Greetings readers!
It’s been a busy yet wonderful week. At school this week, we had student-led conferences. Basically, we have individual conferences with each child’s parents but this time the student is there and runs the meeting. They went well but were exhausting, as you always have to be on your A-Game around parents.
On Tuesday, we started our new unit “Sharing the Planet” where we will learn all about plants, animals and the difference between living and non-living things. We started the unit by showing the kids a shoebox and telling them we had a very special pet for our classroom. They had to tell us all of the things we would need for our new pet such as food, water, and shelter. Finally, we opened the box to show them their new pet and it was a rock! They had to tell us why a rock is not considered a pet (because it is not alive) and what it means to be living.
Once we showed them the rock, the kids started laughing. One student said “so we just listed all of those things it needs for nothing?!”. Apparently one year, the lesson was unsuccessful because the kids were so excited about the pet rock. They wanted to bring it to recess, take it on walks etc.
Since we were discussing pets, we told the kids they were allowed to bring in small pets for the day. We had one student bring in 4 beautiful little pet birds. We also had about 5 students bring in small jars of bugs… One student asked to bring in some worms. I thought about bringing León but figured he would not like first grade. Another student told us he had a pet iguana that walks around his house. During conferences, we mentioned his iguana and his parents looked at each other puzzled and said “we don’t have a pet iguana… “
On Friday, my co-teacher Ceci was sick. It was the first time I ran the show all day long by myself. I have to admit I was feeling quite nervous when I found out I’d be flying solo for the day. Everything actually went really well though –well as good as it can on a Friday afternoon after a day off.
Feel free to read the following post all about my skiing adventures this weekend!
Laughable Moments:
I spent 30 minutes one day solving a problem between 3 friends and only 2 lollipops –such simpler times back then!
I bought one of those Mandala coloring books this week –I fell asleep after coloring in bed and woke up to red marker all over my sheets. (It came out don’t worry!)
The kids are getting their vaccines on Monday, (more to come on that next week…) our British student refers to shots as “jabs”
When we first showed the kids the shoebox with the pet rock inside, one of the students thought we were giving everybody a pair of shoes
One of the kids asked me if he could bring a dead bee as his pet for pet day
^^ I almost bought this little buddy but I stopped myself!
Why go to the store, when you can buy underwear on the street??
^^ My 7-year-old student drew a picture of herself painting Van Gogh's "Starry Night" from memory!!
^^ Quite possibly my favorite picture ever! (Her Mom is pregnant, can't you tell?)
^^ My motto for the week -life's short, buy the shoes!
^^ Rock out Gramps -he's playing heavy metal.
^^So excited about my new clock!!
^^Skypeing with Ginny :D
^^ This is Martín and he's kind of a jerk
^^ I missed my pets so I went to hang out with some cats.
Don't forget to read up on my Andean ski adventures!!
