Happy New Month of June🫶🏽A students’ appreciation post

Komaj čakam da se šola konča…I know! I know! I went on and on about it in the previous post and running the risk of sounding like a broken record, AMPAK just four long, dreary but exciting weeks to go, and we can get into the summer groove. No worksheets, no lesson preps at ungodly hours (I in fact ban them from coming in with school bags or notebooks) just days of soaking up the sun, board games galore, and even role-playing games!

Long and dreary because a watched pot never did boil🙄 but super exciting because June is the one month all lessons cease at The Lemon Tree and I give my students the opportunity to finally get their own back at me. Roles become heavily reversed and they get to boss me around playing teacher, trooping in shoving tests and worksheets they’ve painstakingly prepped at home in my face- in Slovene of course! Plus, I get a kick out of watching them go power crazy wielding their preferred weapon of choice- The elusive Red Pen (if they’re lucky enough to find one- no bags, no pencil cases 😈 ) It’s the sweetest thing, really 😇With the second and third graders, I’ll sometimes put down wrong answers and flunk woefully just so they can wear that smirk on their faces.

Even more nostalgic as the month closes in, my little lemons troop in with the most heart-warming end -of-school-year treats that make me bawl my eyes out 😩

If Nik isn’t bringing me flowers, he’s definitely packing a tasty treat!

Ulalaaaa brought a whole picnic basket of pancakes she made at home- by herself! 😱I often wonder what noble deed I did in my previous life to deserve such delights😇

AND a lemon tote to boot!

🍋🍋🍋🍋

Not the first time she’s brought pancakes either, bless her 🥰

Nor the second…

Her sister, Jona will often bring in bits and bobs she’s crafted in art class💚

And dainty little jewellery she knows I adore

The hand- crafted ones particularly hold a special place in my heart

Vid. G. my personal interior decorator, responsible for constantly getting me to move around classroom furniture and sending me links to purchase even more classroom decor , instead of turning in homework.

and on the classroom walls

Sitting pretty 🍋🍋

The most darling would have to be from first fruit and resident artist, Tisa.S, all of whose artwork deserves very special recognition☺️

on the wall … and in my heart 💛

She’s older now and will absolutely go ballistic at her spelling mistakes when she sees this😅

Four years, she’s been scribbling darling little keepsakes

That, and who do you think has been responsible for all those perfect little four-cornered lemons on board?

She, of course!

Now I get all flustered when I don’t see the lemons and will scream blue murder🤬 if a student accidentally wipes them off.

I couldn’t draw one this perfect to save my life!😩 She’s since stopped attending classes after 4 years with me, but she’ll pop in every now and then to say hi with her friends who still attend- just to paint in fresh ones 🫶🏽🍋💛

Flowers are the way to my heart, and my little lemons know this, and exploit this knowledge with reckless abandon, especially in lieu of the dog eating their homework. On my instastories, there’s and entire album dedicated to those cherubic-manipulative -flower-totting faces… arrrghh!! how can one not love them?! The second I spot them through the window, I’m click-click ready📸

On this fine winter’s day in February, after we’d picked some while out for a walk, Nina came back the very next day with another handful😍

Truth be told, engaging with children and creating a magical childhood full of wonder is the noblest mission there is, and I wouldn’t change it for the entire world!

AND now I have to eat my own hat by admitting my that mother was right🙄just this once ( But that’s a story for another post 🙃)

Hugs,

Y☀️

May Madness🤯

Whoever coined ‘March Madness’ had not an inkling what they were going on about, because ask any teacher, student or parent and they’ll tell you the month of May definitely  takes the cake!

Every year like clockwork, come May’s end, students are just doggone tired,  parents have had it up to their eyeballs with their second shifts moonlighting as Uber drivers,  and teachers, well… I’ll just speak for myself and tell you worksheets hound  me in my dreams, the sound of my printer has become nothing short of irritating, I’m surviving on coffee and a prayer, and for the life of me, cannot seem to find a single pen!

 (Fun tip: If you’re ever stumped about what to gift a teacher, allow me to speak for all of us when I  tell you we just need stationery- mostly pens; red, black and /or blue) No need to break the bank. Anything that won’t fade into oblivion after a few scribbles will do nicely. (Now pencils that just refuse to sharpen is a story for another post. Is it the pencil? Is it the sharpener? Why? Who killed JFK? Was Osama really buried at sea? Why would anyone make erasers that either just won’t erase? Or that will soot up your notes, or just plain rip out the sheet? Questions that continue to hound. Another post my friends)

It’s a real *Kovačeva Kobila situation in these streets!

WARNING🚨🚨‼️ I might do that…A LOT‼️Swerve completely off-topic and weave Slovenščina into my posts- a necessary side effect of having lived here for 15 years. Specific English words tend to evade me, and coming  up with the Slovene equivalent has become a mainstay reflex, causing me to develop my own unique-speak I like to call Slovenglish.

I’ll even go through the trouble of foot-noting the translations – figured  it’d be a fun way for you, Dear Non-Slovenian-Reader, to pick up on a few Slovenian words and phrases😌you’re welcome!) 

