Patience, Patience, Patience!

Yesterday I had one student for the day.  A bunch of the buses got stuck in the mud on the way up the mountain, and they didn't have time to get the nursery kids, and also said that it wasn't safe to bring them up.  So, my one student (who gets dropped off by his father in the morning) and I spent time together all day!  Today I had all of my students again, which was nice!  They all hugged me when they walked in (of course an incredible feeling) and one of my students even brought me a bag of Guava today (I tried it and it actually tasted pretty good!)  

Things in the classroom are going okay.  I have better classroom control, and the students have participated in the activities really well.  There is always some kind of talking going on and touching one another, but I've decided to pick my battles.  I played my guitar for them today for some morning songs, which they seemed to enjoy.  If only they knew English and could sing along with me!!!  I've had a really bad cold the past few days, and on top of my normal singing voice--well let's just say it is not the prettiest sound you would hope to hear!  Let's just hope the other classes can't hear me that well!  We've also been working on Zoo Phonics, which they seem to enjoy.  They do have short attention spans though (which is common in young kids of course) and it's hard to get them really excited about things and having fun, when they don't know what I'm saying.  They complete the activity, but I have noticed almost all of them are not internalizing what they're learning.  We've been working on colors this week, and today we focused on the colors red and yellow.  One student at the end could name one of the colors; yellow.  So it's definitely not the most encouraging thing, and it's hard to remain positive.  I try not to let myself feel like a bad teacher, but I will admit it's hard!  Patience is always key; especially here.  Patience with both myself and the students.  Besides, I really do have a great group of kids :).  And I know things would be going much more smoothly, and I would feel much more confident, if there wasn't the huge language barrier that there is.  But, there's no sense in wishing the language barrier wasn't there, because it is, and it's not going away anytime fast!  This will be a tough year, but I'm still up for the challenge, and can't wait for the day when I see the progress that has been made since the first day of school!  

My typical school day:

• Picked up from home at 6:30
• Morning devotion with the staff at 7:20
• School starts at 7:40, but the nursery students arrive at 8:20
• We have school until 12pm, when my kids go home (trust me, 4 hours is plentyyyy of time for the day, trying to teach those little ones!)
• I have my personal break/lunch and on some days I am free after (but still have to stay at school and plan) one day I have cafeteria duty (watching that area until lunch is over) and other days I have seat work (taking over in another classroom for a period, and students are assigned work to do at their desks)--I really enjoy this opportunity because it allows me the chance to get to know some of the other students and upper grades, where I can communicate much more easily with them.  I do seatwork for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade.
• School ends at 3:00, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays all the teachers stay after to help tutor different students for an hour.
• And that concludes my school week!! 

I hope I don't sound like I am not enjoying my time here teaching.  Because I truly I am.  But it is a great challenge.  One of my friends left me with this reminder, which was really encouraging:  

I am completely sure that you're doing better than you know because God's love doesn't require the same language and I know that you are spreading that around to these children!

AMEN!

Thank you all for your constant support and prayers--they truly mean so much to me!

Mis Estudiantes :)

I've decided that this teaching opportunity is quite possibly the most challenging thing I have had to do yet.  Each day is going to be a great challenge, and only God is going to help me get through it; I simply cannot do this on my own. I am going to look for one positive thing that happens in the classroom each day, and let that be enough.  

My internet homepage on my computer is set to “Verse of the Day.”  Today’s verse was much needed.  It read: I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want (Philippians 4:12).  Being content sometimes seems like a hard thing for me to be in certain situations.  My current situation is a perfect example.  I need to practice the gift of contentment now.  I need to be content in how my classroom is now, knowing that these first few rough weeks are just the beginning stages for all the learning that is going to take place throughout the year.  I’ve got this, cause He’s got me!

I've started using a little bit of Spanish in the classroom.  In order for anything to get accomplished, I feel it is necessary.  I say simple phrases such as "repeat after me" in both Spanish and then in English, so that the students at least know what I want them to do.  It's also very difficult having two assistants who only speak Spanish, and don't know exactly what you want either.  I just want to be the best teacher I can be for these children, and I hope and pray that I can be just that for them each and every day.

Although I do get frustrated at times, the kids are pretty gosh darn cute.  See for yourself.  I guess it's also their cuteness (most of the time) that carries me through as well :)

Two of my students aren't pictured, since they cried all day long every day, making it hard to get a decent picture of them.  But you can enjoy the rest! 

