When I was student teaching I had a student call me Mrs. Van Poaf all the time and I thought that was probably the funniest mis-speak I would here of my name but that was before I taught at a school where English is not the students first language. Since I teach all the music classes, I have a lot more students that are able to mess it up- here's a few of my favorites!
Miss Wee-Pee
Miss Pepe
Miss Vedder Floog
Miss Bludder Blue
cute huh? :) and these aren't just how they say them, I get cards all the time with my name written out :)
Speaking of cards....
This week my kids have been crazy. I think it has something to do with not having school on Monday, but I'm too tired from my own weekend at the Copan Ruins (I'll put pictures up later) that I didn't want to deal with it! I got really annoyed with my kids during a Language lesson on apostrophes because they weren't listening and half of them kept trying to get up and wander around the classroom. So, I did the whole teacher/mom thing- I put my plans away, sat down at my desk and started reading my book. The kids were absolutely silent and kept looking at me. I looked up and said, "Oh you guys don't want to learn today? That's fine, you can just talk, I'm going to read my book." (ha I love being a teacher... just not at that moment!) A couple girls said they wanted to learn and one even brought up her book and asked me to explain it to her :) I got up after a couple minutes and we spent the rest of the class period discussing why it's important to be a good student and respect the teacher/other classmates, etc. It was pretty fun. At the end of the period, I had about 12 students hand in cards that they had made while I was lecturing them telling them they were sorry for not paying attention during class. Slightly ironic and funny but I appreciated it :) I suppose they were a little better today, but I don't see them too much on Wednesdays so we'll see how tomorrow goes! :)
One thing I love about my job and the kids is how trusting they are and how they assume that since I'm their teacher, I will make everything better. My class is pretty relaxed for the most part, but the last couple weeks I've had five different students cry and they come to me for help. It's so sweet and I just love it.
Not much else to say. Things are great! I will try very hard to put some pictures up soon!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
21 de octubre
Well, today is the first time I forgot to bring the key to my classroom to school. Two months of responsibility! That's a record! Don't you even worry, the office had a spare. :) Just some updates...
We didn't have school on Thursday last week because the national Honduras futbol team won their game on Wednesday which qualified them to go to the Mundial (World Cup). They have only gone one other time in 1982ish and so it's a really big deal (obviously- they practically declared it a national holiday and no one went to work or school!). So, that was fun but the kids have been CRAZY ever since. I actually had a pretty tough week with them because they've started getting a little snotty... I know, I shouldn't complain... it's sixth grade which is like automatic-snottiness year but my class has been so good for me so far! This week though, they've started muttering things under their breath (usually in Spanish. cute.) or rolling their eyes or not staying seated and talking all through my lessons. So, that's been fun to deal with. Oh well. I guess that's what I get for wanting to be a teacher. :)
We have a three day weekend this weekend so us teachers are going to go to the Copan Ruins. These are some Mayan ruins about four hours from us so I'm really excited. It will be a nice chance to relax before things start getting crazy. We have first quarter grades due in a couple weeks as well as a Tipica Fiesta to plan. I won't write too much about that right now because I'm sure I'll have more to say when it's over, but basically we all dress in typical Honduran clothes, sell food and have a program. They've been pulling kids out of my classroom for about two weeks now to learn the dance so... they better be good! :)
Just some other random things that I always think to put in a blog but never have a reason to- I don't think I've talked about them before but if I have, sorry :)
~ everyone here loves Michael Jackson. I was working on a language lesson on proper nouns and asked the students for some famous people, thinking they would list some futbol players or a president or something- first person? Michael Jackson. Boys are also constantly showing us that they can do the moonwalk- Eduardo is a third grader that likes to moonwalk down the bus aisle when we ride into town with them!
~ We use peanut butter in everything at our house. Cereal, stir-fry, on our favorite Intenso cookies, sprinkles and coconut, leftover birthday cake, leftover Chinese, pancakes, on a spoon with chocolate frosting from a can... seriously everything. It's funny. and a little sad haha
~ We come to Guancascos every week to use the internet. There's always really loud music playing, and the last few times of coming, the Spanish version of "Piano Man" has been playing. Reminds me of home...
