Well my few days of nothing to do ended this morning with our first day of camp! I started to get nervous right before we left, but a 20 minute bike ride along the beach helped me to relax. I haven't biked in a long time, but I finally know why they always say "it's just like riding a bike" because after about 5 minutes I felt like I had never stopped. Some of the hills threatened to kill my thighs but I am going to try and ride an extra hour every day here and try to get back into somewhat decent shape.
Once we arrived we looked at our game plans for the day and went to get all our materials ready. They split us up into 2 groups, one with beginners and one with advanced students. There were 4 counselors with each group and I was with the beginners. Ages ranged from about 7-10. On the agenda for the day was greetings (hello, what is your name?, my name is ____, etc.), alphabet, animals, actions, and feelings. Most of the kids did well with greetings and didn't need much help. It was so cute to see them get so excited to ask you our name! Next we used flash cards to show the kids animals. It was fun to see the ones they obviously already knew (cat, dog, fish) and see them totally perplexed on others (kangaroo, koala, turtle). After reviewing them we playing this cute game where we broke into teams and laid the flash cards on the ground. We would shout out an animal and one person from each team would race to see which one would grab it first. This helped us see which animals were already in their memories and which ones they continued to struggle with. Then we played my favorite game of all time (I am a champion!) Duck, Duck, Goose. The kids LOVED and I mean LOVED it. They didn't want to stop ever.
When we finally decided we needed to end this we moved onto the alphabet and did basic I say, You say, We say with all the letters, we were supposed to teach them the song but all of the kids knew it already! Bonus :-) Here's where things got a little tricky.
It was a hot humid day and after 2.5 hours the kids were hungry, hot, and tired. We gave them a break, but even after this they were hard to contain. This part was difficult for me and I started to get frustrated. I am not used to kids this little and how fast they shut down. Usually my bigger high school kids can keep it together. But I came here to challenge myself and tried to help them fight through. We switched up the games for feelings and actions a little to try and help them stay interested but it was almost impossible. We were supposed to end the day practicing for their end of the camp skit, but ended up playing Duck, Duck, Goose some more and reviewed words in between rounds. By the end I was hot, frustrated, and exhausted. We headed to our restaurant for lunch and although the food looked awesome I couldn't eat because I was so hot I was nauseous. I had them wrap it up for me and I saved it till I got home, cooled down and recovered a bit.
Of course we spent the afternoon on the beach, but it was cloudy and windy so we didn't stay as long as we planed. I come back to the apartment and decided to go to the grocery store. Insert adventure here:
My friends had been on Saturday and warned me that they charge for bags so I pulled out my weekend duffle bag to haul my stuff back in. I walked the 6 blocks and got just some simple things. Olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salad, bread, cheese, salami, prosciutto, mozzarella, vino, cereal, milk, cereal bars (for camp), and of course some chocolate just for good measure. Well here's the funny part, you have to pay for carts which is no big deal except I couldn't figure out how to pay and unhook them. So I am balancing all this stuff in my arms to the counter. Once I get there and they are ringing me up I am trying to pack my bag and pay and everything but I am not done packing when the next man is done. So he proceeds to push my bag out of his way and almost onto the floor so he can get by. Thinking "Stupido Americano" the whole time I am sure. So I get everything up and pack it on the sidewalk outside. At least nothing broke!!!
Well, that was a long entry! My peeps just got here and we are trying to plan a trip for this weekend. Then we are headed to a cute little wine bar we found on the first day to plan for tomorrow's camp. I was a little homesick last night and today. Vi amo tutti!
No comments:
Post a Comment