This week our lesson had to focus on how we used water everyday, but in an abstract way. So not just looking at drinking water or using for cleaning. My team decided to make a game for our students to play. The game was called the Flow, and it had different types of water uses incorporated into it. The uses ranged from the everyday, like showering, brushing your teeth, going to the bathroom, to more complex ideas, like the amount of water that is used to make the food you eat, the clothing you wear, and different things you can buy. I was totally sure on how the students would like it, but they all really liked it. I was told in my last class that it was wicked awesome. It also got them thinking about how water is used, and how it's being polluted in different ways. I got a lot of good questions, especially when I would tell them that you use 22 gallons of water for every 5 minutes you take a shower. Some of the classes couldn't decide whether you were winning the game if you had the most water or the least. I told them that everybody won with this game, and that nobody lost. Of course, they still gave each other crap if they chose an option that used a lot of water. They also really enjoyed getting to measure the water into their jars as they went around the board. We were also told today that we were the best SCA group that Mrs. Signor had had in her class. They said that the entire time we were in the class we had the attention of all the students, and there were a lot less behavior problems when we were there than at other times. That makes me feel really good, because I feel like our lessons aren't even top notch, and that there's a lot more that we can be doing with the students.
Last weekend, I went to the Nelson farm with a large group of people from Bear Brook. It was really fun, because we're trying to set up a relationship with this farm where we donate our time to helping them with everything they need help with, and they supply us with some fresh vegetables when they can. We already got some cress from the farm from last weekend, which we used to cook with all this week. The owner of the farm, Shawn, needed the bed of cress pulled up, and told us that we could keep any of it that we wanted, and we took two giant bags full home with us. It was really awesome! I can't wait to go back again, but I'm not sure when that'll be. I'm thinking of going back Saturday, but I had a really tough week, and we start Wilderness First Responder Monday morning, and we don't get another break for 2 weeks when we get a 3 day weekend. It's going to be intense, but I'm so excited about it.
Yesterday, nobody went into schools even though the schools were open because we had a Bear Brook State Park snow day. The night before, one of the vans got stuck on a hill in the park, and so no vehicles could get out until the van was moved. After picking up the people from the van, they determined that it was going to be pretty tough to get the van moved, so that night they called a snow day for the next day. That was really nice because it gave my team more time to work on our game/lesson, as well as giving everybody a chance to sleep in and relax in the middle of the week. We had a giant snowball fight in the morning where I got pummeled with snow/ice balls. It was lots of fun, but I'm definitely completely bruised from all of the snowballs hitting me at crazy speeds.
Currently, I'm killing time in the Manchester Public Library between school and teen night tonight, which doesn't start until 6:30. My team and I are going to go get some food before teen night, since we won't be getting home until 11/11:30 tonight. It's going to be a crazy long day. Luckily there was a 90 minute delay today, so we didn't leave camp until 7:30 and not at 6:15, like we originally planned. Although, this did mean that we had shorter classes today at school, but we got to have a hot breakfast and didn't have to rush to get out the door like we would have needed to.
I have posted new pictures to facebook.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Sunday, February 8, 2009
First Week Teaching
I have just survived my first week teaching 8th grade science. It wasn't too bad. The students seemed to really like the game that we played and everybody seemed to be able to relate to at least one fact about each of us that we talked about. In fact, there's one student in my class who recently moved to NH from Charleston, which is really crazy. So that everybody knows, I figure that I'll go ahead and post my schedule for the weeks that I'm teaching:
Mon - in camp all day basically, doing camp stuff like cleaning and meetings
Tues - full day of planning, basically a free day
Wed - Salvation Army 3-7 (tutoring and Kids Cafe)
Thurs - Teach 7:45-12:50, then Kids Cafe at Salvation Army every other week from 3-7
Fri - Teach 8:30-2:00, then Teen Night at Salvation Army every other week from 6:30-10:30
The times when I'm in town, but not teaching or working at Salvation Army, I'll have phone reception and will more than likely have my phone on.
This past week, my group went to Teen Night on Friday instead of Kids Cafe on Thurs. It was really fun, because some of my students were there, and I schooled all of them in Guitar Hero (a video game for those of you who don't know). They're all really excited that I won't be coming back for another 2 weeks, because they claim they're going to practice and then beat me when I come back. But we'll just have to see how it goes.
