Not much to say about Monday. We slept in, worked for school, ate, worked for school some more, ate again, worked again, and so on… 9pm and I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore, so by 9.30 I went to bed, knock out!
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Today is the first day of our second teaching week. I teach second grade this week, hopefully they’re a bit more mannered than the first graders.
We also had another meeting with the principal today. He told us about STARS, a project he works on to help sixth graders with their difficulties so they have a better chance of succeeding their final exams. Later today there’s a meeting with the parents to inform them about it. We are also invited and if we want, we can help and pitch in where needed.
Or so he said… after the parents were informed, he took us back to his office to tell us what parts we were going to take care of. No more “pitching in”, no more “see for yourself how involved you want to be”, no more “helping out”… But we’ll see how it goes.
When we got home, it was past dinnertime already, so we quickly ate, worked some more for school and went to bed.
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Another school day. The second graders are much easier to work with than the first graders. They actually listen to what you say and act on it!
After school quickly grab something to eat and get ready for STARS. From 1.30pm till 3.30pm we help the kids with math, Dutch, geography, biology and history, the main courses.
We also work on social skills.
It was a fun day, but quite exhausting. Teaching 8-3.30 really isn’t the best idea when it’s this hot… We got informed about tomorrow and what we would be doing then (STARS is three times a week): maths. Yippie!
We expected someone around 6-6.30pm who promised us he’d BBQ for us. He finally arrived at 8.30… We were all starving!
Eating this late wouldn’t be such a problem if you had plenty of time to relax afterwards. But we needed to get to bed, cause tomorrow is another looong day at school!
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Today was terrible. I think the kids were sensing the nearing of the weekend, cause they were horrible little brats! But we stood our ground and got through the day. Even STARS worked out fine! We helped with the social skills and the math.
Yet again, we got home tired. But good news: it’s leftover day, so I don’t have to cook ^^
Watch a bit of tv and go to bed to read a bit before falling asleep. Tomorrow is the last day.
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Because we stayed home on Monday, we had promised to come to school on Friday. So today is the last school day of the week.
We don’t have to stay for STARS today, cause Marij had to get to the post office. Of course they had closed already, so she’ll have to wait till next week.
We’re on a tight schedule for the weekend, cause we have to get everything done in just two days instead of three. So not a lot of time to relax, because all lesson preparations had to be done today…
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Finally, weekend! When I woke up, it was 7.30am… Waaay too early for me, so I just lay myself down again and slept till noon.
We didn’t really do much else today but work for school.
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Sunday as well was a very productive day. We worked out the tutor and reading project and waited for pizza. By the time everyone had decided what they wanted for toppings, it was past 7pm already. The 200 SRD price tag was a bit too much for us, so we ended up going to Burger King instead.
By 9.30 we were exhausted and went to bed.
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Yet again time for school. I’m teaching fourth grade this week Our first interactions with those kids hadn’t been all that positive, so I’m nervous as hell.
It turned out pretty ok. They worked hard, and listened to what I had to say. Not too bad then! The only down side is, that the fourth and fifth grade share a classroom, so you have a lot of back ground noises.
School ended early today because of a staff meeting about some actions of the kids (beating, hitting, lying, annoying stuff)
Tineke and I are on shopping duty again this week, but she needed to head into town to buy some stuff for school. Glad Roché was around, who could come shopping with me (car > bike, especially for carrying everything).
Pizza for tonight, yummm!
The owner of the house had come around to give it a good clean. Apparently a once-a-month-cleaning is calculated in the price we paid for the house. After he left, I rearranged our room again and we watched a movie. By the time it was done, it was way past bedtime, so I ddin’t have any troubles falling asleep.
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Today turned out to be a very relaxing school day: the kids were supposed to have 1.5h of PE, which turned out to be the entire first half of the day. After the break they had a calculus repetition and arts and crafts… very tiring for them, not a lot of action for me…
It was extremely hot today! So after school I stripped a jumped right in the shower.the cold
water has never felt this good!
Nothing much to say about the rest of the day. Every day’s the same: come home, relax, work for school, eat and go to bed…
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Halfway the week again and today was as boring as yesterday was relaxing… I started with maths, but halfway the lesson, the teacher took over. And she’s taught the entire day. I just sat there, doing nothing, observing, trying to stay awake.
Her intervening has a much bigger downside to it as well. She constantly undermines my authority in the classroom.
When I say yes, she sais no and the other way around. She constantly reminds the kids about the fact that I am a teacher as well, but by acting like this they see something completely different.
Later this evening, Marij, Ellen and I were expected at the other student’s house where we would be getting information about our next trip: a four-day one to the Blanche Marie waterfalls (and other things of course, but that’s the main “attraction”).
It was a pleasant evening and by the time we got home, it was time for bed already. Last school day tomorrow, and let’s hope it’s a bit more active than the last two.
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Today is the day where we are going to introduce the reading corners in the third and fourth grade. And yes, I did get the chance to do some more teaching! The only time the teacher interrupted, was when I asked her to take over a lesson so I could prepare the reading.
Marij started after the break. I was going to do the reading the last hour of the day.
The kids all like reading very much, but don’t have the means at home to do so nor the time at school to read what they actually LIKE to read.
We had all sorts of books and stories: comic books, fairy tales, poems, stories and informative books. We divide the kids in groups and each group gets a different type. And each week the group gets another type. The kids loved it! 15 minutes before the end of the day, I took them to the school library so they could all pick out some books to take home for the weekend. Let’s hope we’ll get all our books back as well…
At the end of the day, Marij and I got the subjects for the next week. She’ll be teaching fourth grade and I’ll be doing third. So we both knew what to do when we got home…
Around seven the two of us quickly ate something and got ready for our planned activity: this week’s been so hot, that we’ve been looking forward to going swimming all week!
We wanted to leave at seven(ish), but Wouws (a mate) wanted to come along as well. By the time he arrived, it was almost 8 o’ clock, so of course, when we got to the swimming pool it was already closed…
Never mind the swim then, we’ll just go out for a drink. We found a cosy little café with a terrace and had a very nice time. Around 1am it really was time to head back home, cause Wouws’ friend (who was our driver) had to go to work the next day and had to get up at 6. Oops…
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