Hey Everyone!! School has been going really well these past couple weeks! The students have really warmed up to me a lot and I feel like we're able to understand each other much better now. I finally know all of my students names and I think that really helped them open up to me. The second week I was in the school the teacher decided to change the seating chart for the kids so everyone switched and boy was that fun for me!

I know I've told you all about some of the students in my class before, but I have a couple more stories for you. A week or so back I decided to play with the students during their recess time. There was a group of girls from my class and one little boy, Reagan (my favorite!!), all playing a keep away game. I decided to join in the fun and play with them. We all had a great time and I'm pretty sure that something as simple as me spending 10 minutes playing with them really made their day. Of course when I started playing about 10 more kids joined the game, but I know they all had a great time. The thing about playing with them that really struck me was that the ball they were using was half deflated. I feel like kids back in the States wouldn't even bother playing with a ball like that because they would feel like it wasn't "good enough", However, these kids here are so grateful for any little thing that they have to play with.

To go along with this, I usually help my teacher out with their gym time. There is not a seperate gym teacher at the school, so it is up to the classroom teachers to play games with the students. As we were walking outside to do gym one morning my teacher had the students grab these things that looked like long corn husks. When we got outside they unrolled them and they were planning on using them as jump ropes. When I realized what they were going to be used for, I told my teacher that we had brought jump rompes with us, so I ran inside really fast and grabbed a couple. I'm telling you, you would have thought it was Christmas or something because these kids eyes lit up when they saw real jump ropes. They were all very good at jumping rope, but more importantly, they were having so much fun while doing it!!

Another "big" teaching moment happened for me last week. I wanted to try something new with my students for art. They were learning about plants so instead of having them use crayons or markers to draw a picture of a plant for art, I thought we could use finger paint!!!!!! I'm not sure if my students had ever used it before, but they were so excited, they were literally jumping up and down at their seats!! I showed them all what to do and did an example of my own and then let them try it for themselves. I know they had so much fun because 1) their pictures turned out really great (except for a couple students who ended up with brown paintings..... to much mixing!!) and 2) because the paint was everywhere!! But don't worry too much because we cleaned the room afterwards. My students weren't the only ones who enjoyed the finger painting, their teacher, Gertrude, really liked it too. Since I've been in the P1 class, I've felt like Gertrude kind of feels uncomfortable around me and I'm not really sure why. Whenever I teach the kids she usually just sits in the back of the room and doesn't really pay attention, but when we did the finger painting, she was super involved!! She was helping the students and even painted her own picture. It was really neat to see through her actions that she really accepts me as a part of her classroom. It's a great feeling to know that I'm not only leaving my mark on the students, but I seem to be having the same effect on the teachers as well!