Oh, How Time Flies When You Are Having Fun!

…And just like that, it is Thursday! Holy cow, these past 5 weeks have FLOWN by! Some things that happened/we did this week.

Visual Arts: Fish!

We made a fish in visual arts this week making sure out fish had 4 distinct parts: lips, eyes, teeth, and tails (although as I write this I’m wondering if it is just called a fin…). We made them from the leftover coffee filters that we had from our snowflake project. The kids really enjoyed it. They had some very colorful creations!

To preface the lesson, I showed them my example and asked if they knew what it was. A few of them did, despite my artistic (or lack thereof) abilities. We talked about where they lived and how they move. I had them move their arm like a fish swimming. We were just generally talking about fish when out of the blue one of my student shouts, “I like fried fish” lol. It was too funny—he had us all laughing!

Physical Education: Soccer

Now, this, I was very excited for; soccer day in PE. We actually played soccer the day before after our language lesson. We were talking about action verbs and one of the ones we were looking at was, kick. We had the student practice and then went into a soccer game. So, we had covered the rules and how to play the previous day allowing us to review and begin playing!

It is so great to watch them kick the ball around. However, they don’t like or understand running after someone who has the ball, so that you might obtain the ball. We were working on it and it took some modeling and physical prompting but we made some progress. It really helped that Ms. Green and Ms. Blackwood jumped in and played as well. It helped not only the overall flow of the game but it allowed us to involve all of the students, better. They also loved to pick up the ball and set it down so it wasn't moving when they tried to kick it. We also tried to have them stop doing that, we kept reviewing that you use your feet to kick the ball. It was pretty funny overall, I LOVED it! 

It was so hot but we played for a while, and this was after we did some running drills as they are all insistent on running! I had planned to also do some dance activities including YMCA, Chicken Dance, and Hokey Pokey but we went outside first as I thought it was going to rain and when we came back in they were too tired!

Language: Verbs

We have been working on action verbs: this is a video of us up and moving around based on what we talked about in class!

Agriculture Class: 

Agriculture class this week had the girls picking eggs from the coops and the boys feeding the chicks that they are raising to eat!

Report Day:

Today is report day which I now understand is like conferences! No teaching happens today and instead, the students, with their parents, come in and receive a report and talk to the teacher about how they are doing. The students are told not to come to school if their parent is not with them.

We went and watched. My teacher was actually gone today so the teacher that had them previously plus my teacher aide were talking to the parents. They were overall very positive and gave the parents an overview of their student. It also allowed the parents to voice their opinions and observations about their child. I think many times there is not a time for this, so the parents talked a long time. It was really great to hear from the parents and listen to what they had to say. It gave deeper insight into my students and I realized more than ever how important it is to listen and talk to parents. 

Some students, however, were still sent to school without a parent so I put on a movie for them and took out some coloring supplies (please don't get the idea that is all I do lol). The students floated in and out as they waited for their conference or to go home at the end of the day. We only stayed half of the day and on our way home the principal noted that this was the first year they have done reports this way and that there were not a lot of parents. I actually watched one of my students arrive but after the principal told him it was report day and he (the dad) had to stay, he made his son get back into the car and drove away, The process overall was interesting to watch and participate in. 

Yesterday I also had my hair braided after school by this sweet girl: 

(one and four on the other side lol.) 

... and we also went to the market for the last time and saw Joy-- we go to her for all of our fruit and veggie buys (pineapple Alex's sister). 

It's hard to believe that tomorrow marks the last day of school! I have enjoyed every second of this experence; I'm really going to miss these kids! I hope to visit again next year when I hopefully present at the conference again!

Out of Many, One Education.