Hello hello! Our blog posts are back in real-time. So here’s an update on what I’ve been up to the past month or so… (Disclaimer: nothing as exciting as India)
Really, I’m just doing my thing. School is back in full swing, and the kiddos are so small. There’s so much progress between the beginning of first grade to the end of first grade, you kind of forget. So on your way back from sending them off to second grade, you’re welcomed with such immature, Spanish-speaking babies and the process starts all over again. I’m not exaggerating when I say my class doesn’t speak any English. Thankfully, we’re about 2 months in and at least they can understand what we’re saying in English. 95% of the time they speak to us in Spanish and we answer in English. Usually, comprehension comes first, then speaking.
^^10 minutes later, he stole the picnic blanket from a happy couple and refused to give it back
^^ "Si ellos pueden, por qué nosotros no?"
^^ Easter breakfast
^^ Happy Easter!
^^ It's important to expose your children to as much artistic expression as possible
This past month at school has been a little hectic because we’ve had a lot of public holidays... We recently celebrated our first published writing in Writer’s Workshop. WW is the latest trend in teaching writing and it's something new we’ve been implementing this year. We tried to make the celebration really special for the kids. We had “champagne” (ginger-ale) and grapes on the table, we decorated the classroom with balloons and streamers and we had a class toast.
This past week was Book Week, a school-wide event in celebration of books. Each day we had different activities in relation to books.
^^On Friday we came dressed as book characters, I'm dressed as Tick Tock the Croc from Peter Pan
The Room Mothers also threw Dani and I the nicest birthday celebration for both our birthdays (since mine is on Summer Vacation). They gave us the most incredible cake I've ever seen, along with gift cards for manicures and pedicures. Parents take note, your child's teacher would much rather prefer a manicure over a coffee mug. Best room parents ever!
^^ I've been a lot of places, but I've never been on top of a cake!
^^For Miss Kim, I wish you are very happy teaching to the children
^^ Sweetest little birthday cards
Some weird things have happened in the past month, such as The Censo. The Censo is just like The Census in The US, except different. The difference is, The Censo takes place on a certain weekday and all unessential workers must stay home. You cannot leave your house until they’ve come to ask you questions. It was important because apparently the last Censo didn’t go so well, so they don’t know how many people are living in Chile.
It only took about 10 minutes, and León was ecstatic to have a visitor. He asked me questions like (the man, not León), “What do you do for a living?”, “how long did you study in college?” , “where were you in 2012?” (the last Chilean Censo), “where was your mother born?” and “how many people live here?”. He was recording my answers on a bubble sheet with a pencil, which seemed a bit outdated to me.
Another weird thing that happened was the Rain Day. In my time living in Chile, I’ve concluded that Chile is not waterproof. The roads are built alongside the river and when it rains, everything floods. When everything floods, things shut down and they’re forced to shut off the water in several provinces. This time, it rained on and off all day (not even a lot) and the following day they had to cut the water of 27 provinces and we didn’t have school. So maybe we don’t get snow days here in Chile, but we do get rain days.
This weekend was Benja’s magic show, “Wonder”. The sold-out show was fantastic, or should I say, Wonderful. I’m proud to be friends with such a talented person! The night was filled with lots of “oohs” and “ahhs” as Benja and his friend charmed the audience. This is just the beginning; there's more shows in the works, and I highly recommend all my Chilean readers to attend the next one!
Laughable Moments:
I have one student who keeps saying “that’s so fa fa”, finally I asked him, “what is fa fa?” He told me its short for “fácil” or easy
On our ride to school, my friend/co-worker told me she took her young kids to a party and found her 1-year-old son hiding in the pantry, eating cat food
During Writer’s Workshop the other day one of my kids innocently asked me, “Miss, how do I say ‘oh no’ in English?”
One day of the Book Week, the teachers had to dress up like The 3 Blind Mice. My students loved the look, one of the girls pulled me aside and with wide-eyes and told me “Miss, those ears make you look beautiful”
I took León out early one morning because I couldn’t sleep and the conserje looked at me and said, “you do realize it’s Saturday right?”
One of my students showed me his book cover where he drew the Elephant and the Piggie from the famous Mo Willems books. I asked him what that long line was, “oh, that’s the elephant’s noodle (aka trunk)!”
After the censo, they put stickers on everyone’s doors and I was sad because I didn’t get one, or so I thought. Then one day, I realized I had a sticker! It was just up high, so I missed it!
During the Censo, the guy asked me how many rooms were in my apartment, but I misunderstood and thought he asked how many floors were in the building. So I replied “uhh I think 18, but I’m not really sure”.
When the kids don't know how to say something in English they're supposed to say "Miss, how do I say ____" for example, "Miss how do I say juguete in English?" now they're getting sneaky and instead of one word , they'll say things like, "Miss, how do I say, (all in Spanish) one day I was walking down the street with my brother and then we went to the park and we saw a dog and then we had a barbecue with my cousins and then we played football...."
^^ An excellent contender entitled, "Are you okay" in the Book Cover Contest
Congratulations are in order to my favorite niece on her baptism this weekend. My heart is broken that I couldn't be there.
^^I've never been a prouder aunt
