This week has been one of the busiest one yet! After another weekend traveling abroad, we came back to Nicoya on Monday night (since Monday was a holiday, we had the day off) and I went straight to bed. On Tuesday, we had a half day and I went into town to run some errands. I was alone but was very proud of myself for being able to successfully make my way around town and get some things done! On my way back home, Dr. Angel and Dr. Frye pulled up next to me and I took them to San Ambrosio to find Karla. We spent the evening touring Nicoya and going out to dinner where we shared our stories of the past three weeks. It was nice to see some friendly faces from home!
On Wednesday it was Kendall´s birthday, so we had to have a fiesta at Karla´s! We had a piñata and the best queque ever (compliments of Lauren´s mom).
At school on Thursday Lauren and I struggled through a lesson with the first grade class. Their behavior can get out of control very quickly. We made it through though, and decided to work towards more activities that take less time and possibly dividing the class into smaller groups.
Thursday was also Karla´s graduation. We went to the university to watch her and then went out to dinner at a little cafe to celebrate. We were so proud of her achievement!
Friday was the day of our observation by Dr. Angel and Dr. Frye. When they entered the third grade classroom all the kids ran over and attacked them with hugs! The lesson went well overall and the kids were very well behaved. We talked about families and worked on ABC books to reinforce the vocabulary of family members. We´ve learned that it is very difficult to communicate to the students what we need for them to do, without speaking in spanish at least some. I think the behavior problems are dramatically increased when they because they often don´t understand what they are supposed to be doing. For the ABC book we split the class in half and I worked with one group while Lauren worked with the other. This seemed to help minimize issues some as we were able to focus more on individual attention and the activity at hand. Generally, I think we are beginning to better understand the needs of these students, especially as compared to the students in the United States. It is obvious they need more direct and explicit instruction which must be repeated more frequently and modeled effectively or they are not able to understand the task that needs to be completed. The only problem with this is that in modeling activities for the students, they simply copy exactly what was on the board and this does not prove that they understand the concept on their own. Hopefully, we will be able to find a solution to this! I´m looking forward to the following weeks and continuing to learn more about Costa Rica and the school!
Volcano Arenal
The Field at School, with a Guanacaste Tree in the center
Valeria, my sister at Field Day
1st and 2nd grades
Solmar, but we call him Mowgli
Our favorite song, If You´re Happy and You Know IT
Fire Safety Day with 1st Grade