Monday, June 18th, 2012
Back to school!
Today I taught a small group lesson (about 8 kids) about
using commas and how we take a sentence and then use the commas to add more
information either in the beginning, middle, or end. The great thing about the
class I teach in is I have a chance to do everything twice! I can try out the lesson
on the first group of students and find out what works and doesn’t work or if I
need to word things differently, and then try to teach the lesson even better
with the next class. So the first time around most of my students got it and
they were even having fun making the parts of the sentences rhyme but I was
trying to keep them focused on adding in details. Meanwhile many of them were
writing sentences like “Maisy, maisy, with a face like a daisy, but she is so
lazy!” Something like that I can’t quite remember. However, we were trying to
teacher them that without the extra details surrounded by the commas the
sentence should still make sense. That’s when their rhyming sentences would
fall apart.
The teacher also teaches P.E. and they divide the two
classes (60 kids) into three different ability groups each learning about a
different sport. I watched the students learn to bowl. Not like bowling but
bowl for cricket which I think of as pitching in baseball, except the ball
bounces once and is aimed towards three tubes close together. Another group was
practicing hitting a cricket ball with a cricket bat and the last group was
balancing and bouncing tennis balls with a racket. Of course I really loved
helping out in this part because it is what I do most days at home, except we
more play games rather than develop the techniques. I think we should start
though.
This is the day we also found an express bus from Cambourne
to Cambridge! We get back to our house in about 45 minutes rather than the hour
fifteen and it drops us off right at the top of our street!!!
That night we ate at revolution because it was half off
everything! YUM! However, I wasn’t feeling well and have been missing some
vegetables so I just had a salad but it was still delicious. I’m thinking this
will become out Monday night tradition while were here because the prices are
decent.
Tuesday, June 19th, 2012
Mini Olympics!
First of all let me start off by saying I was so excited for
this day, we all know how sportsy I am :) but my bus was late! (Don’t worry I made
it) You should see how these bus drivers are, first of all the citi bus is a
double decker, so it’s huge and the bicyclists are crazy here! They will run
you right over and the buses will run them right over! Every time we are on the
bus we are cringing because the bicyclist are literally inches away from the
bus on the street, I would never ride a bike here. Anyways I made it to the
school just before out bus was about to leave and was able to gave have this
amazing experience.
There were over 1,000 year 4 students in attendance to this
event. I have to say it was very well organized for the amount of people there.
The students had about 10 minutes to try on many different sports: football
(soccer), hockey, golf, tennis, problem solving, hurdles, long jump, Olympic dance,
tug o’ war, shot put, relay race and there may be a few more I am forgetting
about. Also, it was students about 14 years old who were teaching our kids how
to do these different sports. But because I have worked in recreation for
several years I kept telling my teacher how the students teaching kids should
have done things and little tips. My teacher loved this and said I should start
helping her plan and teach P.E. as she is not all that into sports. I am very
excited to do this because my kids have never played kickball, foursquare, a
game of basketball, and baseball. There are just so many games I could teach
them!
Anyways we were outside at the Olympics from 10-2 and I,
even though I have lived in Florida all my life, come to England and get sun
burnt! <<< That is the type of sentence they should have been writing
on Monday and many of them did.
Mom you will love these- we found this great burger place,
Gourmet Burger Kitchen, and they make the best onion rings! You know I don’t even
like onion rings but they are big and so crispy. I am sure I will have them
again before I leave and will show a picture. They are absolutely delicious!
Also, they have a pound store here, like a dollar store, except you can get a
lot more for a pound. A six pack of canned sodas and more…
And a kid and I were talking about cars and he was telling
me his favorite was some type of Lamborghini and then asked me if I had a car. I
responded yes and he said is it a Lamborghini? I laughed and said no it’s a Toyota
and he made an odd face and said he didn’t know what that was. I thought this
was hilarious because kids never understand the cost of items, but one day kid….
One day.
So these are a few words I can think of at the moment that are
different between the two cultures:
Suncream- sunscreen
Shattered- exhausted
Waterproofs- raingear
Trainers- sneakers
Tiddly- tiny (this is one I heard from the kids so I'm not
sure if it is just slang)
Rubber- eraser
Toilet- bathroom
Biscuits- cookies
And they also spell a lot of words differently like: visualise,
analyse, colour…
Also, a bunch of the college students around here (11th
and 12th grade) are passing there exams and graduating so there has
been a ball every night including fireworks, almost as good as Disney’s except
nothing will ever match that. But my friends and I were having a good ole time
watching the fireworks and laughing and giggling about it.
Wednesday June 20th, 2012
Uhg, its only Wednesday… :(
I am so ready for this weekend so we can go see Scotland,
the Highlands and castles! But today at school went pretty well. I taught
another small group lesson on informational text features and of course the
students tried to get away with things that they normally wouldn’t with their
teachers. However, I thought both times I taught the lesson were successful. I
am hoping that I am asking enough higher order thinking questions because my teacher
doesn’t like to ask yes or no questions. She likes the students to have a
reason for every answer.
Education here is so interesting because the students are
expected to achieve and think at a much higher level, but I don’t see a lot of
teaching going on in the classroom. Today the schedule was literacy for about
an hour, math and science together for about an hour and then they drew self
portraits for an hour which they do every year, and art for an hour. The rest
of the time there was a break for twenty minutes, lunch for twenty minutes,
assembly (every day) for about 30 minutes. I am not sure but somehow that fills
up the whole day.
Anyways, tomorrow my teacher is modeling a lesson for me to
the whole group and then I am teaching the same lesson afterwards to the
students. But I am turning in early tonight as I am exhausted and want to stay
healthy. Night!
and on the river in Cambridge (take by Kimmy, at least taken off her Facebook page :))
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