Artwork: Super-Heroes, Lions, and Super-Hero Vegetables

In the beginning of the school year, I would have at least every student come up to me and give me a drawing that they made, each day. Sometimes students would come carry a whole pile of drawings made just me for or Lidia. Now, although I love having lots of creative drawings from students, I had nothing to do with this amount of paper so my class had a talk about wasting paper and that it comes from trees. After that talk, I usually only get a few drawings each day, instead of 50 or more each day.

One student of mine is a really creative artist and his drawings are very impressive for a six year old. The first day I met him he immediately told me that his favorite animal is the lion. Each day he would act like a lion, for the entire day and only draw lions.

Now his interests have changes a little and he loves super-heroes like superman, batman, the hulk, buzz lightyear, and more. Basically he just loves to draw and then pretend he is that creature. latley he tells me everyday before he goes to recess that he is going to he "Booz Layear" (Buzz lightyear) as he runs off with one hand in the air.

Anyways his drawings are so great that I wanted to devote an entire blog post to just his drawings.... enjoy! (You can click on the pic to make it bigger)

Lion

Buzz Lightyear (Right Side he spelled it "Bosal.." and he was writing to infinity and beyond in spanish"

Super-Vegetables (Vetoves) and Fruit

Vacation w/ Efe: Beach, Mayan Ruins and lots of Bus Time!

A little less than a month ago, Efe and I were able to take a big trip across Honduras. After the last post, I had another day of school and then we headed off to the beach, La Ceiba. We stayed at a really nice resort, that really rich hondurans and rich people from el salvador go to. It was all inclusive and we both ate much more than we needed to! Also, we were able to take a boat one day to these small islands, cayos cochinos. They were absolutely beautiful. The water had such a clear blue color, I couldn't believe my eyes!

After La Ceiba we took a six or seven hour bus trip to Copan, where there are Mayan Ruins. These are the only ruins in Honduras and are VERY close to the border of Guatemala. Here we saw the ruins which were amazing. I have only been to the Aztec pyramid of the sun and the moon in Mexico City, which the Copan Ruins were very different. This is not a very popular tourist attraction in comparison which means I was able to climb on every part of the ruins and explore all of it. It's so fun trying to imagine what life was like when these pyramids were made...

After the ruins we went to the hot springs to relax, because this day was Efe's Birthday! These hot springs were fantastic, the water comes out of the Guatemala mountain at 90 degrees Celcuis, which is almost boiling! There were lots of different natural pools to sit in different temperatures of water. The air temperature was cool so relaxing in hot water was really great.

I can't do the trip justice explaining it like this, the pictures say a lot more!

Snorkeling at Cayos Cochinos - with the new underwater camera!

At the resort in La Ceiba, looking at the moutains!

We went out in Juticalpa one night!

Efe and I on the beach outside of the resort.

Efe with some of my students in the cafeteria -- They LOVED him!

cheque

Hey everyone, so i am taking over graciellas blog for a few mins. I have so much greater respect for teachers today after i witnessed a full day of teaching. It was amazing to say the least, great kids, fun games, interesting sing alongs and just a great learning experience. We got up at 630 to get ready to go to the school. Had to take a cold shower, that took me like 15mins to get my mind right to jump in, afterwards we got dressed and walked 30 mins to the school. Wonderful hills surrounding the school, great view. Got to school early and helped set up the day for the pupils. Took some pictures, walked around the school and came back in time to see the kids and they were excited to see me, i felt like a celeb. I record about 40 mins of the class session,video coming soon, interesting way of teaching kids different things and how the grasp things quickly.Kinda interesting grace tells the kids i dont speak spanish and that they should speak english to me, they did still come up and ask me in spanish things like, can i go to the bathroom, or like " carlos stuck his tongue out at me or, can i sharpen there pencils or will i come back to visit them in school tomorrow. Obviously i just said si to everything and smiled becaused i had no clue what they just said. But i like the kids nonetheless, i got so much hugs and drawings to last a life time. It was very nice of them, I did however appreciate the patience teachers have with kids because it feels like you have been working for 2 days when you are around them. The utmost respect, i was just watching grace switch from speaking spanish to english, telling them what to do and how to do it, or telling them to " change your colour" when they did something bad. Prof grace and the aide were just doing so much that i wondered how they are so organized with so many kids, raising there hands, asking questions, being bad, wanting to go to the restroom like every other min or complaining about there pencils not being sharp after i just sharpened it 2 seconds ago. The girls seemed more like they grasped quicker and they were more attentive. Met some of the teachers, nice, and the headmistress, all nice and friendly. Anyway grace is right here and she is going to take over now, adios

