Friday November 21, 2008Today was pirate day at SIS for years 2-6. The years 6 students organized the entire event. The purpose was to raise money for one of the three orphanages that the school supports. All of the students who wanted to participate (which was everyone) needed to bring five Euros. All the students dressed up as pirates and participated in games to win “sweets” (candy). One of the girls in Ms. Bell’s class was so funny. She has a really big lisp and I smile every time she talked to me about winning more “shweetss” =]. Some of the games included: bobbing for apples (don’t want to know what kind of germs were in that bucket), walk the plank, sword fighting (would not fly in the US), face painting, dodge ball, scavenger hunt, and pirate gambling with chocolate gold coins (again probably would not be approved back home). Basically it was equivalent to an elementary carnival back home. 
Why pirates right? I know, same question I had. For a couple of weeks I had been hearing about this pirate day coming up and I could not figure out why the kids would be dressing up as pirates! Apparently it was a connection with our POI unit – conflict. Also, the students have been studying the current Somalia pirate conflict http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/article.aspx?id=2744 This is a good site that explains the current issue.
All of the students running around dressed as miniature pirates was quite a site. One of the teachers came up to me and told me they say my observer (Dan) taking pictures and looking shocked at the chaos on campus, hahah! Some of the students had very elaborate outfits! Most parents either spent a lot of money buying costumes or they made them at home.
Overalll, the morning was a bit chaotic, but I was very impressed with the year six students who basically organized the entire event with a little assistance. They made posters, created games, had materials, props and prizes. This was the second annual SIS Pirate Day, it continues to be very successful and raise a lot of money for the orphanage. 
Today I only taught maths. I introduced how to reduce fractions in their simplest form. I am a little hesitant about teaching math lessons and whether I am going about it in the best way. The lack of resources remains a challenge of mine. If I had been teaching at this school for a couple of years, not having a textbook would not be an issue because I would have materials from previous years – but obviously as a student teacher I don’t have the much.
I started the lesson by stating our final objective, simplifying fractions. We worked through a few examples together and I wrote the steps that we used on the board to help those that needed a reminder.
1) Find factors of the numerator and denominator
2) Identify the Greatest Common Factor
3) Divide the numerator and denominator by the GCF.
To assist students who would have a lot of trouble with this we completed a factor spider worksheet to practice the first step of simplifying. The sheet had spiders on the page with a number written in the center of the spider – 16 for example. On the legs of the spider the students needed to write the factors 2,4,8,16. The students who finished this quickly went on to simplifying actual fractions. Next week for the “gifted and talented” students I will create a challenge worksheet.
In the afternoon I was lucky enough to observe Dawn teach a lesson. Gustavus encourages us to make time to observe other student teachers and I was excited to watch Dawn. Even more excited when I heard that she would be teaching human anatomy/sex ed. Go Dawn! =]. She did a great job.
AFTER SCHOOL
After school the five of us, and Dan had a twenty minute Skype conversation with our seminar class back home. It was fun to hear Johns voice and pick up a few other familiar voices. They asked us about our experience so far and if any of us, after working at SIS would consider international education. All of us gave a positive response.
From here we went straight to paddle with Dan and the rest of the usual Friday crowd. I didn’t get to see much of Dan on the paddle court. He was a playing a few courts away from me, but from what I heard he had a good time.
After paddle, Kevin dropped us back at our house in the mini bus and gave us time to change and take a shower. Then he picked us up an hour later and we met some staff for dinner at an Indian restaurant in Duquesa. Duquesa is a small town in between Sotogrande and Estapona. There were about twelve of us at dinner: Kevin his wife Lisa, who also teaches at the school, two science teachers (Lee and Zoe), Sam, Mireille, and the six of us. The food was amazing; I had chicken tika masalla and a few other appetizer type things. It was nice for Dan to be able to spend some more time with the staff that has been so helpful to us.
Again, another crazy day…the weekend will be even more crazy – tomorrow we leave for SEVILLA!
Why pirates right? I know, same question I had. For a couple of weeks I had been hearing about this pirate day coming up and I could not figure out why the kids would be dressing up as pirates! Apparently it was a connection with our POI unit – conflict. Also, the students have been studying the current Somalia pirate conflict http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/article.aspx?id=2744 This is a good site that explains the current issue.All of the students running around dressed as miniature pirates was quite a site. One of the teachers came up to me and told me they say my observer (Dan) taking pictures and looking shocked at the chaos on campus, hahah! Some of the students had very elaborate outfits! Most parents either spent a lot of money buying costumes or they made them at home.Overalll, the morning was a bit chaotic, but I was very impressed with the year six students who basically organized the entire event with a little assistance. They made posters, created games, had materials, props and prizes. This was the second annual SIS Pirate Day, it continues to be very successful and raise a lot of money for the orphanage. Today I only taught maths. I introduced how to reduce fractions in their simplest form. I am a little hesitant about teaching math lessons and whether I am going about it in the best way. The lack of resources remains a challenge of mine. If I had been teaching at this school for a couple of years, not having a textbook would not be an issue because I would have materials from previous years – but obviously as a student teacher I don’t have the much.I started the lesson by stating our final objective, simplifying fractions. We worked through a few examples together and I wrote the steps that we used on the board to help those that needed a reminder.
1) Find factors of the numerator and denominator
2) Identify the Greatest Common Factor
3) Divide the numerator and denominator by the GCF.
To assist students who would have a lot of trouble with this we completed a factor spider worksheet to practice the first step of simplifying. The sheet had spiders on the page with a number written in the center of the spider – 16 for example. On the legs of the spider the students needed to write the factors 2,4,8,16. The students who finished this quickly went on to simplifying actual fractions. Next week for the “gifted and talented” students I will create a challenge worksheet.In the afternoon I was lucky enough to observe Dawn teach a lesson. Gustavus encourages us to make time to observe other student teachers and I was excited to watch Dawn. Even more excited when I heard that she would be teaching human anatomy/sex ed. Go Dawn! =]. She did a great job.
AFTER SCHOOL
After school the five of us, and Dan had a twenty minute Skype conversation with our seminar class back home. It was fun to hear Johns voice and pick up a few other familiar voices. They asked us about our experience so far and if any of us, after working at SIS would consider international education. All of us gave a positive response.
From here we went straight to paddle with Dan and the rest of the usual Friday crowd. I didn’t get to see much of Dan on the paddle court. He was a playing a few courts away from me, but from what I heard he had a good time.
After paddle, Kevin dropped us back at our house in the mini bus and gave us time to change and take a shower. Then he picked us up an hour later and we met some staff for dinner at an Indian restaurant in Duquesa. Duquesa is a small town in between Sotogrande and Estapona. There were about twelve of us at dinner: Kevin his wife Lisa, who also teaches at the school, two science teachers (Lee and Zoe), Sam, Mireille, and the six of us. The food was amazing; I had chicken tika masalla and a few other appetizer type things. It was nice for Dan to be able to spend some more time with the staff that has been so helpful to us.
Again, another crazy day…the weekend will be even more crazy – tomorrow we leave for SEVILLA!
No comments:
Post a Comment