Tantas Cosas!

I feel like I am one hundred times busier now than I was a couple weeks ago! No more siestas and no more Nutella.  ;)

Last week, I started tutoring a high school student, a college student, and 7 year old twins in the afternoons. Yesterday, I started teaching an English Immersion class at the school. I teach 3rd and 4th graders for an hour and 5th and 6th graders for an hour every Tuesday and Thursday until I leave in May. Yesterday was so much fun! It's such a great way to practice various ESL strategies that I've learned at ISU and I get to create my own activities and lessons in English. In the English classes at school, the students listen to tapes and do exercises in their workbooks the whole time. The classes are focused on English grammar, but they are taught in Spanish for the most part. This English immersion class that I am teaching is completely in English and the main focus is speaking. I think the most challenging part was not translating for the students. In the English classes here, almost everything is translated for the students and sometimes I get into the bad habbit of translating the words or phrases. But I was able to make it two hours without translating anything AND the students understood the activities! It takes a lot of explaining, examples, and energy, but it's SO rewarding when they "get it" without having to translate! Yesterday was mostly an introduction class, and I had the students draw questions out of a bag and they had to figure out what the question said, read it to the class, and answer it. Then with the older group of students, we did the activity "Two Truths and a Lie". It was a perfect activity for that age group and they really enjoyed it!

Working in pairs! Love it!

Another reason this week is busier than usual is because my supervisor from ISU is here to observe me. Alejandro arrived in Caceres last night and he went with me to school this morning and spent the entire day there. He will be here until the weekend so he will most likely observe me the rest of the week. This morning, I taught an art lesson in English and I used a lesson that I really loved from my art methods class that I took two years ago at Iowa State. I emailed my art professor (who is was of my favorite professors EVER... if you're reading this and you go to ISU, take Art 211!) and I asked her if she had any ideas for a simple art project that I could complete in an hour with a rowdy 5th grade class. She gave me the idea of doing a project similar to a project we did in her class, where each student creates a quilt block and then we put them together to make a quilt. For this particular class, we gave the quilt the following title: "What We Like About Spring and Ways We Are Growing Together". So I had the students work in pairs (which isn't something they normally do here... there is absolutely no group work and all the students sit in rows). I had each pair make a quilt block together (where they drew an example of one way they are "growing together") and if they finished early, they had the opportunity to create their own quilt block (something they like about Spring). It was so cool to see them working together on a project for a change! I will be sure to post a picture of the quilt once it's finished :)

 Also today, I taught Language Arts and Science in Spanish. Both lessons went well. The day wasn't as stressful or nerve-racking as I thought it would be. My supervisor was so relaxed about everything and didn't just sit there and take notes as I taught (which is what I'm used to).  Instead, he helped out with the classes and talked a lot with the students. Tomorrow, he's even going to teach a math lesson (Math Methods is the class that he teaches at Iowa State) so it will be really interesting to see how the students respond to these new methods! 

Tomorrow, my host mom is making dinner and we are inviting Alejandro over. I LOVE when we have company because Lola always makes tortilla patata, and her tortilla patata is the best in all of Spain. No lie. 

On Friday, Paige and I are leaving for Rome! It will be nice to take a vacation for a couple of days after having a semi-crazy week. Neither one of us has been to Italy before, so I'm excited to experience a new country and a new culture! But mostly, I'm excited for all the gelato ;)

I feel like I haven't done much other than plan lessons and teach private English lessons, but last weekend I went to Monfrague National Park with my host mom. My host sister organized a group of high school and college-age students (about 20 people) and we rented a bus and took a day trip to Monfrague. I actually visited Monfrague two years ago with the group from ISU, but it's such a beautiful place so I decided to go again! Here are some pictures from the trip:

Rio Tajo

Maria and Lola (my host sister and host mom)

"Geo-Catching" in Spain!