Hola, Efe and I are having a great time in Honduras so far! Yesterday it was a lot of traveling bc I went to teguc to meet Efe at the airport and I had to take the regular bus which means it took an extra 1.5 hours because this bus stops at every little town and stop along the road. Either way I go there and took a cab safely, Efe and I ate some McDonalds (1st time in 2 months!!) and then we headed back to Juticalpa. We met up for dinner with all my friends and so far I think Efe is loving how different it is in Honduras, kinda like Nigeria. He also brought me a huge bag of halloween chocolate and some other great presents!! After school today we are able to walk around Juticalpa and just try some different food. This is a great start to a trip!!

It feels like fall! Wait... it's still 75?

When I first moved in I was told that the air conditioning units in the house might get taken out by their owner. Well, today while I was teaching I had to give my key up so that they could take it out. I figured it would happen eventually, so now I got a fan from my classroom that we never use and I was told that I will have screens in my windows by Saturday (we'll see though). I really want the screens though so that I don't have a ton of bugs in my room and so I don't increase my chances of dengue...

Anyways, my kids keep showing up to school in hoodies, jackets, and sweatshirts. Even to me it feels like it is a lot cooler the past week or so, I mean it's still hot, but cooler. I thought it was in the 60's but when I looked up online it says 75 degrees. And this is at night once the sun has already gone down! haha. I remember when I was little I couldn't wait til it was 70 degrees so that I could go swimming! Now I feel like it is fall and would not want to swim in this.

Other news, I started an "I can tie my shoes club" today and so far I think it will be a big success. Basically no one has velcro shoes here and with 36 kids asking me to tie their shoes all the time... I needed to think of something! When a student learns to tie his/her shoes they have to shoe my at recess or lunch and then they get to color a tennis shoe and put their name in the middle, then put it on the wall. So far I have about 12 students who can do it and I feel like everyone is really excited to go home and ask their parents to teach them! Today I had recess duty and I saw a group of kids sitting down all working on tying shoes. It was so cute to see some of the kids helping out the ones who didn't get it yet.

I wish I could remember more stories about kids specifically, but it's tough to remember and I don't have time to write them down in the moment! But I'll keep working on it, because there are a lot of cute things that happen all day! :)

October Already!

Well coming back from my vacation on the beach was actually a little hard. I was kind of sick with a cold and then I lost my voice (or it was just really scratchy).... so teaching 36 six year olds is hard when I don't have my normal voice! However, I still really love my job and my kids. I'm sometimes surprised that I'm not more stressed out from having so many students or not the kind of resources I would always like to have, but honestly I'm not at all stressed out about it. I think part of the reason is that I have been in a lot of schools where the rules are usually strict and administration is always coming in to make sure you are doing your job. Here it's not like that at all, instead I get to just do the part of the job I like - which is teach. I love being able to have a guideline of the curriculum but at the same time I can choose the pace and what exactly we learn about. We don't have books in 1st grade and I actually really like that (for now). My students are learning a lot of English and it's pretty exciting to see it. Right now, it's a very minimal level with a lot of nouns and a few verbs, but they are learning! Also, I usually am able to speak in all English during a lesson which is exactly where I wanted to be at this time of the school year. They can understand a lot, but the production is still limited, and that's the normal process of learning a language.

