A brief summary of a regular day at camp. Wake up and head to breakfast where all of my students will cheerfully say "Hello teacher!" to which I will (for my own amusement) respond with a myriad of greetings ranging from
"What up girl" to "Hey heeey...I see you (fill in the kids name) holding down the breakfast line!" Sometimes they look
thrilled, sometimes completely confused, and my favorite times are when their english
-programmed brains respond with the only thing they know; "I'm fine thank you and you??" Awesome.
Then comes class. I have a tendency to touch little kids on the head just because it seems to be at the same level as my hands so depending on the day, I will encounter the gum in little Alberto's hair that has been there since the first day of camp...2 weeks ago...as well as the haphazard braids Gema had her best friend put in her hair that make her already frizzy hair look like she just had the roughest night of her life. We start the class every morning with the "How are you feeling today?" chart where they get to place their name on 1 0f the 4 emotions they are learning. After the first day of almost all happys, 2 tireds, and 1 sad for homesick Jaime, I was a little disconcerted to find I had all sads and angrys on day 2. Then, I took stock of the situation; They loved putting their sticky-note name tags on tired face's eyes to make him "sleep" and we always follow with the song, "If you're happy and you know it" where the kids sing the verse that matches their emotion. Whie tireds have a yawn, happys only clap (lame) and sads say "
boo-hoo," (boring) ANGRYS get to a) stomp their feet and b) have
a serious staredown with me. For this reason, most days the angrys dominate my class even though I challenge you to find a happier bunch of "angry" 6 year olds.
Worksheet time follows because this camp doesn't joke. These kids go home with a what I think looks like a professional portfolio of crumpled papers neatly straightened and placed in plastic sleeves to show the parents how after 2 weeks of practice, their baby has
finally learned that they are not actually "berry tee-red" but "very tired." I have a few kids
who act like completing a worksheet might be the last straw in their difficult lives before they hit the breaking point and do something crazy like NEVER COLOR AGAIN! (A common threat) This is where stickers come in handy. Completed worksheets are met with a sticker next to their name which in order to understand this incredible accomplishment, imagine making the final round of American Idol or becoming the next contestant on the Price is Right. It's seriously that exciting.
Of course there is a 15 minute break between class 1 and 2 which allows them just enough time to get cream filled cookies as snacks that they will try to sneak into my no food allowed classroom by shoving them into their pockets or crushing them into their balled up hands later used to make fantastic chocolate handprint art on m
y clothes. It also appears to be a camp rule to drink just enough water that after "bathroom break" time is finished, they will immediately declare they need to go to the bathroom and yes, it's an emergency upon returning to class.
Break is gloriously followed by music or theatre where they will sing along to music by Danny, the English learning wondermusician in theatre or refuse to play cool instruments like the tambourine because they only want to play the drum in music. My job is to help out their teachers with discipline issues and with my age level kids, participate to show them how much FUN "take a step forward, a step backward and bounce, up and down" can be. Whatever. At least I have a good time and learn a couple cool new songs about how "I like ice cream and don't like peas."
Sports and lunch AKA teacher salvation leave enough time to grade papers, plan out afternoon projects and breathe before round 2, class 3 at 3:00. Only one hour long, I usually try games and songs and the Walls Talk project. For week one, my walls did a lot of talking. Each kid drew their own body and then had to label the different body parts. If you aren't sure who is artistic at a young age, try this project. While Maria may not know english, she is an incredible artist. Jaime A on the other hand seems to think a paper bigger than his body should be left 75% blank with his body drawn at an uncomfortable angle. Maybe to hold the crown he believed necessary to
place on his head. Ok so game time... there are so many great games but unfortunately, not only did I have the little kids, I also had the not so well behaved little kids. It took ALL my energy to separate the wrestlers, emphasize cartwheels are not allowed in class, tie Diego's shoes, bring poor little Jorge back to planet earth and stop the kids from stealing paper from my desk to make comecocos. Comecocos are what I know as cootie catchers where you try to pick the right color to end up with what is of course, destined to be a quality in your future. With these kids you are aiming for beautiful or queen rather than ugly or stupid...hint: they don't change location and the kids don't catch on. I got beautiful every time, weird. The other reason to steal paper from my desk would be (duh) to make airplanes. I guess since I never went to English camp, my brothers never got gifts of not just a regular paper airplane but an entire FLEET of multi-colored airplanes some of their lucky siblings have coming to them.
Bathroom break and water time repeat before the final class allowing just ample time to get dirty enough outside to perfume the room with the popular children's B.O scent. This is a long day in a class for 6 year olds and if I were them, I'd be stir crazy too so usually class 4 is mainly games. One great game I took from another teacher (thanks Kelly!) involves fly swatters and a blackboard. Well, it DID involve fly swatters until 5 minutes in, the fly swatter used for the previous session of camp without incident was violently broken on a quest to encounter the English word for "lapiz." The kids have teams and one person on each team must find the correct work on the board for the spanish word I say and hit it with the swatter first. The winning team of course wins a sticker on the sticker chart. SUPER competitive and fun for everyone except Sofia, who regardless of what team she is on always wants to be on the other one.
At five minutes to 5, everyone lines up in "una fila" that with my craaaazy English accent always seems to be mistaken for "everybody clump around the door and complain that you are first in line!!"
That end a normal day. Some fun not normal things that also happened during my time at camp; the theatre presentation day where only one of my kids fell off the stage, half refused to wear their paper plate necklace props, and about 5 kids correctly sang the words to our favorite song, "happy and you know it" in front of the camp. Also, movie day which EVERY class at camp loves because you miss class to watch a cool movie EXCEPT for my class where Lucia L claimed she was bored, Sofia preferred her "castigado" sitting outside of the movie room telling me she didn't care if she was punished, Ignacio (or sometimes when he's happy you can call him Nacho) came close to a breakdown when he discovered the Disney movie CARS would be (gasp!) played in english AT ENGLISH CAMP and Gema and the other Lucia L (it's Spain, 5 out of 10 kids have the same name) wanted to put pigtails in my hair which I was too tired to refuse even though I was made aware of a lice outbreak. Really. You don't like movie time? How do I end up with the alien kids? Oh well, the camp was well organized, the other teachers were awesome, and I made the money I needed to volunteer!
I leave for Dublin, Ireland at 10:00 on Sunday night where I will be for 2 days before heading from there on my 36 hour trip to Uganda. I will keep you posted! :)
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