second week at hawlemont!

holy moly...it's already friday! where did the week go?

MONDAY

monday found caleb and i planning for our introduction lessons in 2nd grade and 6th grade.

TUESDAY

we were up bright and early for the caravan to school. caleb and i snuck into a morning staff meeting. it was good to see how the staff work together and discuss issues in a respectful manner. the rest of morning had us in 1st grade for the morning meeting, then off exploring some other nooks and crannies of the school.

our first adventure was to the basement which we discovered is a labyrinth of school supplies...some of them were quite ancient! the prize find was 3 huge boxes of yarn! hawlemont is collecting hats, scarves and gloves for needy family, so i made plans to raid the stash before the week's end to make some hats : ) we also explored the "science closet", which we found out is an amazing cranny in the school! any sort of tool for basic experimentation can be found in there. it might be one of my favorite spots in the school (with the exception of the art room and the library). i spent about an hour sifting through all of the fun items in the science closet...pulling out a stack of materials for potential lesson plans. so exciting!

next, we ventured to the lunchroom to catch lunch with the the 5th and 6th graders. we haven't worked much with either grade, but it was nice to meet them and learn more about their interests. after eating leftover lasagna from monday night's dinner, caleb and i headed to the art room to help the 1st graders attach their rainbow fish to a painted ocean of their creation. for as crazy as those 1st graders are, it wasn't too hectic! only one partial emotional meltdown and lots of cute ocean scenes by the end of class. i do think, however, that the kids had more fun mixing the paint thank actually painting. precious.

when our first full day at school was done, i walked around the pond back on site as thoughts of a snow day on wednesday danced around my head. the weather predictions had us expecting 4-8 inches of snow tuesday night-wednesday with a changeover to freezing rain on wednesday morning.

WEDNESDAY

needless to say, 6am arrived on wednesday morning and calls came in for a snow day! that meant sleeping in an extra hour. b-e-a-utiful! after breakfast with the white stuff coming down quite rapidly, all 16 interns and 2 of the staff members went out for a rousing game of capture the flag. my team didn't fare so well, but it was great to play in the snow. we then had a competition among all of the teaching partners to build the tallest snow structure. the snow was still quite powdery so the structures were more like sand dunes than sand castles in consistency. still fun : ) afterward, we destroyed them and had a tackle match in the snow. i realized that i need to learn how to tackle better. the rest of the day found us planning for some kiddos coming to visit our camp next week. later in the evening we had a huge snowball fight. it was epic.

THURSDAY

caleb and i actually taught a few lessons! we enjoyed a morning meeting with the 3rd graders (love them!) including a new activity for them that reminded me a bit of contra dancing. we then spent an hour planning and reading up for our lesson with the 1st graders. we led them in snow charades where they acted out what they did on the snow day. next, they listened to a story about a snowstorm while pretending to be an animal-either themselves, a wild animal, a domesticated animal or a farm animal. i was a goat on one of the local farms. surprisingly the 1st graders stayed quite attentive! i was impressed. caleb and i still need to gain more confidence in classroom management, but that will come with time.

we then headed up to help the 5th graders in art class make their bauhaus building designs a reality! but...handing 5th graders exacto-knives is a slightly scary endeavor. fortunately, the 5th graders listened to the safety talk from the art teacher and respected each other's space : ) hooray! we joined the 5th and 6th graders again for lunch. it was fun to talk with the 5th graders about our favorite animals and what we're excited for with winter. we're not teaching in their classroom, but i'm hoping we can get to know them in art class.

after lunch, we had fun in art class with the kindergartners! they made snow people out of model magic. they are so adorable. one of kindergartners is an expert in anything related to dinosaurs. he knows more than most people do about dinosaurs. and he's 5. wonderful!

we ended our day with 3rd grade! we began our lesson with some games and activities...which went well for the most part. one of the games went a little over their heads, so maybe we'll try it again later. we listened to a story about rain dances to introduce our unit on the water cycle. after doing a little assessment on what the kids know and want to know about the water cycle, we tried to start a 3rd grade rainstorm. that didn't go so well...but it was a learning experience.

FRIDAY

we had a morning workshop on nonviolent communication which drew quite a few parallels to the responsive classroom methods. very much about validating feelings and evaluating situations completely before providing advice or suggestions for action. then we had some lessons on animal tracking in the snow. that was fun! caleb and i had the chance to walk around the pond on a hunt for beaver tracks. we spotted quite a few on the newly frozen pond and around their lodge. you can tell that they are trying to get their last munches of bark before the whole pond succumbs to winter. we also saw evidence of squirrels in a few piles of pine cone pieces below a pine tree. pretty darn sweet!

i'm so excited for next week!