~ I realized after a few weeks of coming that all the games I brought to play are not very good for inviting our Spanish speaking neighbors over to play- Scrabble, Taboo, Scattegories... all games that include a great deal of English language knowledge. I brought Twister too but... haven't used it yet. Luckily, there were some Uno (that means One! :)) cards left at the house so we've used those as well as regular playing cards
~ I don't know if I've talked about our shower yet but we have a hot (electric) shower... slightly dangerous sounding but not as bad as having to take cold showers. We had a mini debate with the Honduran teachers this week about if hot or cold showers are better. Us spoiled Americans decided we would rather go dirty than take a cold shower and the Honduran teachers insisted that they would always choose a cold shower over hot. I might try it one of these days but... probably not :)
~ Speaking of hot showers, they've been much needed on these 'freezing' cold days. It was about 60 the other day- I think the coldest it gets here in the mountains is 45. The kids came to school wearing three layers, hats, gloves, and complained all day how cold it was while I stood in the front of the classroom sweating :)
I put some pictures up on facebook- some are repeats of pictures on here, but if you'd like to look, feel free! :) Well, I don't have much else to add. Thanks for reading!
LB
We didn't have school on Thursday last week because the national Honduras futbol team won their game on Wednesday which qualified them to go to the Mundial (World Cup). They have only gone one other time in 1982ish and so it's a really big deal (obviously- they practically declared it a national holiday and no one went to work or school!). So, that was fun but the kids have been CRAZY ever since. I actually had a pretty tough week with them because they've started getting a little snotty... I know, I shouldn't complain... it's sixth grade which is like automatic-snottiness year but my class has been so good for me so far! This week though, they've started muttering things under their breath (usually in Spanish. cute.) or rolling their eyes or not staying seated and talking all through my lessons. So, that's been fun to deal with. Oh well. I guess that's what I get for wanting to be a teacher. :)
We have a three day weekend this weekend so us teachers are going to go to the Copan Ruins. These are some Mayan ruins about four hours from us so I'm really excited. It will be a nice chance to relax before things start getting crazy. We have first quarter grades due in a couple weeks as well as a Tipica Fiesta to plan. I won't write too much about that right now because I'm sure I'll have more to say when it's over, but basically we all dress in typical Honduran clothes, sell food and have a program. They've been pulling kids out of my classroom for about two weeks now to learn the dance so... they better be good! :)
Just some other random things that I always think to put in a blog but never have a reason to- I don't think I've talked about them before but if I have, sorry :)
~ everyone here loves Michael Jackson. I was working on a language lesson on proper nouns and asked the students for some famous people, thinking they would list some futbol players or a president or something- first person? Michael Jackson. Boys are also constantly showing us that they can do the moonwalk- Eduardo is a third grader that likes to moonwalk down the bus aisle when we ride into town with them!
~ We use peanut butter in everything at our house. Cereal, stir-fry, on our favorite Intenso cookies, sprinkles and coconut, leftover birthday cake, leftover Chinese, pancakes, on a spoon with chocolate frosting from a can... seriously everything. It's funny. and a little sad haha
~ We come to Guancascos every week to use the internet. There's always really loud music playing, and the last few times of coming, the Spanish version of "Piano Man" has been playing. Reminds me of home...
~ I realized after a few weeks of coming that all the games I brought to play are not very good for inviting our Spanish speaking neighbors over to play- Scrabble, Taboo, Scattegories... all games that include a great deal of English language knowledge. I brought Twister too but... haven't used it yet. Luckily, there were some Uno (that means One! :)) cards left at the house so we've used those as well as regular playing cards
~ I don't know if I've talked about our shower yet but we have a hot (electric) shower... slightly dangerous sounding but not as bad as having to take cold showers. We had a mini debate with the Honduran teachers this week about if hot or cold showers are better. Us spoiled Americans decided we would rather go dirty than take a cold shower and the Honduran teachers insisted that they would always choose a cold shower over hot. I might try it one of these days but... probably not :)
~ Speaking of hot showers, they've been much needed on these 'freezing' cold days. It was about 60 the other day- I think the coldest it gets here in the mountains is 45. The kids came to school wearing three layers, hats, gloves, and complained all day how cold it was while I stood in the front of the classroom sweating :)
I put some pictures up on facebook- some are repeats of pictures on here, but if you'd like to look, feel free! :) Well, I don't have much else to add. Thanks for reading!
