End of week 4

These past few days have been exhausting especially because of how different the schools are compared to America.  It has been a whirlwind of an adventure.  I have been teaching math, language arts, science, social studies, health science, and a little bit of spanish. The behavior has made a lot of progress in the past couple of days.  However, it is still a huge struggle with the Infant I class to understand some of the concepts.  The simple thing of saying sit down, be quiet and raise your hands is a foreign concept to them.  They have not been taught to do this on a regular basis.  I have slowly had them doing this a lot more especially when I am teaching.  We have a 30 minute break (recess and snack time) and in order to leave you have to be sitting down in their seats and no talking.

I have also used a game called Teacher/Students, where they get a point if they are being good and doing what they are told. However, if they are not behaving and they are shouting and walking around then I will get a point. It was very hard for them to do this game because, again, they are not use to having to be quiet and sit down in their seats.  So today, I changed it up on them. I divided them all up into teams.  They all have those single desks and they are put into rows.  There are 4 rows in the classroom so ultimately I had them in 4 teams.  I feel like they liked this game better then the teacher/student game.  I think seeing the points on my side was discouraging them from being good.

One of the interns with us is getting her degree is special education.  She has been working with many students and especially with 2 students in my class.  One with his reading and the other one for her behavior.  However, I was able to see how she does her reading program with the young boy.  She uses a book called 100 easy lessons.  He was reading very well for her and I think he was just lacking some of the basic skills that sadly, many of them are missing.

Geo's Hideaway

For lunch this week, we have been going to Geo's Hideaway Cafe and Meat Market.  They have paninis and they are amazing!











This is our last weekend here in Belize. It is definitely a bittersweet feeling.