Wow, it's been a long time since I last blogged about my experience in the schools so I figured it's probably about time for an update! So far everything has been going great and I have been having a blast hanging out with my students and getting to know them better! I really couldn't have asked for a better group of kids. Although there are a few more mischievous ones then the others, I love everyone of them and each day I grow more attached! I will be very sad when we have to say goodbye to them in a week and a half! :( I can't believe our time here is about over. It seems like just the other day we where waiting for our plane in the Philly airport. Knowing that we will be leaving soon has motivated me to make the best of every day we have left with the kids. I want to leave knowing that I made a difference in their lives in some way!
This has been the second week of teaching in the schools. I was little nervous about teaching but our first lesson went really well and now I'm loving it! I'll just recap on last week quickly before going on to this week. Last monday we taught our first lesson on American rivers. That was really the only lesson we taught last week because the students where working on other projects throughout the week and on Thursday the whole school took a road trip to watch a tennis tournament. We walked all the way to the tournament which took about 45 minutes, which was quite interesting with 300 students but they where all surprisingly very well behaved. Once we got to the park that was hosting the tennis match the students where grouped off to play games until the match started. The match only lasted a half an hour so the rest of the day was just spent playing outside. We began walking back around 3:30 returning to the school at 4. We also taught our class to play kickball last Wednesday which was a lot of fun! We found it to be very similar to their game of rounders, which made it easier to explain. The only major difference is that in rounders bat with a ball instead of kicking it.
This Monday we taught another lesson on American currency. This was another successful lesson except the explanation and instruction took a little longer than expected. We ended up running out of time and the students where only able to rotate through two of the four centers we prepared but other than that it went well. At the end of the day on Monday we played kickball with our students again and also capture the flag. We thought we would have to teach them how to play but it turned out they already knew how. Their rules where a little different from ours so we just let them play by their rules. Today we just helped out where needed. In the afternoon a professional tennis player came to do some drills with the students so we joined them out on the yard where sadly our abilities where put to shame. After tennis we played a game with the students called SPLAT. During this game everyone stands in a large circle with someone in the middle. The person in the middle points at a person in the circle with his hands in the form of a squirt gun and says "splat". The person who is pointed at has to duck down as fast as they can and the two people on either side have to quickly turn and point their "squirt guns" at each other and say "splat". Whoever says "splat" first stays in the game and the other person is out of the game. If the person in the middle does not duck down before the two on either side say "splat" then he or she is out. When there are only two left standing they both stand in the middle of the circle and the splatter gives them a key word to listen for. The splatter then begins telling a story as the two players begin walking away from each other (they begin back to back). When the splatter says the key word the two players left have to turn around as fast as they can and and splat the other person. Whoever says "splat" first wins the game.....I thought this was a fun game to play even though I was terrible at it. I plan on using that game in my own classroom sometime.
Tomorrow we are teaching American democracy. For motivation we are dressing up in togas to represent the Ancient Greek. I'm pretty excited about it and hope it all goes well! Later in the morning the students have assembly which all the American Students are going to lead. We are planning on teaching them some camp songs and the Hoedown Throwdown. It should be a lot of fun and I'm excited to see all the kids get up and dance with us.
Next week the whole school is working on a project with the theme of the World Cup. I think this will be a lot of fun and interesting to be a part of. The end of their academic year ends the beginning of September so they are now just wrapping up everything they have learned throughout the year and having some fun in the process.
Well that is all I have for now on the schools but I will definitely keep you updated on how the rest of this week and next week goes!
Cheerio! :)
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