Day 2- Jutiapa, Guatemala
I, unfortunately, did not have access to the classroom of the school due to the teacher forgetting to leave a key for me. I was given the news about 10 minutes before the class was about to begin and I started to get worried about what was going to happen. Thankfully, my grandma came to the rescue with the idea to teach the children on the porch of her home. Teaching without the large whiteboard was going to be a bit of a challenge, but I thankfully managed to get through the lesson using a mini-whiteboard.
Before class began, I passed out folders, name tags and took attendance. To begin the lesson, we again sang the Good Morning song and afterwards had a review of the things we learned our first day of class- the alphabet, colors, animals, and numbers 1-30.
I taught the children a variety of verbs that they took notes on. Some of the verbs I taught them was walk, run, jump, dance, read, write, sleep, etc.
This lesson also included the days of the week, months of the year and extending our numbers from 31-60. I played for them a song called Days of the Week that the kids sang along to and made it easier for them to remember all seven days.
Following the numbers 31-60, I introduced to them the passport. This worksheet included similar questions that you would see on a real american passport such as first name, last name, hair color, eye color, etc. Yet before handing out the worksheets, they took notes on what the questions were asking in Spanish. For example: hair color- color de pelo. Once those notes were taken, they had a reference to look back at if they forget what something was when completing the paper. On a real passport, a picture of your face is included and this worksheet had left a spot for them to draw themselves. I really enjoyed this and seeing how graceful the children were, drawing themselves, sharing their drawing with others and even laughing at how silly they drew themselves.
For their hard work that day, I passed out stickers. The catch was, they had to ask for the smiley face sticker in English, "sticker please" and after receiving one, say "thank you". At first, a handful of the kids were embarrassed to repeat "sticker please" but soon after seeing their other brave school mates receive the sticker, their discomfort vanished and they asked eagerly, "sticker please!"
I love to see the all the children being on top of everything, following along, and showing interest in the class. To see the kids already learn and remember the things I taught in only two days definitely makes me feel like what I'm doing is worthwhile and leaves me fascinated.
I cannot wait to continue teaching tomorrow!
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
