Yesterday, most of my meetings were with my little girls' parents, and today, I had mostly older kids' parents. After the chaos of last week, I was hoping for some good news. The first parent I met with is in the Materno classroom a lot, and she takes them for lunch so I can have a lunch break, so I see her all the time. This kind of made me nervous - she saw what REALLY goes on in the classroom, so she has the best point of view. I was interested to see how it would go.
I'm very relieved and happy to say that she highly approves of what's going on in my classroom!! She said that she is very impressed, and likes that I am organized. She also commented on my creativeness. :) She wants me to come back next year. YAY! After only one month! The next few parents were also pleasant, and they too commented about my organization and asked me to come back. This definitely made me feel good about the hard work I have been doing. AND, I could understand most of what they were saying in Spanish! (but Nela was translating for me thankfully!).
The next parent asked me to entertain her child more in the morning, maybe with face painting or balloons. (I'm sorry, but this is not a circus, so let's not even talk about that!) Quite an entertaining request...
I also had one meeting with an older kid's parent, and she was English. She agreed that the kids should have science everyday, and she was interested in my ideas about "disguising" learning so that kids don't feel so bored and obligated at school (I like to do things the kids are interested in so they don't even realize they're learning! Gotcha!).
On a break yesterday, Nela, Elmer (our principal/director), and I took a little lunch break at the Marisqueria by the gulf. It was high tide, and it was gorgeous. We got back a little late to my last parent meeting, but that's part of the culture here (to be a little late), so it wasn't a problem! In the States, something drastic would have happened if I left campus for lunch and showed up 5 minutes late. No wonder people are so stressed out! I'll take the Pura Vida lifestyle anyday.
Today went well too I think. No major successes, and no disasters. The parents seemed to be happy, and I walked into school this morning to three new boxes of books! FOR ME! The books were too advanced for the other classrooms, so finally, my 3rd-6th got some resources just for them! In between meetings, I got on a role in that classroom and TORE IT UP. One "bench" (aka cement blocks with a 2x4 sitting on top) had books piled on top, and it was in the way. So I moved it to the back of the classroom, stacked the books UNDER the bench so the kids could use the bench to store their things during the day. That left me room to push back one of our mobile white boards, and I brought in a shelf to put on that wall for the new books we got. I already had one cart that had my math things on it (my math "station" if you will). I found a sarong to put on top like a table cloth, and it draped over so you couldn't see all my things under, only the things on top that I wanted everyone to see. My new bookshelves became my new "English Corner" with different shelves designated for teacher/student/literacy activities/reading books. Last, I went through the books on the shelves behind my desk. This was the first time I had had time to take inventory of those teachers' manuals and lesson plan books. I sorted and organized them as well so that I have a Math section underneath, an English section, notebooks and English cards box, and even a little file box. Elmer uses the drawers in my desk, so those are a lost cause. Therefore, my "filing cabinet" is a plastic tupperware-type box filled with about 8 stacked manila folders. It works though! :)
I wish I had taken some before pictures, but here is my 3rd-6th grade classroom AFTER the organization storm had hit it. Elmer (Spanish teacher that shares my room/principal/director) came in right as I was finishing up, and he loved what I had done. Maybe that means he will help keep it that way!
Tomorrow, we have a regular day, and then Friday we celebrate "Dia de los Ninos" with a party from 9am-1pm at the school. Then, it looks like we'll have a chill weekend with the a trip to Playa Preciosa, Latin dancing, and maybe even some paddleboarding. I think I'm beginning to live for weekends....
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