Alisse

Camila

James

Nelsy

Brenley

German

Mabeth

Fernando

Lara

Gracia

Jahdiel

Maycoll

Video Clips!

HERE ARE SOME VIDEOS THAT I THOUGHT YOU WOULD ENJOY WATCHING!

 

The monkey!

View of our school!

Cultural Dancing!

Moto taxi ride!!

Fun facts: 

Our school has a little over 300 students.  Each year they add a grade, and next year will be the first year we have 12^th grade, meaning there will finally be a graduating class!  

It is pretty exciting! It costs about $250 a month to send a child to this school, so it is pretty expensive.  That doesn’t include the cost for books, uniforms, lunch, or the monthly bill for bus transportation.  

PAST FEW DAYS!

Sunday morning Jen, Jaime, and I tried out a church down the road.  The service started at 7am.  A lot of churches here have either a really early morning service, or a more popular night service.  We were going to try out Tabitha’s church this morning and Sarah’s church at night.  The service was all in Spanish obviously, and I picked up very little of what was being said.  Today there was a husband and wife giving their testimonies, which lasted over an hour and half itself.  Then, the band went up to play and people began praying for one another up in the front.  This was when things started getting really interesting.  The people being prayed for would all of a sudden fall into what seemed like a deep sleep, and be helped to the ground to lie down.  Jen and I had never seen something like this before, and Jaime explained to us after that this was a common Pentecostal church thing (even in the U.S.)  I guess it is called being “slain in the Spirit” and as you are being prayed for, you are overcome by the Spirit and fall into a deep like sleep.  The people were being covered in cloths as well, and Jaime explained that this was just a “conservative” thing, in case a woman was wearing a skirt or dress, or if a shirt had risen up a bit.  Now I have been to a number of different churches in different cultures, and this was by the far the most interesting church service I have ever been to!  We went to another church for an evening service and the same thing happened, but also people were getting “lost in worship” dancing on the floor uncontrollably.  

Parent Orientation:

Parent orientation went really well!  I was a bit nervous, but my nerves were easily calmed.  I had a fellow teacher translate for me as I discussed things about myself, my goals and expectations, my classroom, and the curriculum. I explained to the parents that I felt God placed it on my heart to come to Honduras and serve Him and the people here.  God’s love has no limits, and I strive for my love to be of that same manner.  I stressed to them that we are on the same team, working towards the same goal: for their child to receive the best education, one that they fully deserve.  Every day I want to lead, inspire, and care for each student, stretching them to learn more about God’s world, and to love Him more and more.  Everything we do in our classroom, I want us to do for the glory of God.  A huge thing in my class is “respect.”  I will be using the book “Fill a Bucket,” explaining to my students’ that we are to fill one another’s buckets with our kind words and actions, instead dipping into each other’s buckets by saying mean and hurtful things.  We will be a bucket filling class, I am certain!  Basically, I want to help my students’ fall in love with learning!

The parents seemed really engaged with what I was saying (or with whatever the translator was saying I said, haha) which was comforting to see.   The kids weren’t supposed to come with the parents, but I did end up meeting two of my students.  One of them even gave me a kiss on the cheek, which was pretty cute!  I love listening to the older students who know English (some of them very well).  Their accents are so sweet to listen to; they make me so happy just listening to them.  It’s very obvious how much they have learned at this school, and I am proud to say I work there. 

After 14 hours at school-it was time to call it a night! We were all starving though so we ordered a pizza and went to one of the house’s to scarf it down!  It started pouring out just as the five of us who live together started to walk home.  We were completely drenched by the time we made it to our house 10 minutes later.  What a day!  

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL:

First day of school for my first year teaching is one that I will never forget.  I will humbly admit that it can only go up hill from here.  Hopefully.  The kids didn’t understand me at all (my assistants obviously still don’t either, so I couldn’t communicate with either).  I couldn’t get them to sit down for a story even, and music didn’t seem to help.  They pretty much played all day long, and I wiped crying eyes and running noses, and spilled drinks and food.  I didn’t accomplish any of the things I wanted to, it’s kind of hard to go over classroom rules when I’m the only one who knows what I want!  So, I am just praying that next week, when I try and start the curriculum, it goes a little more smoothly and things somewhat fall into place.  My plan is to learn common teaching phrases in Spanish, so my assistants can at least help me out and translate to the kids what I expect from them.  Any extra prayers that you have, can be graciously be directed my way—please and thank you :)!

Gotta pee, grab an iced tea!

