Post #3: Second Week

Throughout my first 2 weeks here at Colegio Menor, I have become involved with the students in a variety of ways. Most of the time, I am assisting the students with spelling and grammar, as well as improving math skills throughout centers. However, I was given the opportunity to lead a lesson the first week I was here! The school is putting on an academic showcase in a few weeks, and each classroom is responsible for preparing a Flipgrid that the students are individually creating based on work they have completed, and a presentation of student work around the halls and classroom. My Cooperating Teacher was having a difficult time thinking of a unique way to involve the students in a presentation that revolved around the author Doreen Cronin, so I came up with the idea of a character book talk! With this activity, I mentioned that each student dressed up as a certain character within a specific book, and they discuss the book from that characters point-of-view. The point of this activity is to pull the audience in so that they want to read the book Click, Clack, Ho Ho Ho, while also allowing the students to be creative in their creation of a book talk! 

I have also had the privilege to help create murals and background images for the academic showcase. On the other hand, the assistance needed in the classroom is similar to those back home, but the environment is extremely different. The students have more time away from the classroom, whether it is during break or during specials. There are days where the students are in specials for 2 hours, so I do not see them until dismissal. Another thing that is different with this environment is that I see the parent of each student that is not a bus rider because they walk inside to pick up their child/student. Lastly, the students are not doing very much "CORE" work because they are preparing for the academic showcase, so the majority of our time is spent working on their projects in each center, creating videos, preparing scripts, etc.; none of the time is spent actually teaching content, except for math occasionally throughout the week! It has been different and sometimes difficult at times when working with students, but so far it has been a great experience!