There are good days and there are bad days in teaching.
Today was a good day. Somehow, most fourth graders got the majority of today’s spelling words correct, which greatly reduced my marking time. Things worked out perfectly because my principal invited me to have a 1-to-1 exchange during my free period, which meant that I had less bandwidth than the usual. But, thanks to their extraordinary response, I even had the luxury of time to pen quickly a narrative about trying the rope course at the Singapore Zoo literally ten minutes before my lesson. Printed it out for them so that these young minds could see vocabulary in context in action. Managed to use all the spelling words that were tested today and added some show not tell phrases to boot. This induced a huge sense of satisfaction - enough for me to think that I had planted enough seeds of knowledge at my workplace today.
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It was a scorching afternoon. My father had taken my cousin and me to the zoo. My grandmother was with us too. We were having a whale of a time as we enjoyed observing the funny antics of the animals.
We then stopped by a rope course. My cousin was enthusiastic to try it. However, I was reluctant because I had a phobia of heights. My wrinkly grandmother encouraged me to step out of my comfort zone. I did not want to let her down, so I gingerly climbed onto the course.
As expected, I was frozen stiff. My legs were trembling like jelly. My heart sank like an anchor because I was afraid that I might fall. Tears welled up in my eyes. I tried to hold them back, but it was not long before I cried my heart out. Fortunately, my father and grandmother were right beside me, cheering me on.