My classroom is coming together really well.  It’s mostly completed—I just need a bookshelf for my books and activities!  I hope you enjoy the pictures.   Alejandro is a boy in one of the K classes, but him and I put together my alphabet rug today and we said the letter sounds together—he is really good at them!

The Language barrier is still very frustrating.  I read it the best, understand a little bit here and there, and can speak very little.  My assistants seem to get frustrated with me when I don’t understand them.  I think it’s the most frustrating for me, as I am the head teacher, and I am the one who has to do the teaching and planning.  I hope it is something that I will just get used to.

Check out the picture of my classroom rules-the top 8 were required (even for the nursery) and I added a few at the bottom (I hope the ones I added are as obvious to you as they are to me!)  But I plan to have the students’ trace their hands on the first day, color them any way, and then I will cut them out and arrange them around the rules for a cute decoration!

We have to change our decorations every 2 months—including the Bible verse we put on our wall.  The first verse I chose was  “This is the day that the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it.”  Psalm 118:24—there is a fun little song to this verse that I plan to sing with my kids every day! 

The other day we picked up some laundry we had dropped off.  It was $5 for me to do about two loads.  It was nice getting my clothes back and having them smell like fresh laundry!  I think that I will try and make my clothes last and do laundry about every two weeks, and do it myself sometimes too!  I want to experience washing my clothes on the “pila” outside!

The other night we had a bonfire at Tabitha and Stacey’s house!  We roasted hot dogs and s’mores-yum!  We sang songs while Zak played guitar—such as Michael Jackson, John Cougar Mellencamp, Hootie and the Blowfish, and more!  It was a lot of fun. 

MI CUMPLEANOS! Yesterday was my first birthday celebrated outside of the states. My roommates made a great breakfast for us all: coffee, pancakes, and fruit. They sang me happy birthday and prayed for me—they’re pretty awesome.  At school we had our teacher morning devotion and they prayed for me again, and then at 10 o’clock we had a little break from decorating/planning and a celebration.  We had delicious cake and juice.  Everyone was so nice and gave me warm wishes!  That night a group of us met up for dinner at a Chinese place down the road, which was some of the best Chinese food ever!  We then went to an ice cream place and got “tres leches” which is a 3 kinds of milk cake dessert—very good!  We then hung out at our place with everyone for a bit.  The group of teacher’s from the states is pretty awesome, and we have already had a lot of memorable moments together.  God has blessed me with some pretty awesome new friends already!

This morning some of us went to Santa Rosa again to get some more things.  Done Mundo (one of the driver’s from our school) picked us up and was our driver for the day—it was cheaper to hire him to take us around instead of riding the chicken bus to and from Santa Rosa, and taking taxi’s everywhere.  We discovered the grocery store there is much cheaper, so we bought a lot of stuff there.  If you buy name brand items here it is a lot more expensive than off-brand stuff, so we are careful as to what we buy!  We ate lunch at an awesome pizza place there too.  On our way out of Santa Rosa we stopped at a gas station to use the bathrooms.  There was a group setting up a stage and they had Lipton Ice Tea posters and drinks.  We asked them if they were free and they said yes, and then they got out free t-shirts for us.  All we had to do was learn the commercial dance (the Hugh Jackman Lipton Ice Tea one) and do it with them.  So they taught us the dance we and danced with them to the music—it was hilarious and so much fun!  After, we left with a nice beverage and new shirt!  Good memories. That;s where we came up with the “Gotta pee, grab an iced tea” quote—since the reason that whole thing happened is because we simply stopped to use the restrooms! 

We arrived home and we had internet installed in our house!! This will be nice for lesson planning and for catching up with friends and family.  Tomorrow we are planning to check out a church and to do a lot of planning and preparing for Monday which is Parent Orientation (I have to speak about myself, the school and curriculum, and answer questions.  There will be a translator for all of this).  And then Wednesday my children arrive!  Please be praying for all of us teachers and our school, and for this coming week to go very well!  It’s planning time for me now—adios mis amigos :)

Bonfire time!

My classroom door!

Birthday Bulletin Board

behavior plan

Required classroom rules--I added the last 4 of my own!

Calendar/Reading area

First month classroom verse

Puzzle Pieces :)

I love God's rainbow!

My first desk!

 The Lipton Iced Tea Dance Crew! (I'm behind the guy in the front right side!)

Adjusting!