After slogging through worksheets prepping older kids for next week’s final school tests, I was just about wired by the time the 3rd graders trooped in today, and I knew I’d rather gorge my eyes out with a spoon  than open another textbook. Were it not for the bi-polar weather we’ve been having lately, I’d have marched them right into the woods for a breather, but it poured- and then some.

Sure enough, I could’ve cracked open any one of their favourite games,  but I wanted something different, entertaining, interactive and educational, tailored to their age group. That, and feelings of nostalgia since taking up writing again, took me back to days of yore, when initiative and a shoe-string budget  had me coming up with my own games….waaay before I even purchased the first board game. 

Enter this life-sized one I spent an entire Sunday afternoon devising.

Huge hit with my first graders , circa 2019😃

A quintuple whammy  that tackles shapes, colours, numbers, auxiliary verb question forms and contracted answer forms.

First thing we did was move back the furniture to make ample space, then set the children about the task of laying out the game.

Half-way through, common sense prevailed, and I handed out strips of double-sided tape to secure the cardboard pieces in place, lest one of them slips, falls and cracks their skull open on the cold hard wood floor.

In the meantime, J and I set about pumping the inflatable die.

A right headache that took forever as we soon discovered a hole on the side😩

It did pack a bounce, and the games could actually begin…

for all of some 30 seconds before we had to pause the game and get pumping again🙄

Not forgetting visual cues for question phrases and *kratki odgovors (I did it again. It just sounds better… to me. See footnotes if you will. I’m in this for the long haul😂)

After a while, we just plain switched to good ol’ regular die, ‘cos ain’t nobody got time for that💁🏽‍♀️

Was all in all good fun and a great photo-op when they all landed on the same spot📸

Serendipity💫✨🌟🍋

The minute class is over and I turn my back for a split second☺️

🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽💛

A great finisher for a long, maddening day.

Even better right after, I got to destroy a group of high schoolers in a game of Dabble😈

…and that’s all folks!

Marching right out of the month of May, may your June shine brighter, come what may!

Hugs,

Y☀️

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*Kovačeva Kobila je vedno bosa : The farrier has to shoe the horse but always goes shoeless.

*Kratki odgovor : Short answers

Welcome

Hello there!

If you’ve made it this far, I sincerely thank you for stopping by. I’m guessing your interest has been piqued, and the burning question as with many others persists: What’s with this chic and lemons? Only to now be stumped with Dreadlocks and Broomsticks…?! 🙄(a story for another post, promise)

If I got a dime for every time one of my students has gone Yomi, zakaj ti maš rada limone? I’d be a millionaire by now.

Next to black, Yellow is my absolute favourite colour.

Naturally, when I think of yellow, I think of sunshine, lemons, lemonade, lemon cake, eye-popping yellow summer dresses, yellow tulips, positivity, limoncello, lemon ice-cream, lemon sugar cookies, …the zesty list is endless, and not to mention the many medicinal properties, home remedies, and food recipes using lemon as a main ingredient or catalyst.

I’m constantly awed by how a fruit so common, yet sour, can be ripe with so much symbolism.

Lemons have a rich history, spanning across the globe for their flavour, health benefits, cleansing properties and even spirituality.

In literature, (modern and ancient) lemons are a symbol of cleansing, freshness and healing, and the lemon tree, a catalyst for clarity of thought.

For me, the tree itself signifies zest for life, hope, new beginnings, and endless opportunities born out of taking something simple and amplifying it to create an atmosphere and experience.

Hence, The Lemon Tree was founded on my dining table after packing up my Beauty Atelier in 2018.

My first fruits: solitary fruit of my loins and my neighbour’s girls

Since then, it’s taken on a life of its own and grown to 50 kids, 25 adults and counting.

In between, I rented an apartment space next door after outgrowing the dining table.

We soon outgrew that too

and only just moved to a new location in Štore last August,

and settling in nicely

FULL DISCLOSURE: I’m a HUGE nail polish aficionado… the seeds of which were planted after hatching out Little Diva parties for kids which was birthed from Vionette Beauty Atelier, previously known as Handjob ( Judge me not! It really is a long-winded head-scratcher for another post)

Little Diva Parties at Vionette Beauty Atelier, circa 2015

Prior to the beauty studio and moving to Slovenia, I lived and taught Conversational English in Warsaw, Poland for 3 years at The Tower Language Center , gaining experience and working with huge conglomerate firms like Ikea, Roche, GlaxoSmithKline, Coca Cola, Orange Telecommunications and the legal department of the Ministry Of Defence.

I moved to Slovenia in the summer of 2009, had my son, and decided to pursue a life-long dream of owning that chic little nail studio I keep going on about, which folded 4 years later (I really am looking forward to dishing on that, and ultimately at some point in the future, reviving it, so do stick around)

Of course I treated my clients to lemon cake, bubbles and the finer things!

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a darling shot of this symbolic lemon tree I planted yesterday, gifted to me by friends over the weekend. I’ve christened her ‘Hope’

So here’s to Hope, and to a healthy ‘blogging’ fresh start, and I do hope you come back more often.

Hugs,

Y☀️

PS

Here’s the last one a bunch of my first fruits gifted me which I ended up killing😩 We’ve got this Hope!