Edinburgh, Dunblane Cathedral, and Teaching Away!

Clearly, I have not written in a very long time! Two weeks in fact! A lot has happened...so much that this morning I slept in until noon to catch up on sleep! :) So I am going to spend some of this lovely (sarcasm) Saturday morning catching all of you up on what I have been busy doing! At the end of last week, I completely took over math which feels very good because it is the biggest subject of the day besides reading and writing. In reading, I have suggested to Claire that I start taking a group out each week (twice a week), to work on comprehension skills, word work skills, questioning skills, etc. (depending on the group and what skills they need) that will help them become better readers. It is working very well so far. Oh..also I have been drug into the Senior school's outdoor education week in mid June. I am crossing my fingers that the weather gets better because this means that I am going to be doing a hill walk with them. It sounds so nice and innocent, a "hill walk". But I've heard it is going to take all day to climb this thing. Great! On the other hand...I bet it is going to be an awesome way to see the scenery of Scotland once we get to the top!! This past week, I had my supervisor come on Wednesday. That meant that I had to have everything perfectly planned for him to watch me teach the whole day!! I did math in the morning as usual and then a creative writing unit which I have also taken over recently. For math we had been doing shapes...which I am an expert at teaching because that was my big TPA unit before coming here last quarter. For creative writing, I planned something very fun and the children enjoyed it a lot. I proposed the question of "what would you do if you woke up and were only one inch tall?" They had to write about the problems they came across, such as how to get out of bed, how to open the door, what would they eat for breakfast, how would they get to school, etc.!! It was very fun and they were very creative with it. I also started my mapping unit with the kids. Beaconhurst is an open campus with multiple building, so we went outside to figure out how we would put the campus onto a piece of paper. After walking around, the kids were able to spatially figure out that there was one big building in the middle and smaller buildings that surround it. Here's what one student created! Pretty good, eh?

So after my tutor left, I received good remarks. Said that I could take over the class now if I wanted to! :)...which Claire is loving. She is able to go observe the J1 classroom and see what the students are like that will be be joining her next year. On Thursday, we went to Dunblane Cathedral (obviously in Dunblane) which is about 10-15 minutes away from Bridge of Allan. This was part of the Religious and Moral Education being Special Places to go and to worship at. The Cathedral was beautiful and the kids enjoyed leaving school for a couple hours! A few years ago there was a shooting in Dunblane where a child was murdered. Inside the cathedral there was a memorial for the child. Very precious!

Over the weekend, I went to Edinburgh with a friend. It was amazing...at least! We took the 11pm train there and then took the 11pm train home! Probably could have spent the night because I couldn't get enough of it! We got off the train at Waverly and walked around Princess Street Gardens, Princess St., and the Royal Mile up to the Castle and down to the parliament. The guy that kindly toured me around Edinburgh, his sister lives there and works at one of the small galleries (not the huge main attraction gallery), and so we went in to see what was currently there. We also went to the Elephant House to eat dinner. This is considered "The birthplace of Harry Potter" because it is where J.K Rowling started writing all of the Harry Potter books. Towards the end of the night, we went into some of Edinburgh's pubs to finish our night off right! Can't go to Edinburgh without trying some of their brews! ;) I didn't go into the parliament or the castle or anything because I am waiting until my mom and dad come...can't see EVERYTHING before they get here!! But it was fun to just walk around and see the views and get familiar with the streets. We were lucky that it happened to be a beautiful day! This weekend I am laying low and planning for the upcoming week. However, next weekend I am going to go check out Glasgow!

It's spelled "colour" not "color"

I am heading into my second full week at Beaconhurst and am very pleased with where I am at now and how much I am getting to teach. The children have accepted me as their new teacher and have very quickly bonded with me...perhaps because they are curious about where I come from (not a bad thing, curiosity)!! This past week I have started to take over math by doing a ten minute warm-up that corresponds to the lesson that Claire will be teaching that day. It has prepared me nicely for this coming week, where I will take over the whole subject of math completely - the warm-up and the lesson itself. I also did an art lesson with kids this week which entailed mixing the primary colors to create the secondary colors. It was a good, messy lesson that they enjoined very VERY much! Most of them created two pieces of art so I would say that it was a great success. I have also been teaching a few random pieces, such as health and well being and some interactive, storybook math where we read a story and then play some math games. Next week I will be taking on a few more subjects, one being creative writing. My social studies unit this term is going to be America (of course) and so we are going to be writing to pen pals back home which I have set up. So that was a bit of the teaching side...it's getting more and more busy every day and my teacher is not shy at all when it comes to handing over her classroom. She is very good at giving me feedback and making sure that she is doing her part in the program - which I very much appreciate! There is so much to learn when it comes to the standards and sometimes I get afraid that I am teaching them wrong or that they are going to look at me with a blank stare because they don't have any idea what I'm talking about. There is no language barrier, however, it's JUST different enough that sometimes I don't have a clue - I can't imagine the kids in my class if ever THEY don't have a clue. We do have spelling tests and, hence the title of my blog this time. Children come to me and ask how to spell a certain word. I have never had a problem with spelling...until now. Color and favorite and others of the like have an extra letter in them. I have to actually think about things before I tell kids to spell things the "wrong" way. This week in school, music lessons also have begun, as well as Scottish Dancing. I joined in on Scottish dancing on Friday which was great fun! Those kids definitely have a wide variety of knowledge starting at a very young age! Another event that happens on occasional Fridays is the student council meetings. One student from each grade level asks their classmates of things that they would wish to happen or to be changed in their school. The representation then goes to the meeting and voices the opinions to the teachers, the head of the junior school, and the headmaster. The staff then talks about reasonable solutions! I thought that this was a very good way to apply student voice. On the non-teaching side, I have been settling into Bridge of Allan/Stirling quite nicely and getting to see a bit of the area. Meeting lots of new people and, just the same as before, everyone is very nice and actually interested in what you might have to say. Last weekend I went to see the Stirling Castle! It was amazing to see a view of Scotland from up higher. The castle was much smaller than I imagined it would be, but it is probably one of the most important ones in the area. Today I was able to go see Loch Katrine, which is part of the Trossachs. It was absolutely beautiful out there!! The whole reason I went to Scotland was for the beauty of it all...got to see a bit of it today! We then drove to Aberfoyle, a cute little town a bit south of the Loch. We ate fish and chips (of course) and saw a show that was happening on many birds of prey! They eagle that lives here is about twice the size of the bald eagle!! Scary! Next weekend I will be going to Edinburgh....so stay in touch! :) P.S....I miss everyone at home!!! But I have to say that I am loving it here as well!