LB
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Things have been really good lately. I haven't written because there hasn't been anything special and new that's gone on, so sorry! Let's see, what can I talk about today....
Our friend Kirsty moved up to Villa Verde! She has been living in Gracias, but decided to live in the mountains when she realized how much fun we have up there. :) It's been really fun to have her hanging out in our house every night, eating supper with us, visiting our neighbors and coming to church with us.
I'll talk about church a little bit. There's a little, tiny church near our house that all our neighbors go to. They have services three times a week, but we only go on Sundays. Service is at 7 pm so that's a little different. I think there are about 20 people that attend when we are there. The 'sanctuary' is one room with some cut-out, white letters reading "Cristo les ama" (Jesus loves you!). There's also a couple random crepe flowers hanging from the ceiling, a verse written on the stage, and a big pile of wood with more crepe flowers sticking out of it. There's a few benches without backs and some plastic chairs to sit in. So! Not much to look at, but obviously that's not the point of church so I don't mind! Our neighbors are so kind to us and get so excited when we show up for church each week. The service begins with some singing, people sharing songs, and one or two people giving a testimony. Every Sunday, the congregation refuses to let the service continue until us teachers get up and do a little musical number. :) We always sing in English, but we try to sing slow, pretty songs so they at least feel our emotion! Maybe one of these days we'll actually sing in Spanish. :) The singing is my favorite. I don't know most of the songs and they don't have any hymnals, overhead projectors, or slips of paper with the words on them, so I just have to listen and watch, but that's usually enough. There was one week that the 'pastor' (Don Luis- he was also our guide when we hiked in Celaque) was practically doing an Irish jig across the stage because he was so excited. His granddaughter, Abi, (who's 3, I've talked about her before) decided to mimic him, but with her sweater pulled over her head. She fell into the pile of wood and crepe flowers :) That's another thing about the service. Little children are running around the entire time. One night, a cat came. There were seriously 6 kids up at the front of the church yelling, "Gatito!" through the sermon. :) Lots of different people give the sermons. If it's one of the older men giving the sermon, it's pretty hard for me to understand them, but I can still follow along with the passage and get the gist.
I love the atmosphere of the neighborhood, but of all the things from the United States, church is one of the only things that I feel I don't get enough of here. I've been spending a lot of time reading through my journal of notes from sermons this summer at the DTC or Westchester or from my devotions and that has helped. :)
Anyway, life is great. Yesterday, we were cleaning up our house and found a billion ants had decided to make a stop in our garbage, so we made a bonfire and burned a bunch of trash. That was fun. :) We were a little nervous we'd end up burning down the entire national park but! it's still there!
Well, that's about all for now. Honduras lost against the US 3-2, but they play El Salvador tonight so I'm hoping for a win. In case anyone's keeping track at home, BRONCOS ARE STILL UNDEFEATED!!! OH! Also, Jacki's friends are coming from the US tomorrow so not only is that exciting, but they're bringing seasons 1-5 of The Office. Now all I need is for my friends and family to move here and I'll be set for life ;)
Que pase una buena semana! (Have a good week!)
Our friend Kirsty moved up to Villa Verde! She has been living in Gracias, but decided to live in the mountains when she realized how much fun we have up there. :) It's been really fun to have her hanging out in our house every night, eating supper with us, visiting our neighbors and coming to church with us.
I'll talk about church a little bit. There's a little, tiny church near our house that all our neighbors go to. They have services three times a week, but we only go on Sundays. Service is at 7 pm so that's a little different. I think there are about 20 people that attend when we are there. The 'sanctuary' is one room with some cut-out, white letters reading "Cristo les ama" (Jesus loves you!). There's also a couple random crepe flowers hanging from the ceiling, a verse written on the stage, and a big pile of wood with more crepe flowers sticking out of it. There's a few benches without backs and some plastic chairs to sit in. So! Not much to look at, but obviously that's not the point of church so I don't mind! Our neighbors are so kind to us and get so excited when we show up for church each week. The service begins with some singing, people sharing songs, and one or two people giving a testimony. Every Sunday, the congregation refuses to let the service continue until us teachers get up and do a little musical number. :) We always sing in English, but we try to sing slow, pretty songs so they at least feel our emotion! Maybe one of these days we'll actually sing in Spanish. :) The singing is my favorite. I don't know most of the songs and they don't have any hymnals, overhead projectors, or slips of paper with the words on them, so I just have to listen and watch, but that's usually enough. There was one week that the 'pastor' (Don Luis- he was also our guide when we hiked in Celaque) was practically doing an Irish jig across the stage because he was so excited. His granddaughter, Abi, (who's 3, I've talked about her before) decided to mimic him, but with her sweater pulled over her head. She fell into the pile of wood and crepe flowers :) That's another thing about the service. Little children are running around the entire time. One night, a cat came. There were seriously 6 kids up at the front of the church yelling, "Gatito!" through the sermon. :) Lots of different people give the sermons. If it's one of the older men giving the sermon, it's pretty hard for me to understand them, but I can still follow along with the passage and get the gist.