My newest project is to make my students more independent and not have everything be direct instruction all the time. Things are very orderly in my room because there are so many students, but now I am trying to work in group work and games into lessons. So far my students have loved it! We have been playing matching games in groups, while half the class is doing a worksheet and then they switch. I love seeing them work together and have to work things out on their own (even though it doesn't always work that way).

Here's some pictures of my students.

They've been really into bringing their own books lately, so I'm going to start a student of the week type thing and we will read their book.

Playing match the number word and the number game!

At Day-Star we have a virtue of the month and the last one was Patience. Then we had a school assembly and both first grade classes sang a song about patience, with a few movements. It was really cute (a little crazy with over 70 kids of course though!). Here's the lyrics!

If you're patient and you know it wait your turn. (clap, clap)

If you're patient and you know it wait your turn.

If you're patient and you really want to show it, if your patient and you know it wait your turn.

If you're patient and you know it stand in line. (stomp, stomp)

If you're patient and you know it stand in line.

If you're patient and you really want to show it, if your patient and you know it stand in line.

Anyways, this weekend and last weekend I spent just relaxing and hanging out in Juticalpa. I like just having time to hang out by myself or with some friends... it's relaxing! Also, Efe is coming here to visit on the 13th (10 more days!), so I have been busy planning our trip!

Beach - Tela!

After the parade on Tuesday we found out that there was no school on Wednesday or Thursday, so we could go to the beach right away! We decided to go to a beach town called Tela, which is on the north coast. My town, Juticalpa is pretty inconveniently located to travel anywhere, so you always have to first take a three hour bus ride to the capital, Tegucigalpa. That Tuesday we left to go to Teguc, and then left early in the morning on Wednesday. It was about a 5-6 hour bus ride and then we were there! Found a great hotel with ac, hot water, kitchen and living room in it - all for $8 a person!

The whole trip was really great and relaxing. I spent a lot of time just hanging out on the beach, walking around, jumping off the pier, I snuck into the resort and swam in their nice pool, went down the water slide, and jumped on the water trampoline!

Then one day we took a boat just the nine of us gringos and that was a FANTASTIC day! We went to an island that is across the Caribbean a little bit. Here the water was the perfect color aqua, and the island is a national park so it is protected from being built up and destroyed. I saw two dolphins and a lot of flying fish on the boat ride over! Then I walked around through the rainforest, swam through a cave in the island, and snorkeled on a coral reef. The snorkeling was amazing because there were so many types of colorful fish and types of coral. (Dad you would have LOVED it!) I could have spent hours and hours there, just swimming around looking at everything. After snorkeling we went to another part of the island where we ate a great lunch. The place that cooks the food doesnt even have any type of refrigeration so the fish I ate had to be caught that morning!

The next day I went to one of the world's largest botanical gardens. It was really pretty seeing all types of plants, tress, and flowers. There was a really nice river too that we swam in! Overall the trip was really great and I loved seeing another part of Honduras. It seems like Juticalpa is a pretty strange part of Honduras that keeps to itself. It has it's own culture, like everyone carrying a gun around. That doesn't happen everywhere else. Still it's nice to come "home" to olancho and be back with my kids...

On the island
Bamboo forest -- So cool!!
On the island beach after snorkeling!!

Look at the water color and the mountains!

The boat we took!
BEACH!!

Independence Day Parade

A week ago, we had the Independence Day Parade. There are three days of parades and I guess this is typical for all of Honduras. The first day is just kinder and prepa which is preschool and kindergarten. The second day is for the primary school which is grades 1-6. Then the third day is for high school and junior high.

This parade was really interesting because each school was represented by these groups of kids. So there were some students just in the regular school uniform marching in lines, there was a marching band for each school, baton twirlers, and also a group of kids dressed up like "workers" which could be from any profession.

The parade took us from 7 am until just after 11 a.m. FOUR HOURS! This is in the hot sun and the parade length is actually very short It would probably take you about 15 minutes to walk it normal. The reason is that the point of the parade is to salute all of the officials of Juticalpa and Olancho at the very END of the parade. So you march in the parade for awhile (maybe 2 minutes) and then stop for about 10 or 15. It makes it a very slow process to get to the end!