The first week of classes was so good. My sixth graders are just wonderful and seem excited to be at school. I had the students write me letters about what they wanted to this year, what they wanted from their teachers, and any goals they had from the year. Most of them wanted to work on their English, have a teacher that was always happy and gave stickers, and many of their goals were to pass 6th grade. :) So we'll see! They are very sweet but very talkative. I was talking with Julia, who is the only other girl that actually has education as a background and I was telling her about all the different 'strategies' I had been using to keep my kids under control- she was saying how she had never had to switch it up so many times and was surprised that I'd used so many different things in the first week. I think my student teaching in fourth grade with a class that NEVER stopped talking has helped me a lot for this class because it hasn't really fazed me to try all different things.

I'm supposed to follow the curriculum (A Beca Book, from Pennsicola College) pretty closely which is good for my first year, but frustrating creatively. I've been adding in a few things of my own and I think that will go pretty well as long as I get all the lessons covered.

Here's a list of some things I've noticed that are very different from the schools I've worked in before.
- We don't really have many supplies. Currently we're waiting for the books for the kids so I have to write everything up on the board and they have to copy everything so the lessons take a lot longer than they should. But hopefully I will be getting the books on Tuesday! I'm also teaching the K4-6th grade music with no curriculum... that's fun. This week I taught them some warm-up songs, the notes of the scales, the Solfege hand signs... depends on the age what songs or how much I teach them, but all the kids seem to really enjoy music so I hope I can keep their interest for the year! I should be getting curriculum next week- it will be all be in Spanish but I think I'll be able to understand enough to get lessons planned out.
- The kids all just call me 'miss' so all day long I hear, "Miss! Can you check this? Miss! I finished!"
- My schedule is to wake up at 5:30/5:45, walk the 20 minutes to school, get my classroom in order, have a full day, sometimes I stay and plan until 4/5 and then we'll walk home, make supper, read or work on some curriculum, goof around with the girls and then we head to bed around 8! It's ridiculous but it's actually been pretty relaxing and refreshing.
-First week was wonderful, I felt a little bit homesick this week but for the most part I have been having an absolutely beautiful time.

oh, a lot of people have been wondering about my address. You can send me letters or packages if you really want but it's pretty iffy on whether or not it will get here in any decent amount of time but I won't complain if you do!

Laura Beth Vander Ploeg
Guancascos
Gracias, Lempira
Honduras

Wish me luck on the second week! Hopefully I can get some materials for the kids!