Diá́s TRES

How do you like my Spanish?  Can you tell by the title that I'm really learning new words?  Actually, I am and am better able to communicate even if it is with one or two words.

We have had such a good time these last three days and with one more teaching day to go, we will work tonight to revise our plans.

I do not know how many ways to say WOW!  God has shown up in our work here in a big way.  The teachers are so appreciative of the ideas and strategies that we are bringing and sharing with them.  I'm sure that for them it is difficult because they have to listen to what we have to say in English and then hear it in Spanish.  Sometimes, Joan and I have to rethink what we are saying as it does not translate well into Spanish.

If that is the hardest thing we have to overcome, we are on easy street.

We did the Rock, Paper Scissors, Math Brain Break this morning to get us started and energize our brain.  Such laughter as they tried to say "roca, papel, tijerá, mathemáticas as fast as they could in order to complete the Brain Break.

We settled down and got to know more about each other with an exercise of 3 stories.  Since the teachers have just been on their "summer break", we asked them to tell 3 stories of something that happened while they have been away from school.  Some stories were very sad as we listened to accounts of sickness in several family members.  Some were comical and yet sad- as Francisco told of how he did not have enough money for he and his wife to ride the bus.  As he was standing and waiting, he was kicking the ground and there he discovered 20 cordobas.  Enough for he and his wife to ride the bus and even some left over!  His wife said it must have come from God.  Reminded me of the Isrealites and the manna from heaven.  ONLY GOD!

We moved from the stories to a problem solving exercise.  The teachers were to use linker cubes to solve a problem in cooperative learning style.  Meaning each group had a reader, a material handler, a recorder and a reporter.  You can see by the pictures that they took this very seriously and worked hard to solve the problem.  (I had to go back to my computer and refresh my memory of the solution before they started asking me questions.)

 Reading the problem!

 Puzzled!!!

Checking for Understaanding

Solved it!!!

This activity lead us into critical thinking and deeper quesitoning.  Bloom's taxonomy anyone?  We talked about the importance of having students answer with more than YES and NO.  One way to really know if students understand what is being taught is by asking good questions.  We rewrote questions using the FLIP BOOK of Bloom's questions.  If groups were done, they were given another task to categorize the type of quesiton they had created and possible write another question.

As we have found with everything that we have offered, the focus was intense.

The afternoon was spent learning about different products that could be used with students to check for the understanding of their learning.  Some products were unfamiliar to the teachers, such as: flip book, Haiku, diorama.  As Joan was working through the list of suggestions, there were many side conversations about how the product might be used.

Our first indication that what we are doing is making a difference was from William, who teaches Social Studies.  He told us that he will be able to use all the things we have been teaching in his Social Studies class this year.  YEAH!!!

Throughout the week, the teachers have enjoyed the slide show and seeing themselves on the screen.

 The smiles are the same all around the world!!!!

And we have our mishaps along the way!  A little coffee on the floor.

On Friday, we will be taken to other areas of Managua as well as the Messiah Market.  It will be interesting to see more of the country and get a flavor for the local people.

MAS MAÑANA