All the things I forgot...

Well, after looking back at my pictures I realized I left out a couple of lessons that I have done while here! So this will be a catch up on all things school since I have been here.

Mosaics

Most consistently I have been teaching visual arts (art class) and physical education. I think it was the second week that I did mosaics with the kids.

I had an outline of their name and they glued little squares of colored paper over the outline to make a mosaic of their name. I gave each of them a glue stick… that was an adventure lol. I hadn’t thought of this before but the glue sticks here are very teacher controlled as it is a resource that is expensive. So, you can imagine how curious the students were about it! I had a few students trying to put it all over their hands and some students that had no idea how it worked. It was pretty comical overall.

I picked this project for a few reasons, the first was because my lesson prior focused on them writing their names. This was a natural extension of the tracing and writing concept we had covered. Second, a lot of my students goals revolve around fine motor skills. This had them pick up small pieces of paper and put them in a specific area. Therefore, they were working on their fine motor skills too.

I had them finish off the project by adding more color with markers/highlighters. I think overall they turned out awesome! Very colorful and beautiful.

Snowflakes

This past week we also made snowflakes out of coffee filters and used markers and water to diffuse the color. I had done this in my summer school class I taught last summer and I thought it would be a perfect project and a chance for them to learn about snow.

I introduced the topic by showing them an example and talking about snow and showing them pictures. We had talked about it previously so they knew something about it. We then went into the project. Ahead of time I differentiated the lesson by having some of the snowflakes cut out, some of them drawn out, and some of them with nothing on them. This allowed my students to start without a whole lot of teacher help. I also had some students use watercolor paints while others used markers based on their skills.

They turned out better than I could have imagined. They were so colorful and unique. I also had the attention of all of the students for the whole time. I have one student who sometimes is off task but he was one of the students who was really into it and wanted to do more.

I took them home and strung them up and my teacher hung them in the classroom the next day!

Frames

We had some free time one of our days so I decided to make frames with the kids. They turned out beautiful! I even had Fred coloring! It was actually pretty comical to watch him use a marker, for what I am assuming was the first time. He looked at it, I showed him and then he tried, looked at it, and then did it again. Like he was trying to figure out how it worked. Then he colored the frame and wanted to cover every.single.spot. He smiled and laughed too; I think he enjoyed it!

Gym:

Running

So, the students do devotion every morning where they pray and sing and worship. This takes place from 8:30 to 9AM daily. As I understand it they also have a theme for different activities that are done during devotion. They are having a sports day soon, so in an attempt to get the students ready my teacher wanted to practice running and having the students run on “ready, set, go” commands.

So we first did warm-ups to some popular songs that they like (I obtained a list from my teacher among the artists were Bob Marley, Justin Bieber, and Mr. Vegas). Then we went outside to practice running and do some other down and back drills. We ran a few times, and then I wanted to do something different so we did skipping down and back. Now here was a cultural difference I noted earlier in the week: they call jump roping, skip. So I anticipated some confusion upon asking them to skip; I showed them how and a few kind of understood the motion. I liked arms with them and one by one skipped down and back with them. They all did a version of it and it was great! I loved watching them and they looked so happy. We did the same thing with a side slide and jump.

After that, I wanted to play a game so I introduced green light, yellow light, red light. It took us a few times to understand how the game worked but most of them had the hang of it by the end. It also helped that the two other teachers I worked with also participated and modeled what the students should be doing.

We went back to running after that by popular request! Now, normally after gym we have a free hour that is filled by me doing some hands on activity with the kids but my teacher decided it was too beautiful to be inside so we sat outside and watched the next class do their physical education.

(My wonderful class... yes, this is an accurate representation of us on any given day lol.)

I am always so torn at moments like that; wasted time that could be used for instruction and time to just let them be kids for a bit longer and enjoy simple things in life before they leave the safe haven that is school and enter into the real world.

Throwing

My first week I also did a lesson on basic throwing and catching. We used tennis balls and it was great to watch them learn how to do it. It was also a riot trying to make sure each pair had a ball as they were rolling all over the class. We eventually added a bounce to the throw!

Verbs

My teacher was working on verbs last week with the kids. She always has the students up and moving which I like a lot. She had them all pick a verb and then had them act it out. We also went outside and had the students try to skip rope (that was great to watch! They all tried so hard to no avail)

Life Skills/Home Management

I have also noticed some life skills classes happening. Before I came, I wondered what the life skills portion of classes would be like. Since being here we have learned about utensils and how to use them including a grater and strainer. Not to mention appliances like the blender. The kids made carrot juice two weeks ago and pumpkin juice this last week.

Additionally, they have had instruction on how to wash clothes by hand and practiced it as well as how to wash hands. Just today they practiced how to set a table, looking at where the fork and kife go.

I think this is by far one of the students favorite classes because they are often up and moving around actually practicing the skill that has pretty real applications to thier daily lives. Here are some pictures:

(washing clothes)

(life skills math-- using what we learned to "buy" snacks)

Other things that happened to me during the week: 

• I stood on an anthill of some awful biting ants, during break. That was NOT FUN. 
• My friend Jessica and I were walking home from the store and it decided to downpour (we were soaked through). It was pretty funny actually. 
• The pool where we are straying is an awful shade of Mt. Dew green… we think there is a monster growing in there.. 
• Since coming here I have met two more Alex’s (if you are unaware, Alex is a very common name in my life!) We have a Jerk Chicken Alex who makes the “best jerk in the world” (which is actually probably true) and Pineapple Alex who’s sister owns the stand we always visit at the market. Alex always cuts our pineapple. 

(Pineapple Alex)

• OH and probably most comical, was us watching the movie Frozen on Friday for the last 45 minutes of class. I kept saying “this is snow!!!” the kids enjoyed the music if nothing else!
• And today, the principal that takes me and my friend Lizzy home forgot about us. Never fear though he came back for us! 
• I also met my twin at the craft market in Negril 

(Her name is Maria, she gave me good deals!) 

As this week, our LAST week, winds down I am going to try to be on top of it and note things that happen throughout the days and general observations I have made over the past 5 weeks!

Out of Many, One Education.