I love the atmosphere of the neighborhood, but of all the things from the United States, church is one of the only things that I feel I don't get enough of here. I've been spending a lot of time reading through my journal of notes from sermons this summer at the DTC or Westchester or from my devotions and that has helped. :)
Anyway, life is great. Yesterday, we were cleaning up our house and found a billion ants had decided to make a stop in our garbage, so we made a bonfire and burned a bunch of trash. That was fun. :) We were a little nervous we'd end up burning down the entire national park but! it's still there!
Well, that's about all for now. Honduras lost against the US 3-2, but they play El Salvador tonight so I'm hoping for a win. In case anyone's keeping track at home, BRONCOS ARE STILL UNDEFEATED!!! OH! Also, Jacki's friends are coming from the US tomorrow so not only is that exciting, but they're bringing seasons 1-5 of The Office. Now all I need is for my friends and family to move here and I'll be set for life ;)
Que pase una buena semana! (Have a good week!)
Friday, October 2, 2009
a little bit of this, a little bit of that (a pot, a pan, a broom, a hat)
Not much has happened since Sunday other than the usual happenings of Honduras, so I thought I'd use this blog for random thoughts and tidbits of information!
Funny things my kids say:
~ Today I was talking about human beings and my student Mario (seriously the biggest troublemaker, but I can't be mad at him! Dumb :)) thought that I said human bean, so he held up his pointer finger and thumb to be about the size of bean for clarification.
~ We had a language test where I had the students copy sentences from the board and underline subjects and verbs. Sentence: Jesus and His disciples went up the mountain and prayed. Sentence about a third of my students wrote?: Jesus and His disciples went up the mountain and PLAYED.
~ The kids in my class are obsessed with the idea that I'm in love with Noel Valledares, the portero (goal keeper) from the Honduras futbol team. Examples of how it's brought up?
1. The other day I was doing a long division problem on the board and messed it up and the kids said, "Miss, you are confusing us. Who are you thinking about that you can't concentrate on math? NOEL???"
2. My entire birthday was full of, "Just wait until Noel comes, he will sweep you off your feet and say, 'Miss Vander Ploeg, you are beautiful, I will take you to all my games for good luck.' "
3. One boy brought in a picture of Noel for me to hang on my wall (which, of course, I did).
4. One day I was talking with our PE teacher Mr. Bran, and Edith (the girl that instigated all this Noel stuff in the first place) said, "Miss VP, are you cheating on Noel???"
~ Love is seriously in the air at Abundant Life Christian Schools. We've had about 4 student couples show up this week in 4th through 6th grade. One started in my class this morning. Hernan (air-nahn) apparently asked Eunice (ay-ooh-nees-ay) yesterday who she liked and she wrote on a piece of paper that she liked him (precious!). She ran up to me with a bunch of girls this morning and told me all about it. THEN (sixth grade drama) Hernan showed her note to all the boys in class. She was super embarassed and hid her face for about one and a half class periods. I asked her how things were going at lunch and she didn't seem to shaken up so... we'll see how it all unfolds!
