During first period, Cristina came to ask to talk to me in the hall. This had never happened to me before, and I had no idea what she could possibly be coming to tell me in the middle of teaching my fifth graders frequency adverbs...
I stepped into the hall and she handed me a paper. She explained that my favorite teacher was out sick for the day and they had decided that I would substitute teach for her classes today. The paper she'd handed me was my new schedule for the day. I would have a lady from Infantil with me in case I had any behavior issues that I couldn't handle, but she doesn't speak English, so I'd be doing all the classes more or less on my own!
^_^
I thanked her for the info and went back into my class to keep teaching. I manage to tell the teacher in that class what had just happened and she said that was a good indication of just how much they liked me and trusted me at this school. :) She said she can't even imagine any of the other interns being given such a responsibility, and so I should feel really good about it.
And oh, I did!
I taught second grade and just continued where we left off last class. I walked into the room and said, " I have bad news and good news. Bad news is your teacher is sick. Good news is I'm your teacher for this hour!" They all started cheering and it was totally adorable. :)
I went to third grade next and realized it was their science hour. I went over two pages in their science textbook, in which they learned about rotation and orbiting. I made them all stand up and make an axis with their arms over their heads. Then I had them rotate rotate rotate. Next I picked kids to come to the front and be various heavenly bodies. I had them start with their axis, then rotate rotate rotate, and then start orbiting the sun/earth at the same time. Everyone was giggling and dizzy the whole time, but I'm just hoping when their teacher comes back today, they will have an idea of rotation and orbiting and will show her how they know. ;)
At the end of that class, my most adoring student in the whole school came up and hugged me for the millionth time, and then - out of nowhere - burst out in song. He serenaded me with 50 Nifty United States! Last week I'd given the class the lyrics with one verse, but I hadn't give them the whole song and I hadn't told them they needed to practice or anything. This kid had memorized EVERY single verse of the song and sang it with amazing articulation and melody! I was beyond awestruck! I gave him a shiny sticker for his hard work and he beamed. He informed me he would be making me a bracelet this weekend and would give it to me as a special gift next week. He came up to me at lunch to ask what my favorite colors were so he could make it wonderful. :) See, the thing about this boy is that he is flamboyant as &$!@. And it is absolutely adorable. His teacher and I were talking about what a fabulous gay man he is totally going to grow into, because he's already more than half way there and he is eight years old! So adorable!!
I was supposed to have two hours with the first graders, but one of my secondary teachers refused to give me up for her hour, and so I taught my sixth grade class like normal. After having given them that English Dictionary of Awesomeness and bingo board last week, they have become my most clever class by far. Whenever I see them in the hall, they are always using all their slang vocab and it is pretty adorable. It is a little strange because they are the exact phrases kids their age in America would normally use in the hall and on the playground, so to hear them learning how to use them just as frequently and correctly is totally awesome! Just being able to use these colloquial expressions makes them sound so fluent it's insane. I'm pretty sure that they could Skype a kid in America and despite their grammatical mistakes, being able to say, "Hey! What's up? Me? Meh. Idunno. You won a football match? Sweet!" would make them seem incredibly less foreign and a lot more like just another kid their age who happens to live in another country. :) The whole bingo activity is great for those kids who wouldn't shut up before, because they still won't shut up, but now they are constantly speaking only in American slang, which is hilarious, cause they're starting ton really get good at it!
Anyway, I love their class now because the teacher will tell me what they need to work on when I walk in the room and I have to come up with activities off the top of my head. For the last ten minutes i had them do a duel - two kids have to use past tense correctly and pronounce it correctly, while using different verbs each sentence. One says a sentence, then the other says a sentence. They have five seconds to make their sentence or they're out. It was really fun, but the last two to duel were crazy awesome at it and it was absolutely hilarious to watch! Seriously impressed. ;)
Last hour was my first graders, who were adorable as always. <3
In each of the sick teacher's classes, I had the kid who was the best at English make their teacher a Get Well card and had the other students sign it or draw her a picture on it. At the end of the day I took pictures of them all and texted them to her, saying I hoped she was feeling better. She wrote right back and told me how lovely that was of me and how happy it made her. :) Yay!
Mr. Nacho was surprisingly the only tricky part of my day, and only because he wouldn't speak English! O_o We still had a great time together and i got the giggles again, which makes him get the giggles, which is so adorable I get the giggles again. Haha. But at the end of the "lesson" I told him his mom probably wouldn't let me come back to play because we weren't speaking English and I was really sad cause I love playing with him. He got really serious and didn't say another word in Spanish and said she wouldn't be mad at us if we cleaned up his room really well and organized his playroom really well - so we cleaned and talked in English for the last five minutes. Haha! :)
After the whole day of being my own teacher, I started to realize just how good at this I sorta am. :) Cool!
At home I had dinner with my everyone and Abby and I toyed around with the idea of moving into the city together in the fall and finding our own apartment together. We talked about how we'd host couch surfers and how we'd get a Vespa to share. How we'd decorate it so cute and how we could go out for drinks or coffee whenever we wanted, cause we'd move close to Malasaña! :) I love when we go to bed at 10, turn out the lights, then lay in our beds and talk for hours about everything. :) I can't believe how much I lucked out on getting her as my roomie and friend! <3
XOXO
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