Raquel, one of ORPHANetworks best translators, picked us up at around 7:30 and of course, as in Chicago, we hit a traffic jam and causing a slight delay, but had a delightful time talking and getting acquainted with Raquel. She is young and full of energy and made use feel at home and comfortable right away. What more could we ask!
Upon arriving at the Verbo school, we climbed out and unloaded the trunk. Everone was waiting and to our delight, we had an outside patio type room with a straw ceiling and electric fans. A breeze was blowing all day long which made the area very, very pleasant.
Joan was the first to teach and work with the staff to make and use picture books. We broken the staff (17) up in groups and did some cooperative learning techniques as we worked.
Cooperative grouping and working as a team in a classroom is a new idea to them. They have the same frustrations that we had saying that the parents do not want the students to be working in groups. Parents want students to work by themselves. Very competititive! I'm sure this sounds familiar to my teacher friends. We explained that we have come a long way in 15 years and parents are more receptive of the group concept now.
The picture book took quite a bit of explaining and ran us up to lunch and beyond! The whole staff was dilegently working at creating a group story to use in the picture book. The ideas were very creative and funny.
As we worked throughout the day, we took Brain Breaks (thanks Dave S) to energize our brains and bodies. The temperature was at about 90〫- 9. Not sure my body had recovered from the 13〫and below wind chill in Chicago! But I am carrying around a 1.5L bottle of water to drink and refill during the day.
The Brain Break pictured here was called "Finger Tips" and consisited of twisting your hands and then touching each finger from one hand to the fingers on the other hand. Laughter filled the room as teachers tried to connect the fingers. Such fun!!☺After a delicious lunch, we finished up the picture books for most of the afternoon, and then moved into the strategy of Venn Diagram. This was also a new way to do the compare and contrast of an object, story characters, geometic shape, or country.
By this time is was about 2:45 and I could see that the teachers would struggle if we tried to introduce a new topic. So... we had a final shopping experience, where we drew names out of a bag, four times throughout the day and let the teachers pick from different items that we brought down to share. This was a time of great excitment. We made sure that everyone got a turn every day!God was so good to us today. What an awsome day and the teachers were so intentive and receptive to our ideas.
Joan and I headed back to the hotel and spent our time, looking forward to Diá DOS. We revised a few items and caught up on email and facebook. Bogs our minds that we can stay so closely connected being som many miles and countries apart. At this point technology is great. Although I do not like to carry my computer, it does get heavy, I'm glad I have had it to email and Skype.
Pray for:
- Acclimating to the heat
- Pacing ourselves with the tranlator
- Just enjoying the moment and the people
Mañana☺
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