~ I have a picture of my family on my desk from a few years ago in front of a mountain in Colorado. My two cousins are with us and my kids come up all the time and just sit and stare at my family and talk about how beautiful they are (true :)). More importantly though, every single one of them wants me to bring Zuzu to Honduras and give her to them. (This picture was taken before we had Bailey, so I hope she doesn't get her feelings hurt :))
Interesting things since leaving the United States
~ I have watched tv three times- once at a Chinese restaurant in Gracias- a Spanish soap opera that was ridiculously enthralling; on our Tela/beach vacation- we watched all kinds of music videos (excuse me Shakira, SheWolf! - is that popular at home??), an episode of One Tree Hill (for any 2nd East girls/Shayla... none of the other girls had seen it before and they were seriously all on the edge of their seats- remember the episode where Nathan and Haley get married and Cooper drives the car off the bridge with that 17 year old and Nathan and Lucas jump in? .... yeah. that was the episode :)), and an episode of Friday Night Lights! ahh... television
~ I haven't looked in a full-length mirror once. I don't think they don't exist here. Apparently I look great though, no one has said anything to the contrary :)
~ Power goes out all the time here. This week we had the power out for two days at both our house and the school. This means no hot water, no lights (bedtime usually gets bumped up to 7ish), no bell at school (someone blows a whistle), and we don't have a copier (reason I was writing the Jesus sentence test on the board in the first place)
hm... well I can't think of any others at the moment. Fun huh?
Funny things my kids say:
~ Today I was talking about human beings and my student Mario (seriously the biggest troublemaker, but I can't be mad at him! Dumb :)) thought that I said human bean, so he held up his pointer finger and thumb to be about the size of bean for clarification.
~ We had a language test where I had the students copy sentences from the board and underline subjects and verbs. Sentence: Jesus and His disciples went up the mountain and prayed. Sentence about a third of my students wrote?: Jesus and His disciples went up the mountain and PLAYED.
~ The kids in my class are obsessed with the idea that I'm in love with Noel Valledares, the portero (goal keeper) from the Honduras futbol team. Examples of how it's brought up?
1. The other day I was doing a long division problem on the board and messed it up and the kids said, "Miss, you are confusing us. Who are you thinking about that you can't concentrate on math? NOEL???"
2. My entire birthday was full of, "Just wait until Noel comes, he will sweep you off your feet and say, 'Miss Vander Ploeg, you are beautiful, I will take you to all my games for good luck.' "
3. One boy brought in a picture of Noel for me to hang on my wall (which, of course, I did).
4. One day I was talking with our PE teacher Mr. Bran, and Edith (the girl that instigated all this Noel stuff in the first place) said, "Miss VP, are you cheating on Noel???"
~ Love is seriously in the air at Abundant Life Christian Schools. We've had about 4 student couples show up this week in 4th through 6th grade. One started in my class this morning. Hernan (air-nahn) apparently asked Eunice (ay-ooh-nees-ay) yesterday who she liked and she wrote on a piece of paper that she liked him (precious!). She ran up to me with a bunch of girls this morning and told me all about it. THEN (sixth grade drama) Hernan showed her note to all the boys in class. She was super embarassed and hid her face for about one and a half class periods. I asked her how things were going at lunch and she didn't seem to shaken up so... we'll see how it all unfolds!
~ I have a picture of my family on my desk from a few years ago in front of a mountain in Colorado. My two cousins are with us and my kids come up all the time and just sit and stare at my family and talk about how beautiful they are (true :)). More importantly though, every single one of them wants me to bring Zuzu to Honduras and give her to them. (This picture was taken before we had Bailey, so I hope she doesn't get her feelings hurt :))
Interesting things since leaving the United States
~ I have watched tv three times- once at a Chinese restaurant in Gracias- a Spanish soap opera that was ridiculously enthralling; on our Tela/beach vacation- we watched all kinds of music videos (excuse me Shakira, SheWolf! - is that popular at home??), an episode of One Tree Hill (for any 2nd East girls/Shayla... none of the other girls had seen it before and they were seriously all on the edge of their seats- remember the episode where Nathan and Haley get married and Cooper drives the car off the bridge with that 17 year old and Nathan and Lucas jump in? .... yeah. that was the episode :)), and an episode of Friday Night Lights! ahh... television
~ I haven't looked in a full-length mirror once. I don't think they don't exist here. Apparently I look great though, no one has said anything to the contrary :)
~ Power goes out all the time here. This week we had the power out for two days at both our house and the school. This means no hot water, no lights (bedtime usually gets bumped up to 7ish), no bell at school (someone blows a whistle), and we don't have a copier (reason I was writing the Jesus sentence test on the board in the first place)
hm... well I can't think of any others at the moment. Fun huh?
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