NICA Adventure: Diá́s QUATRO

If it is Thursday, it must be a green shirt day. We have found that all the Verbo teachers have polo shirts of different colors for each day of the week.
Monday- beige
Tuesday - yellow
Wednesday - blue
Thursday - green
Friday white

We tried to match as best we could but their colors were usually more intense then our shirts were. It was summer to us so we brought along our "summer" shirts. Anyway- it is easy to differentiate the days of the colors of shirts. Made picture posting easy!

Today was our last day of teaching. On one hand we are glad to be done but on the other hand we have made such good friends and had such a postive experience that it is hard to say good-bye. ☹

Joan spent a good part of today explaining different strategies for working with difficult students. The Verbo teachers asked many good and thougthful questions regarding how to handle students with behavior and focus problems. Joan was very clear that it was everyone's responsibility and not just the teachers'. Parents, principals and even the students need to be involved in the solutions. Lots of agreement nods on that one.

We created several behavior charts and talked about the implementation of the charts. There is concern because every subject is given 40 minutes of classtime and then they move to another subject. So if a teacher is moving from class to class, how can they do a chart? Lots of good discussion on that one.

To break the day up we worked on the "What Is it?" exercise. This was an interesting exercise and it took some re-explaining as the teachers were not familiar with the concept that any idea is a good idea and all must contribute to the answers. But when they caught on---what interesting ideas were formulated. The "What is it?" is a dot and you are to "think outside the box" and come up with what "it" could be.

How creative...an eclipse of the sun, an ant from far away, a person when you look at earth from outer space, ....and they wanted to keep sharing their ideas. NEAT! We concluded by talking about how an exercise like this helps students encourage each other, accept all ideas, and create a level playing field for all in the group.

A lunar eclipse

An ant on the beach

a dot on a question

a person as you look from space to Earth

More behavior talk and behavior charts before lunch.

One more free association exercise about using an old car as playground equipment. How would you use it...use the lights to light a basketball court, use the car itself for a slide, use the tires for swings, take the doors and use them as shields in paint ball....

Passed out the Brain Break books published in Spanish...Thanks, Dave! They loved having the books and have them so professionally done. We ran over a few breaks they had questions about and handed the DVD to the Asst. Principal for everyone to share. Sorry to not be doing more Brain Breaks...they were a big hit. The last one we did was the wave with patterns--everyone was in stitches trying to do it and keep it straight...so much teasing going around the room!

You should do 1 clap not 2!

Who goofed that time?

Shopping-- Shopping--Shopping-- This was something that was fun and yet humbling to me. As I mentioned earlier, we had brought down T-shirts, bookmarks, flash cards, squeeze balls...etc. Things we might have sitting around because we had it for a meeting but now what do we do with it. When we held up the bag with everyone's name in it, several members of the class would call out "shopping" and smiles would break out.

I was teased one day.... I had my computer near the shopping wall...that they would go shopping and pick my computer. Another day, I had my cameras on the table and they decided it might be time to go shopping... some teasing back and forth and had a good laugh about it.

Would we trade this week...NOPE! God was present every step of the way and His presence was felt each time we started and ended the day. These teachers are very dedicated and really want to make school a better place for their students. They were willing to come and sit in the open 4 days this week in 90〫weather, from 7:30 - 3:30 to hear what we had to offer. Many had gotten up at 4AM or 5AM and ridden 2 buses in order to get to the site by 7:30. DEDICATION in capital letters.

We have made 18 new and lasting friends this week. We have the emails of all who have emails and will keep in contact. Our Spanish can only get better and our friendships deeper.