I have been living in Honduras officially for one week now! Wow.  Last Tuesday seems like many weeks ago, rather than just one.  I am extremely happy to say that I am adjusting really well to life in Honduras!  I am feeling much better--which I couldn't be happier about.  It's never fun to be in a new environment and feel sick, but a week here has already gotten me feeling a ton better.  

The girls and I enjoyed a relaxing weekend together.  We watched a movie on a laptop the first night as we were all getting some school stuff organized.  "Run Away Bride" was a good choice!  Other events that took place this weekend include exploring our city on our own a bit (Sarah stayed with Zak for most of the weekend at the hospital because he was ill for a number of days).  We love Sarah a lot, but since she was here last year it has already been easy to only feel comfortable to go out with her to help show us around and to translate for us.  So it was neat in a way for Kylie, Jaime and I to get more comfortable on our own in Gracias.  We went and saw a castle behind Guancascos Hotel where the ex-president of Gracias used to live, went to a missionary families house down the street for coffee and peanut butter cookies (yum!), and then later that night a few of us went to the public hot spring in Gracias.  The public ones are a little more busy (they are just cheaper than the private ones) but I think that they are more natural looking, and just beautiful!  I want to post pictures of the springs sometime, but I haven't gotten good pictures of either the private or public ones yet since we have went at night both times.  Justin (teacher from last year) bought a motorcycle last year and he drove each of us separately to the springs so we didn't have to pay for a moto taxi.  I keep thinking in my head "wow, I am living here for a year."  It is still hard to fully believe.  Night rides through Gracias on a motorcycle might have to happen often!   

We are going to try Sarah's church out this week.  We would have went Sunday night (night service instead of the sunrise service) but she was helping with Zak.  So we still have yet to attend a church service here!  

This week at school has just been decorating and working on our scope and sequence for our classroom curriculum.  My decorating is coming together really well--there are a lot of decorations for the nursery that are required to go up, so I know my room will never be bare!  Besides, with the lime green walls alone (compared to the light brown walls in every other classroom) my room already seems decorated!  I received my class list today and it looks like I have 12 students, and a mix between mostly 2 and 3 year-olds and a few 4 year-olds.  It was exciting to start learning the names of the students though!  It is still a little overwhelming having two assistants who do not speak the same language as I do.  But they are great workers, and have helped me out a ton!  I just wish it were easier to form a strong relationship with them right away--but I guess that's what I will just have to allow to happen slowly throughout the year :).

The rest of our group arrived today, so all of the American teachers are finally all together!  It was exciting to kind of be on the opposite end this time, and to know some of the answers to questions they were asking.  Not many, but some!  

Kiley and I went to find a monkey today after school.  We were told that there is one pet monkey in town, even though it is illegal to have one as a pet here.  We tried to find it yesterday but were told that the monkey was "out and about" and would be there tomorrow.  I found it rather funny that the monkey was just out and about the town of Gracias!  But we did end up finding him today and I fed him a banana.  I stood kind of far away from him though since I didn't know if he was very friendly or not, and the last thing I need happening a week into my experience is getting bit by a monkey!  Then Kiley wanted to get a picture with him, so I went to take it for her and we both had forgotten that she had a bag of bananas in her hand--needless to say, they monkey wanted to those bananas and went after Kiley! Luckily the monkey was on a chain, and Kiley jumped back far enough before it could attack her.  But my video camera did capture a part of it, and we definitely got a good laugh out of that experience!

That has been my week so far pretty much though.  I just need to start practicing my Spanish a lot more, because I deeply want to form relationships with the people in Honduras.  This is where patience for that needs to kick in.  Hopefully we will have internet in our house eventually so I can set up Skype dates with people.  I have talked to my parents and grandparents on Skype so far, and it makes things a lot easier seeing faces of loved ones :).  So I hope to see you soon!

view from the castle

Me, Kiley, Jaime at the castle

Castle

View of the town from the castle

Motorcycle ride with Justin to the public hot springs!

Inside my classroom with my aides Miss Flores and Miss Sonia

At our school

Our school sign

Feeding the monkey!

Pictures!

 View from Guancascos Hotel where I can get free wireless internet

 Our street

 First day of orientation! Me, Kiley, Sarah, Jaime

 Beautiful view from our school

 Another view from the school

 Beginning to set up the nursery!

 Out to eat! Sarah, me, Jaime

 First church (landmark) in Gracias! Down the street from our house

 My bedroom!

This is where I am sitting currently!  This is a small cafe down the street from our house, next to the church and in the main park.  The bottom part is the cafe and on top is a sitting area with free internet!