SPRRRINNG BREAKKK...round 2!

Even though we enjoyed  our 2013 Spring Break back in March, that just wasn't enough for us!

Today marked the official start to our South African Spring Break! There are four school terms and today was the end of the third term. It's hard to believe that Rachel and I just finished our 7th week teaching! 

WHERE HAS THE TIME GONE?!? We need it to slow down...

I taught quite a few lessons this week. Some were more successful than others.

I wanted to mention a Life Skills lesson I taught on the food pyramid. Think for a second about how you would describe the food pyramid to an average person and then think about explaining it to a 7 year old. 

It's difficult.

I resorted to explaining  food groups by using vague descriptions like this one gives you energy and strength, this one builds muscle, or this one might make your tummy sore if you eat too much of it. (Students in my class don't say their stomachs hurt, instead they say their tummies are sore.) I think any health teacher or nutritionist would frown upon these descriptions, but explaining serving sizes and portion control to first graders is a joke...to put it bluntly. It goes right over their heads.

After the mini-lesson, I passed out a worksheet that my mentor teacher had given me. The students were supposed to cut out pictures of different foods from magazines and paste them in the appropriate places on the food pyramid.

My mentor teacher was not in the room while I was giving the lesson, but when she came back, she asked how they did.

I looked around the room that looked as if I had said, "Alright children, it's that time again to cut up magazines into hundreds of pieces and scatter them everywhere in the classroom that you see free and open space!" and thought she may not want to know the answer.

Basically it was chaos. 

I responded to my mentor teacher, as she surveyed her extremely untidy classroom with, "Well, they had fun!"  

Some turned out like this!

But most turned out like this 

You can't win 'em all! :)

On a different note, I wanted to share this Youtube video. It was very popular last year on social media. Today it was shown to our whole school during the morning assembly.

Hopefully this will offer you some encouragement to get through your day and BE AWESOME! 

We have met some wonderful new American friends. Some are here with an organization called Grassroot Soccer and the others are here on the Fulbright Grant. We are looking forward to spending more time with them over this holiday break.

Here are the links  if you want to learn more: Grassroot Soccer    Fulbright Grant

Sarah's parents arrived in South Africa on Wednesday night for their planned trip to visit Sarah and travel arounf.

 We have been blessed with a little taste of home with them here. :)

The children have a special way of finding extra energy to exert in the classroom when they know a break is approaching. Needless to say, we had some wild children this week! I know we will all appreciate the time to relax, catch-up, and hopefully explore some more of the country.

Have a splendid Friday!

Love,

Casey