Well, I survived. After several weeks of preparation, school finally began last week. My class of 29 (YES, 29) are all very sweet. I was greeted with many hugs and "Good morning, Mees." Good thing they are cute, because it's going to be a tough road with the language learning process. We were all warned that the students' English would be rusty, and boy, was that the understatement of the year! Within the first hour of the day, I realized that many of things I had planned just weren't going to work because most of the kids hardly understood a word I was saying! The day quickly turned into a game of charades, with me acting out nearly every direction. I also have to simplify my speech so much that I feel like I'm talking to toddlers. It's been interesting trying to figure out what each student knows academically, since they don't understand many directions in English. The good news, though, is that I was already noticing improvement from Monday to Friday. The handful of students that have OK English started to participate more and hopefully that's encouraging for the others. It's so cute when they start to talk to me, carefully plotting out the first few words of the sentence in English, then giving up and rattling the rest off in Spanish. I can understand their frustrations, that's for sure, since my Spanish is still so terrible. Combined, we can have some awesome Spanglish conversations.
Here's our first group shot. I think I only had 24 kiddos there on the first day of school. In fact, there wasn't a single day that all 29 were there at the same time. The rosters are still changing, and I still haven't gotten my final "offical" copy. In any case, here we are in all our glory. It took way too long to arrange this photo and you still can't see everyone's faces!!
Thanks to all my teacher friends back in Nebraska this past week. I talked to and emailed many of them as I was re-planning my week after the reality check of the first day. The kids really respond well to songs and activities that involve movement or manipulatives. Anything to get them out of our little classroom and outside and moving is great!
One of the funnier moments of the week was when we were talking about parts of the body in science. We were discussing the difference between black, brown and blond hair. Well, as you can see, no one has blond hair. However, they all pointed to myself and this little guy, as examples of blond hair:
My classroom is lacking in supplies that I have been so accustomed to having. It's very interesting (and not so logical) how they do it. The school requires each student to bring a certain list of supplies. Some of it the students keep for themselves, and the rest they stockpile in the office. For example, each student had to bring 4 rolls of toilet paper. I had to collect it and bring it all to the office, and then have to go get a roll of toilet paper there when I run out. Oh, I didn't mention they don't keep the TP in the bathrooms?? No, it sits on my desk and the kids come grab some before they go use the restroom. Actually, now that I think about it, many of them haven't been taking it with them. So much for cleanliness! There's also no soap or towels in the bathroom. Washing hands consist of a quick rinse then wiping on your clothes to dry off. I should add, all of this isn't necessarily unique to the school, it's pretty common in many public restrooms.
Of all the things I don't have readily available, I do have to say I am impressed with the new tables they put in my room the day before school started (and not-so-impressed with the chairs they gave me that don't fit under the tables - but that's another whole story). The table tops are dry erase boards, and it is awesome! Luckily, I had the foresight to swipe 30 or so of the whiteboard markers that the kids brought and I was supposed to turn into the office. SHH, don't tell.
Here they are practicing their letters/consonants on the table tops:
I'm lacking in pictures lately as my camera decided to stop working. But, I did snap some photos of their first writing assignment. They could write about anything, as I just wanted to see what each of their writing abilities were. Keep in mind, the following are examples of some of the better writing. Happy reading, y'all!
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