Good class today -- we look at new calendars -- I purchased one for each of them, with pictures of puppies and kittens. Lesson went this way.

Look at the pictures -- What are these animals. Dog, Cat. Yes, but they are babies. What do you call a baby dog? Uhhhh, baby dog? No, puppy. How do you spell that? Ok, what about the cat -- what is a baby cat called. Uhhhh -- no clue. Oh, yes, Kitty cat. Almost. A baby cat is a kitten. Oh, how do you spell that.

Inside the calendar I showed them the birthstone designations for each month of the year. Also, the flower that is designated for that month. I told them that it was probably a gimmick sponsored by the florist industry to sell more flowers. They laughed.

We also talked about the special designations for anniversaries -- like "silver" for the 25th anniversary, and "gold" for the 50th anniversary.

In the body of the calendar we found holidays for the US, UK, AUS, NZ, CAN, MEX. We looked at the fact that in the US, Mother's Day is always the second Sunday in May and in Mexico, it is always May 10, regardless of the day that falls on.

We looked at Australia Day and I asked if anyone knew where Australia was on the map. No one did. I showed them. I asked if anyone knew why Australia had been in the news recently. My Thai student knew about the wild fires. We talked about wild fires and about floods. I explained that Australia is having summer now, with hot weather. I showed them a C/F scale -- the Thai student said that they use the C scale in Thailand and the weather is usually in the 90's there.

We talked at the different religious holidays -- Christian, Jewish, and Eastern Orthodox were the ones on our calendars.

The calendars had the moon phases and we talked about full moons, new moons, and "blue" moons. December is the only month in 2009 to have a blue moon. I explained that the term
refers to the second full moon in a calendar month. It is very unusual. Thus, "once in a blue moon" means something that does not happen very often.

We talked about Daylight Savings time -- when and why -- and also about when spring, summer, autumn, etc., begin. I asked about the other name for autumn. No one knew, but, when I said Fall, yes, they had heard of that.

My Thai student asked me about two former students from Columbia -- she wanted to see them again. Funny thing -- as we were leaving, who should arrive but those two students. We had a "reunion" in the parking lot. I asked if their ears had been burning. That puzzled them. I explained that it was an expression that meant someone was talking about you, and we had just been talking about them. Another lesson! One student came just to bring me a Valentine gift. How sweet of her.

We now have our class year planned -- we are taking the summer off. One student will be going to Iran, and one to China. They will have much to write about in the fall. Next week we will go shopping at the grocery store. We will look for vegetables and talk about cooking and eating them. We talked a little about fall vegetables (like pumpkins) as opposed to those that are more plentiful in the summer.

Oh, yes, we talked about Halloween and how people decorate for it. (It seems to be more common to decorate for Halloween now -- we don't, but our neighbors go all out.) I mentioned the word, scarecrow. No one knew what a scarecrow was. Another lesson.

A good class -- a little learning and a little laughter! The beginning of a great day!

How was your day?