http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10100352468302585.2635804.9431362&l=d6ee5e56a1&type=1
Well I have officially finished my first week as a teacher. Monday was the first day of school and after a long week of planning and preparing my room it was finally here! It was intimidating at first but once the kids came in it was right into teacher mode! It has definitely been an interesting week. We did a lot of get to know you activities and team building the first few days. They loved playing the name game and yesterday I taught them math card games (another thanks to Lesley Doherty! They love those games! They kept asking me today if we were going to play multiplication war.) One of the best things about Lincoln and Mexico is that we can just go right out the door and do our activities at picnic tables that line the outside walls of the school. The weather has been perfect and it is so nice to go outside instead of staying in the classroom! (It is also nice to take my teacher manuals and computer outside and plan.) Another amazing thing is that it takes about 2 minutes to walk from my house to the school. One of my favorite things about this week was that the first day of school all the elementary teachers and the elementary coordinator or principal prayed together before classes started. How sweet to be around other teachers and administrators that are constantly encouraging you with Scripture! My coordinator/principal is the sweetest woman ever and is super supportive.
As far as food goes this week I had some real Mexican tacos and I don't think I can ever go back. They were amazing! Every other taco will never compare. Tomorrow I am going on a tour of the city (I've basically only seen Walmart and the school so far). Also hopefully tomorrow I will post pictures of my classroom (I forgot my camera at school). The kids have done some drawings already and one of them drew a picture of Dwight from the Office because I have his bobble head on my desk. Anyways that's all for now! More stories to come!
Oh and someone did eventually come to the house and let us out :).
So as it stands right now I am locked into the Casa Grande. A key is stuck in the lock to the front gate and no one can get in and no one can get out. So I figured I would post since I haven't done that in a while. Maybe by the time I have finished writing this someone will have saved us :). I have officially finished my classroom and tomorrow is the first day of school. I have 18 students and we start at 8 in the morning. First thing in the morning we have a general assembly and then we are going to do a lot of get to know you and team building activities. After a year with a mentor it will be weird to be in there by myself but I'm excited! This morning I went to church, Factor Fe, and afterwards I went to the market for fruit and veggies. I got two green peppers, two mangos, two big carrots, four gala apples, a tomato, two peach looking things and it all cost around $7. That's all I can think to write and no one has saved us yet. Oh well........ til next time.
So I have had orientation for two days so far and there is so much to do! We start out the meetings every morning with worship (in English and Spanish which is so cool) and then we have department meetings, then a meeting for new teachers. After all this we spend some time in the classroom. Today I actually got some of my desks and my bulletin boards put up. It's starting to come together and look like a classroom! The other fourh grade teacher and I have decided to team teach, she is doing science and I'll be teaching math for both classess (shout out to Lesley Doherty for making me feel confident enough to do that. Would never have done that a year ago!)
Tomorrow is more orientation and working in my classroom. Hopefully I will start decorating walls and putting things on bookshelves. When I get everything together I put up a picture of what it looks like.
I'm finally here! I left Knoxville this morning on a 6am flight and after a layover in Houston I got to Guadalajara around 11:40am local time. Thankfully I didn't have any problems with customs and right as I excited I saw the girls that came to pick me up! It was so nice not to have to take a taxi! They drove me to the Casa Grande (Big House) and showed me my room (pics to come once I have finished fixing it up). I spent most of the afternoon unpacking and we made a trip to Walmart later on for groceries. Right now I am sitting on my bed listening to the storm outside and smelling the dinner some of the girls are making for everyone. That's all for now. More to come when I start work!