a kindergartner is better than me at basketball.

yup. true statement. one of the kindergartners kicked my tushy at basketball during recess this week. the kid is half my height, one quarter my age, but makes baskets like a pro. not fair!

he also invited me over to his house. that was adorable.

anyway, what a busy week. there was a mix of wonderful moments, stressful moments, tension-filled moments, and sad moments...

MONDAY
a planning day as usual. fairly uneventful.

TUESDAY
we arrived early as usual. last week i felt like we weren't organized the whole week, so i decided to finish the small bits of planning we had to do and print out all of our lesson plans for the week. my overachieving self is starting to make a comeback. we then headed to 6th grade. we discussed more about transportation and looked at transportation systems. we gave them all transportation logs to keep track of their use of transportation over the week. that should be interesting to look at.

then we had a break...i can't remember what we did...

next came our lesson with 4th grade. we continued learning about the rain gauge and had them form groups to start making a guidebook on how to use the rain gauge. the making of the guidebook will be interesting...i still don't know if i have a clear vision on what it's going to end up looking like (or whether we'll be able to complete it in our time left at the school).

after lunch, we enjoyed the craziness that is 1st grade art class. they painted self portraits that had sculpted out of clay a while back. then they proceeded to use WAY too much construction paper to make little cutout hearts. i swear...if the amount of hearts that class cuts out in one class period is an indicator of how much love they have for eachother...there is a LOT of love going on...

our 5th grade class brought episode 2 of who wants to be a meteorologist? again, a solid lesson. at the end there was some confusion over the greenhouse effect and global warming (kids were asking if greenhouses were really bad), so we'll have to clear that up next week...

after school, i helped with the drama club. that never ceases to be crazy.





WEDNESDAY
we began our morning with preschool. we did some activities on floating and sinking. then i just hung out by this awesome water table (a table that they can fill with water, it's awesome!). they were definitely having some issues taking turns with the different containers (and who gets to be at the water table since only two of them can be there at one time). a bunch of them wanted me to stay for snack which made me feel special. i think that is the first time i ever had life cereal...i am going to miss those kids!

then we moved onto kindergarten. our goal was to start making sugar crystals. we definitely didn't do the best with explaining everything and discovered that adding sugar to water changes the density quite a bit...not in our favor. it wasn't horrible, but we've had better lessons with them. 

next, i scurried over to the gym to hang out with william! while in gym, i got several requests to sit at certain tables. so exciting! afterward, i went to recess...where i found out i'm terrible at basketball.

caleb and i then moved onto 2nd grade to continue our habitat project. we gave them worksheets with information they needed to find out about their animals (what they eat, where they live, etc) and little information cards. it went well! some of them had a hard time focusing on the worksheet, but all of them completed it.

i worked out with the teachers after school. that felt really nice!

THEN! all of the corps members put together a dinner and entertainment for a teacher appreciation dinner. for all the tension and stress that pervaded the room before the teachers arrived, the whole night went very well. i hadn't laughed that much in a long time. here are some of the highlights:

- banagrams being thrown at a corps member who had some lab goggles on
- caleb popping his head out of a room exclaiming "puppet show!?"
- hearing hilarious stories about monkeys
- headbands and belt buckles

THURSDAY
caleb and i were both tired from making sugar cookies for our lesson on photosynthesis with the 1st graders. we started off with 3rd grade morning meeting. they did some calisthenics, which felt nice since i needed something to get myself to wake up. then we peeked into 1st grade to help out with some handwriting exercises. not something i've ever done before...i then attempted to help william with some reading. he didn't want to read at all, so i ended up reading most of the book and wiped a booger off his nose.

our lesson with 1st grade on photosynthesis wasn't too bad! we taught them about the process in a few different ways: first as a ballet (they acted out being a seed, having sunlight and rain pour down on them, causing photosynthesis to occur and the plant to produce food). then photosynthesis as a play...(we cast sunlight, a plant, carbon dioxide, water, sugar and oxygen among... the class and had them act out the process). finally, photosynthesis as a recipe...that's where the sugar cookies came in : )


i headed to 5th grade art, which meant making stars for the drama club play. next came lunch...then kindergarten art. i was SO tired. the art teacher said she didn't need our help, so i just proceeded to sit on the couch and stare at the wall for a while.


eventually, we headed down to 3rd grade to lead a very confusing lesson on how to make an outline for a puppet show. it didn't go very well. but, the all school meeting was a blast. caleb and i did our bee puppet show. some of the students did a fun dance. it was great!


FRIDAY
all of the corps members headed off to colrain central school for colrain's own earth day. i was paired with kevin to play the incredible journey all afternoon (a water cycle game). the whole day was great. the kids were awesome. our activity was awesome. the skit we did at the end was awesome. i had so much fun!


once we were done for the day, i drove to hawlemont for the hawlemont helps haiti talent show. i'm so happy i was able to make it. although when i walked into the cafeteria to help set-up i felt like i was walking into a "pre-teen slumber party gone wrong" (in the words of the art teacher), the drama club play went well and the rest of the talent acts were great! i loved seeing the community gather for this event. i had the fortune of working at the donation table, so i saw all of the donations come in...people were incredibly generous and supportive. it was beautiful.