2nd week of OTS

I haven't mentioned this before, but last Friday in the afternoon Old Trail participated in their annual "Walk-a-thon," which is an event where all of the middle schoolers walk five miles and raise money for charities. Priya Sharma and I helped by walking along with them, and would watch over the students (we had to make sure that they were always on the right side of the road, that they wouldn't get hit by any bikers, that they weren't too loud or disruptive, etc.). It was really fun being able to help out and was just like old times!



Yesterday was also a very eventful day at Old Trail. In the morning, as usual, I sat in on the 8th grade Spanish class and listened to Senora's lesson. The 8th graders played a "pictionary" game to help memorize vocabulary words and I joined right in. During the 7th grade Spanish class that I attended, Senora was showing the class many different Spanish songs that helped them memorize conjugated verbs! After listening to various songs, we learned some new Spanish verbs and filled out some of Senora's verb conjugation work sheets.

Later in the day, I went to Senora's first grade Spanish class. Again, I was able to work with a group of four first grade students, teaching them a new lesson of Symtalk and practicing sentences that they've already learned. The children were really enthusiastic about learning more Spanish, and they were really fun to work with!

Also, I was able to work with the fourth grade boy from Mexico, Juan Pablo. I had brought my laptop into school so I was able to record him reading more childrens books on the Garageband application. We were able to get through four books this time. This will be very helpful for the grade called "Young Fives," because now they'll be able to listen to Juan Pablo's recording as they read along! It was another entertaining and rewarding day recording him, and he has a terrific Spanish accent so I was able to observe that as well.

Now, today I attended Senora's 7th and 8th grade classes. In 8th grade, they took a quiz in the beginning (which I had made many copies of for Senora), and afterwards, we watched more of the Don Quijote video. The 7th graders have a huge project coming up, so the class went to the lab. There, I was able to help the students conduct research on their project and found some useful websites for them. As for first grade, I sat in on Senora's class so I could observe her teach the Symtalk lesson for the day. Before we formally met with the first graders, however, earlier today I met with a group of four of them. Eventually (possibly tomorrow but likely next week), I am going to record some of the first graders reading sentences from the Symtalk work books. This will be helpful for future students and teachers, and can even help the current students because they can practice by listening to the recordings. I was just able to practice reading certain sentences with them today so they're all ready to go when I finally record them!

So even though I'm learning lots at Old Trail, I also have had my share of play time. Yesterday, Priya and I joined the 8th grade biking gym class, and we rode our bikes along trails by Old Trail. It required a lot of energy and hard work, but it was really fun! And today, Priya and I helped the kindergarten teachers supervise recess and had the chance to play with the kids. It was a great chance to have a little fun and have a break in the day.