Friday we ventured to the zoo. It was awesome, I could have spent all day there, but we only spent a few hours there. I was able to see all kinds of animals and I will post the link to the pictures soon.
Monday was the first day back in the schools. I enjoyed myself a lot, but it was a little stressful. I was at the high school from 7:45-9:45. Then I traveled to the elementary school. At the elementary school I worked with small groups in 30 minute intervals and I ran up and down the stairs to walk kids back to class and get students for the next group. It was a bit overwhelming because all of the kids want to come with me to work on reading. I so badly want to say yes, but it is hard to use the reading program I am using works best one-on-one with a student and I'm doing it with groups of 2-4 students! I am finding that many of the students are further along than the first few lessons of the book....but I think starting at the first lesson and running through the lessons quickly will be a good thing for the students and will reinforce what they already know. I have found that the students REALLY want to know how to read. It is amazing that they all care. There are also students who want help in math and I am hoping that next year more special education people can come to Belize to help more students. The days here just go by so quickly with the students I am working with now. Tuesday went about the same as Monday.
Today (Wednesday) I had to substitute teach for teacher Hector. I honestly liked it in many ways. It was so much nicer not to have to travel from one school to another and to sleep in. The elementary school starts at 8:30! I also did not have to run up and down the stairs to pull small groups. It was a little hectic though. I can manage the 10 students but it adds pressure when they all call your name and want to have help on assignments. I've found that many students want help that don't actually need help and my natural instinct is to help the students that need help. But I made it through the day. I had a few visitors stop by: Karla and Kelly. They are both very familiar with special education and Kelly found out that Kaila knows sign language. Kaila is a student that has Downs Syndrome. She is VERY sweet and smiles all the time and nods her head. Unfortunately she normally colors during class while everyone else take notes. The first week in the school I helped Kaila trace her name and I made the outline. That was about the most interaction I had with Kaila because I helped in the High School and started pulling small groups. I am so happy that I know this and I actually had Kaila teach me a little sign language. After seeing her today I believe she is actually more intelligent than people may know. I also got some insight for Tayza. Tayza is in Standard II with Kaila and it was believed that she had memory problems. I noticed that it just might be more related to phonics or something with reading. Kelly feels that she might have been taught sight words at her previous school. I think that makes sense. I talked to Karla and Kelly about Tayza some more and I think I have more of a direction to go to help Tayza. I realized she is very sharp with her individual letter sounding out skills but Kelly and Karla realized that maybe it is the actual skill of blending that Tayza needs help with. I am hoping to help her with that more and if she still has problems with writing I can tackle that battle later.
I am really glad that Karla and Kelly are here. It is helping me out some in my head! It is nice to have people here that understand special education and people I can talk to about things and bounce off ideas! I have talked with them about several of the students I'm working with and it is all incredibly helpful :).
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