Week 4 is coming to a close, as is San Ambrosio´s 2009 school year. Dani and I are preparing for our travels for the last 13 days that we have in Costa RIca!!!
At the end of last week school was out for Teacher´s Day. All of the teachers went to a ranch right outside of Nicoya. There we had snacks and the teachers danced and sang karaoke! They were also making fresh pork rinds, which was interesting to watch!
The English Day that I have been preparing my students for was held on Monday. The student´s performances went well, but it was a task to get the audience foscues and listening to the presentations. The assembly was held in the area between the elementary and highschool classrooms, so it was open and all the students were packed in on one side. So it makes things slightly difficult because the students are standing there for a while and then they have to sit on the concrete for a long time. It would be beneficial for San Ambrosio to have an area where assemblies could be held where the students would have somewhere to sit that was more comfortable and less distracting.
Here are some pictures from English Day!
As the school year is ending there is a lack of structure at school. Students seem to come and go as they want, and the bells at school are not on time so I am never sure when I need to leave to go to my next class. On my second to last day I was unable to teach any of my students. I came to school ready to teach fifth grade only to find out they were going to a pool party. So I had to wait till after lunch to see gourth grade. When I got to fourth grade over half of my class was missing, I was told that they were practicing dances somewhere else in the school. The students that I was left with played for the remainder of the day. I tried to go to my third grade class but they were all missing too. So, I spent the rest of the day sitting at the school watching all of my students playing! This was very hard for me to understand because the schedule just all of a sudden went crazy and I felt that all of my students could have used more review of the topics that had been studying because I had three students in fourth grade to pass their exam. But instead they played. We went to school the next day, which was Wednesday and the school had Mass at the Catholic Church I went to with Karla my first week here. After Mass, we went back to school and there my fourth graders and an performance group from Snata Cruz did dances and skits. This was also unexpected, as we thought we were going back to school for classes. On Wednesday the principal decided that it was the last day of school! Thursday was supposed to be the last day of school. I was a little upset by this because I didn´t get to see my students Tuesday or Wednesday, so I did not get to tell them goodbye and some of them did not receive their gifts from me because they were gone the day that I handed them out. But now, here we are Thanksgiving Day, no school and we are getting ready to prepare Thanksgiving Dinner. And, I have to say that I am thankful for the education system that we have in the states!
Starting some traveling on Firday..so see ya next week!