This weekend has been absolutely gorgeous! I went on a hike yesterday with Stephanie and Youn. It was so pretty! We climbed trees, and fell into snow that went up to our hips. But we didn't see any wildlife, though there were a fair number of tracks, especially deer tracks. I can't wait until it's warm enough that I get to see wildlife. One of the guys saw a moose recently while he was driving through the park, and I really want to see one too. In fact, when Youn and I were driving back from doing our laundry yesterday, we drove really slow and looked around for a moose the entire time. But to no avail.
I'm really psyched about my second week of teaching, because we're going to be doing a lot of small group discussions, and we get a short day on Friday, since it's an early release day. Which is really going to help my teaching team out, because we're cooking for the entire camp Friday night, which is also our Friday the 13th party. We're trying to think of different things to cook, but haven't really come up with anything yet, and we need to get cracking on it. Speaking of food, I've been cooking some really good food recently that I thought I'd share. Sweet potato burritos are really good. The way that we cooked them, was to cut up sweet potatoes, peppers, and onions, then cook all of them together in a skillet (of course cook the potatoes first since they take longer). Then put all of them together in a burrito with some cheese, tomatoes, and whatever else you may want on there. I also made this really awesome dish called something like Papas Mohatas. That is just layering Cornbread, then black beans, mashed potatoes, and topping it with shredded cheese. It's really good.
I hope that everybody is having a good time in their various places, beause I know that I am and want everybody to have a good time when I am too.
Mon - in camp all day basically, doing camp stuff like cleaning and meetings
Tues - full day of planning, basically a free day
Wed - Salvation Army 3-7 (tutoring and Kids Cafe)
Thurs - Teach 7:45-12:50, then Kids Cafe at Salvation Army every other week from 3-7
Fri - Teach 8:30-2:00, then Teen Night at Salvation Army every other week from 6:30-10:30
The times when I'm in town, but not teaching or working at Salvation Army, I'll have phone reception and will more than likely have my phone on.
This past week, my group went to Teen Night on Friday instead of Kids Cafe on Thurs. It was really fun, because some of my students were there, and I schooled all of them in Guitar Hero (a video game for those of you who don't know). They're all really excited that I won't be coming back for another 2 weeks, because they claim they're going to practice and then beat me when I come back. But we'll just have to see how it goes.
This weekend has been absolutely gorgeous! I went on a hike yesterday with Stephanie and Youn. It was so pretty! We climbed trees, and fell into snow that went up to our hips. But we didn't see any wildlife, though there were a fair number of tracks, especially deer tracks. I can't wait until it's warm enough that I get to see wildlife. One of the guys saw a moose recently while he was driving through the park, and I really want to see one too. In fact, when Youn and I were driving back from doing our laundry yesterday, we drove really slow and looked around for a moose the entire time. But to no avail.
I'm really psyched about my second week of teaching, because we're going to be doing a lot of small group discussions, and we get a short day on Friday, since it's an early release day. Which is really going to help my teaching team out, because we're cooking for the entire camp Friday night, which is also our Friday the 13th party. We're trying to think of different things to cook, but haven't really come up with anything yet, and we need to get cracking on it. Speaking of food, I've been cooking some really good food recently that I thought I'd share. Sweet potato burritos are really good. The way that we cooked them, was to cut up sweet potatoes, peppers, and onions, then cook all of them together in a skillet (of course cook the potatoes first since they take longer). Then put all of them together in a burrito with some cheese, tomatoes, and whatever else you may want on there. I also made this really awesome dish called something like Papas Mohatas. That is just layering Cornbread, then black beans, mashed potatoes, and topping it with shredded cheese. It's really good.
