Weekend Activities and the Start of the New Week

Things were very different in the school Friday. My students were supposed to have a math test. Ms. Mazey told me I could review with them before it so as I was reviewing with the students, she was making the test. Then it needed copied but Ms. Addie was busy so we could not get the test copied. THe students wrote their journals instead. It only had to be one sentence though. That was definately different for me as well. Most of the time, we have our students write at least 3 sentences at that age.Then when it came time for Language Arts, she asked me what I was going to teach and I said I didn't have anything because she said we were going to do a journal. Since we had already done that I had to come up with something to do on the spot. Thursday was the day we worked on hard and soft G and we still had an activity I never got to, so I did that with them and then she taught them for the rest of the day.

Friday night after school, Tori, Jordan, Caitlin, Samantha and I went over the bridge to the auditorium. Some of the students from our school were having their dance recital. I did not know if any of my students were going to be in it, but one little girl ended up dancing and was so cute. It was really fun to watch and the kids did a really great job.

When we got back, we sang karakoe at Pedro's, which was really fun as well.

Saturday was really fun. Most of us went to the yoga studio for breakfast. It was so pretty. The studio where you do yogo is right on the water. The breakfast was delicious as well. I tried a chocolate pancake. It was definitely worth it. 

Then we went to the Palapa bar where they had tubes hanging out in the water and we just hung out in the water and relaxed for a few hours before heading back for our crocodile adventure!

That night around 6 both Laurens, Jordan, Caitlin, Emma, Lexi and I left to go meet Mariam and Captain Chris at The Office to go on the crocodile tour with ACES. They are a non-profit organization who is working on the conservation of the American Crocodile. They take groups out on a boat and go around the lagoon looking for crocodiles. When they find one, they will catch it and bring it on board to educate the people about the crocodiles and let them hold them. They also take measurements and determine if the crocodiles are ones they have already found and marked. They do part of their research while teaching others about them. If the crocodiles are found in the canals that are in people's backyards, they will release the crocdile somewhere more safe. The crocodiles found there usually are not healthy and have a "jelly belly" because they are eating trash and things that are bad for them. It was really cool!

Sunday Caitlin, Jordan, Samantha and I went to George's for breakfast. There was an island wide power outage as well when we woke up, so we got really lucky it was open. The food was delicious even though it was cooked without power. Then we went to Caribbean Villas again for the BBQ. We also watched the sailing club races.  A lot of our students are very active in the club, so it was fun to watch. When we got back we all just kind of hung out in the shade and made things for our lessons.

Now today is Monday and the school was a bit stressful. When I got to school, my teacher was not there. This has happened before, but she arrived right after assembly so it wasn't a problem. Today it was. I had no idea what she wanted me to teach them. I knew we had Social Studies and had been working on the cardinal directions and the political map of Belize so I had them pull it out. I reviewed what Ms. Mazey had been doing with them and then reviewed using a key with them. Some students were not understanding how to use the key so we went step by step. I had students point to the things I was asking and walked around looking to make sure they were pointing at the right things. Once we got through that, I had them write all the districts of Belize down (districts are like the states in the United States) and then had them find the capitals and write those down. Some of them were getting confused because two of the districts are the district name with "town" at the end. They wrote this for all of them and then I had to review it again and most of the students then got it right. It was really stressful not knowing what to teach, but I feel like I did a good job figuring it out. I have been teaching Language Arts and Math as well every day and that has been going really well.

Some of my students during our hour long lunch break today.

This week I will keep teaching Math and Language Arts. Thursday the teachers do report cards and have conferences with the parents all day, so I am supposed to come up with games and activities for the students to do. Friday is the beach party for the Easter holiday. I am very interested to see how that will be. We don't have beach parties back in the US.!