kids actually started volunteering to get their mouths taped. Wow! What was supposed to be a punishment turned into a game. French kids are weird huh?

I wanted to mention that we are still doing a bit of a penpal situation with the elementary school in the Grand Rapids area. We just received their Easter/St. Patrick's Day cards. After translating some very lengthy letters to my French kids, I found a couple really cute questions and comments and I wanted to comment on them.

Many kids asked what games they liked on the Wii or the DS, if they like their teacher, how many kids are in their class and cute questions like that. I loved that so many kids talked about their pets, their siblings and their favorite games to play. My kids, for the most part, were overjoyed that the Americans wrote back to them and asked so many questions. We are trying to send them all pictures of the kids so the Americans can see what real French kids look like! What I really enjoyed were how excited my kids were to design French themed cards to send back. They asked what we considered really French and when I mentioned baguettes and croissants, they were so surprised. I guess it makes sense. I mean, do you think that peanut butter is a very American thing? Peanut butter is next to impossible to find here and when you do find it, it's really expensive. How odd is that? So, many of my kids drew the French flag or the Eiffel tower or even a map of France with their location marked on the card. I am so happy I did this exchange because it really made me remember how exciting it is to learn about another culture. I hope my French kids remember this for a long time. I have even had some of my students ask if they could keep in touch with their penpals after the school year. That made me so happy.