Week 11

This week is the last week before spring break!! I am happy about this but mostly for the students.

In our weekly meeting with the other 5th grade teachers and the principal we were talking about how the whole school is just tired of being inside and doing the same thing. I think it is really important for kids to be outside and able to get their energy out, but they have had indoor recess and arrival since about October. We had outdoor recess on Thursday this week and that was good to get them some fresh air.

This week was pretty normal, but we had Friday off. All of the teachers and students are super ready for a break from school. When I taught this week they seemed to pay attention but I think that was because it was something new and different from what they expected.

I taught a little unit on Kenya and my experiences there. On Monday, I did a little introduction to Kenya and to Africa in general. Then we did a project called "Me on the Map." This is where students draw a circle map of themselves. They start with a circle and it says "This is Me." Then the next circle is a little bigger and its about their school. Then it goes to neighborhood, city, state, country and world. I did this because it really helped them connect to other people in the world. They can kind of see how they are just a small part of a very big world and there are other kids just like them in other countries.

On Tuesday afternoon we had career day, so all my activities got pushed back a day. This assembly was interesting. There were four speakers and their jobs were a teacher, a nurse, a financial specialist for McDonalds, and a Union member. After the first two, the kids had kind of tuned out, but then the McDonalds lady gave out gift cards to McDonalds for answering questions correctly. It was chaos. there were probably 300 3rd-5th graders screaming out the answers and jumping everywhere. In contrast, the Union speaker was not interesting at all and actually quite boring. After the assembly, the boys stayed downstairs and the girls went upstairs. I had no idea what either group was going to do. I took our girls up and all fifth grade girls were having a meeting. They were getting "the talk." This talk was about everything from periods to boys to taking shower every day. It was interesting the way it was handled and I think it went pretty well actually. They didn't seem too grossed out and they all listened to the teacher who was talking. She kept asking me if I wanted to add anything, and I just kept saying no. I was taken a little bit by surprise, but then when we went back to our individual classrooms I talked a little bit with my seven girls and answered some of their questions.

Wednesday came around and for the afternoon I did the Kenya lessons again. I passed out cards on which the students could write any questions they have during my talk. I hoped that this would eliminate some of the talking, and I think it might have a little, but not very much. If anything this made them think about the questions they really wanted to ask and which ones were questions that had already been asked so that was good. I talked about the different animals I saw, the school I taught in, where I lived, the seasons, and the food I ate. These were all things that they had asked about yesterday so I changed around my lesson to what they seemed to be interested in. After that I had them go on google earth and look up 5 different places. They had to write the place (for example: Willis Tower) the city (Chicago) the state (Illinois) and the continent (North America). This was really good for them to see the whole world and at least the United States. I think these kids have a really hard time seeing anything outside of their city or outisde of Chicago area. I hope that they realized that the whole world is full of people and diversity and cool places to explore.

Thursday was the last day of school this week. We have a double special in the mornings, so the afternoon was full of projects and fun. We did a project where I cut out the letters K, E, N, Y, and A out of posterboard. I split the class into 5 groups and each group had a topic. The topics were transportation, housing, food, schools, and animals. Each group had to decorate the letter with drawings of their topic. I did not give them too many directions on purpose because I wanted them to think of things on their own. They worked on their netbooks researching the different topics related to Kenya. Three groups did an excellent job, and two of them were ok. They all understood what they were supposed to do, but it was just a matter of doing it that was the problem. I need to find a way to get them to understand that doing something (anything) is better than sitting there and staring.

When we finished that project, we watched The Lion King because it was the last day before break and it related to our Kenya studies. Two of out students wrote out of the dictionary instead of watching the movie because they had gotten in trouble in specials earlier this week. I think they ended up watching most of it, but I guess it was worth a try. It is also one of the students birthday's on Saturday so he brought in cupcakes and ice cream. We also gave out chips for turning in all the homework packets. It was a feast!

This was a long week even though it was a short one. I also had two interviews and got offered a job!! It is a first grade position at Lakeside Christian in Clearwater Florida. That also made my week wonderful! I was super busy trying to make plans to go visit the school next week on spring break. Even though I have only been here for two weeks, it was a tiring two weeks! I am ready to sleep for a while, then continue getting ready to teach for the rest of the school year! It has been a great semester thus far :)