I hope that everybody is having a good time in their various places, beause I know that I am and want everybody to have a good time when I am too.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Frostbite
So, it has been determined that I have superficial frostbite on two of my fingers. I was kinda retarded on Monday when it was really cold, and was helping to back someone up in one of the vans with no gloves on. So my hands got really cold, and then I helped to pick up one of the seats that go in the vans while my hands were still really cold and still wasn't wearing any gloves. So, the two fingers that touched the metal on the seat that had been sitting outside for awhile, have minor frostbite or cold burns. I talked to Mike about it, and he said that cold burns are just minor or superficial frostbite that will heal. So two of my fingers look like they've been burned, which they have, and hurt pretty bad when I try to pick things up with them or any kind of pressure is put on them. Luckily, this is my only injury up here minus some bruises from playing soccer and other fun physical activities.
Tues I went to meet my teachers and go through training at Salvation Army. It was really nice to be able to meet our teachers, even though it was kind of jumbled and there was some miscommunication at some point along the way. So we only got to really talk to one of the teachers, but we did get to sit through both teachers classes. After that, we went over to the Salvation Army to go through our training and then to actually volunteer after the training. Between the training and when tutoring began, we played a big game of soccer with just the SCA people who were there. That was lots of fun, and really nice to actually do some physical activity. Then we went to do tutoring, only to find out that there were about twice as many tutors as students. So, we ended up just messing around and playing more games until set-up for Kids Cafe started. Kids Cafe was awesome! I sat at a table with eight kids and another SCA member. They talked about a lot of different things, and weren't afraid to talk to us about whatever was on their minds, or to ask us questions about ourselves. I'm really excited to go back there next week, or possibly tomorrow for teen night.
Yesterday, we had a snow storm, and classes were cancelled. So everybody spent the day at camp planning and getting ready for teaching next week. My group has managed to finish everything we need to have to teach our first lesson, and to plan our second lesson. I'm really proud of us, and the work that we do. I'm really excited to get to teach next week. I can't wait!
Tues I went to meet my teachers and go through training at Salvation Army. It was really nice to be able to meet our teachers, even though it was kind of jumbled and there was some miscommunication at some point along the way. So we only got to really talk to one of the teachers, but we did get to sit through both teachers classes. After that, we went over to the Salvation Army to go through our training and then to actually volunteer after the training. Between the training and when tutoring began, we played a big game of soccer with just the SCA people who were there. That was lots of fun, and really nice to actually do some physical activity. Then we went to do tutoring, only to find out that there were about twice as many tutors as students. So, we ended up just messing around and playing more games until set-up for Kids Cafe started. Kids Cafe was awesome! I sat at a table with eight kids and another SCA member. They talked about a lot of different things, and weren't afraid to talk to us about whatever was on their minds, or to ask us questions about ourselves. I'm really excited to go back there next week, or possibly tomorrow for teen night.
Yesterday, we had a snow storm, and classes were cancelled. So everybody spent the day at camp planning and getting ready for teaching next week. My group has managed to finish everything we need to have to teach our first lesson, and to plan our second lesson. I'm really proud of us, and the work that we do. I'm really excited to get to teach next week. I can't wait!
Sunday, January 25, 2009
More Pictures
There are now three new albums posted on facebook, so check it out. There are snowboarding and snowshoeing pictures up. It's pretty awesome!
Pictures
I'm trying to load pictures on facebook at the moment, but it's taking a really long time, and because of bandwidth restrictions, I can't upload pictures at camp. So I'm currently sitting at Pizzareia Uno trying to upload my pictures while trying to not look like an entire mooch, and eating a cup of clam chowder. I currently have 10 more pictures up, and I'm going to try upload as many as I can before I have to go.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Afterschool program
Today we found out that my teaching team is going to be teaching on Thurs and Fridays. We also found out that we're going to be doing the Salvation Army afterschool program. For that we will be doing tutoring, leading a club, and helping with kids cafe every Wed and every other Thurs. Then every other Friday, we will be helping with Teen night. I'm sure that tutoring and leading a club are pretty self explanatory, but I'll explain more about kids cafe and teen night. Kids cafe is a safe place for youth to have dinner and spend early evenings with trusted adults (I am considered an adult in this situation). For this, we have dinner family style, were an adult sits at either end of the table, and then there are about 6 youth eating at the table with us. We're supposed to set a good example for them, and just talk to them and get to know them. I'm pretty excited about that. Then Friday night is teen night, where the Salvation Army hosts a safe place for teens to hang out at night. There they are able to hang out and have fun with friends while not getting into trouble. Some weeks they have a dance, other nights they do other fun things that I haven't been told about. We're going to be learning more about this next week when we go through the training for it. My group and I have finished finializing out syllabus for the nine weeks we'll be teaching. I'm really proud of this, since none of us had ever done this before. It also gave us the freedom to change things within the syllabus if we wanted to, but we didn't really. Just created goals and objectives for each lesson.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
MLK day and my birthday!
Monday was my birthday, and it was a pretty good day. We went to Portsmouth, NH (on the coast) to participate in a day of service. At breakfast, Bre gave me a card that she had made for me for my birthday, it was really cool, and she was the first person to say happy birthday to me. The morning we spent listening to speeches and then going on a march through the town of Portsmouth. It was pretty fun. In the afternoon, we went out to the seacoast and did a beach cleanup of a 1/3 of a mile stretch of the beach. We didn't find very much, but we did have a very interesting activity that happened later. Four of the guys I live with decided that they were going to get into the water. So, they stripped down to their boxers and ran into the water, then ran right back out. It was pretty hillarious. Especially since we had some other volunteers with us who didn't know that this was going to happen. Everybody tried to get me to go in too, but I didn't particularly want to have to ride back with wet underwear for the hour and a half drive back to Bear Brook. Some of the girls are talking about taking a trip back there this coming weekend and doing it. But being more prepared than the guys were. I might go with them if they do. After we got back from Portsmouth, we had spaghetti for dinner, and the dirt cake for dessert. Everybody loved the dirt cake. It was awesome! Then, I got a present from the majority of the group, which was a hemp necklace with a purple shell on it that they had found on the beach that day. It's really pretty. I'm also getting a neckie at some point from Phil, but production of those has slown down (neckies are balaklavas, or something like that).
Tuesday, I drove in the snow for the first time ever. We had to move cars so that the spots could be plowed since it snowed this weekend. And Robin was helping Sue in the kitchen making bread and dinner and whatnot, so she gave me her keys and asked me to move her car for her. I did it, and only got stuck in the snow once, but Bear pushed me out of the snow. It was pretty cool. I also fixed a tear in my pants yesterday by sewing up the hole using fireline, and then putting an iron-on patch on the back, using my woodstove as the "iron". Although, I have now managed to tear those pants again, and will be patching them again tonight.
I have now found out my teaching team and what grade I'm going to be teaching. I'm really excited, because I'm going to be teaching 8th grade with two really awesome guys. We're the only 8th grade teaching team, so it's going to be harder for us, but we're all really excited. Now we're just trying to come up with a service-learning project to do with the students. But first, we have to know our curriculum, which we're going to finding out tonight, since we're going over it with Marlee.
Everything is going really great up here! Lots of snow, and lots of playing in the snow. I particularly enjoyed playing line-tag on the lake today. That was lots of fun. Pictures are going to slow going up because of the way our internet works here, but I'm going to do my best since I have lots of cool pictures.
Tuesday, I drove in the snow for the first time ever. We had to move cars so that the spots could be plowed since it snowed this weekend. And Robin was helping Sue in the kitchen making bread and dinner and whatnot, so she gave me her keys and asked me to move her car for her. I did it, and only got stuck in the snow once, but Bear pushed me out of the snow. It was pretty cool. I also fixed a tear in my pants yesterday by sewing up the hole using fireline, and then putting an iron-on patch on the back, using my woodstove as the "iron". Although, I have now managed to tear those pants again, and will be patching them again tonight.
I have now found out my teaching team and what grade I'm going to be teaching. I'm really excited, because I'm going to be teaching 8th grade with two really awesome guys. We're the only 8th grade teaching team, so it's going to be harder for us, but we're all really excited. Now we're just trying to come up with a service-learning project to do with the students. But first, we have to know our curriculum, which we're going to finding out tonight, since we're going over it with Marlee.
Everything is going really great up here! Lots of snow, and lots of playing in the snow. I particularly enjoyed playing line-tag on the lake today. That was lots of fun. Pictures are going to slow going up because of the way our internet works here, but I'm going to do my best since I have lots of cool pictures.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)