Going to the granja

This week we took our pre-kinder class to the farm. It was a perfect part of our creation unit- God created animals. This was my second time to the farm and both times I have fully enjoyed seeing all the animals with my students. Here are some highlights-

Taking off on in the van

Petting and feeding a sheep!

Taking a walk

Milking a cow

Tasting the milk

Being silly with the cow

Gathering seeds

Dirty hands

Feeding the ostrich

Blow dryer can be so entertaining

Petting the dog!

Sleepy head!

Professional development workshops

This weekend I had the honor of traveling to the neighboring city of Villavicencio to teach professional development workshops to around 15 preschool teachers from Christian schools. “Preschool” is considered pre-jardin (4 years old or preschool), jardin (5 years old or kindergarten) and transicion (6 years old or first grade.)

I traveled with my teacher aide and the kinder teacher. We had a great time sharing ideas, discussing the importance of discipline and routines as well as making materials to take back to the classroom.

Our first session was on using common materials as learning tools. We gave the participants eggs cartons, paperclips and brads to make spinners and straws. Here are some of their creative ideas!

A boat with numbers to put counters into.

Matching shapes

Straws to make numbers for simple equations.

A crocodile with a mouth for more than and less than… or inside and outside.

Making pictures with different sized straws.

Part of this adventure was teaching a workshop for around 120 parents where we focused on working with the heart of the student, not just their behavior. We used the book “Shepherding a Child’s Heart” as the basis of our talk. During the parent workshop we shared strategies for understanding small children and helping them make good choices. We emphasized the consistency and discipline is very important.

Parent workshop- I’m speaking and my aide is translating (She’s a rock star!)

Saturday morning we went to look around at a Christian school in the area. It was fun to see the classrooms and environments the teachers in our workshops work in.

The Kinder room at one school.

 

The first grade room.

We ate some delicious food! Talk about a plate of meat!

Here’s the school that hosted our classes.

The second session we spent time discussion classroom routines and gave tips to help their days go smoother. We also taught a few songs in English. The last activity was making big books to use in the classroom.  They made books about creation, animals, the alphabet, time, friendship and several other creative ideas.

The kinder teacher and I kicking back.

My teacher aide and I loving some sandwich!

Over all this was a great experience. I was able to grow in my Spanish, as well as gained many ideas from other teachers for activities in the classroom. I was reminded how blessed I am to work in a Christian school where our values are the same. I hope the teachers involved were blessed through this time of learning and sharing!

Creation unit #1

For the first quarter of school we decided to learn all about creation and the wonderful things God created. Each week we have been focusing on a day a creation and learning about the specific things God created on that day. It’s been fun to see students engage with the world and explore all the wonderful things God created. It’s been 4 weeks now and here are some of the highlights:

 

Each week we have learned about a color. Our first week was yellow for light and dark. Look at all that yellow!

When we learned about day two we finger painted with mud. Some were very excited, while others were not so sure…

We learned about sun moon and stars and we drew with sidewalk chalk outside!

My favorite part of this unit so far has been the growing mural in the font of the class. Each week we add to our mural. This is at the end of day four and we have: light and dark, water above and water below. Land and plants. Sun, moon and stars. I am so excited to see the final project!!!

Staff retreat!

“So the last will be first and the first will be last.” Matthew 20:8

This year our school is focusing on service and will be unpacking this idea with students from PreKinder-12th grade throughout the year. However, before we can teach students we as staff must begin to understand as well.

This past weekend, Ed and I joined about 80 other staff members for a spiritual retreat. We headed out of Bogota on a two five hour bus ride (thank you construction zone!) to a small town. There we relaxed, played in the pool, and were challenged to understand God’s command of service at a deeper level.

One of the things that stood out to me most was the understanding that in order to serve, we must know who we are- sons and daughters of God. We looked at Jesus’ life and focused on the fact that in order for Jesus to be the ultimate servant (who died on the cross) he had to know that he was the son of God and that his Father had a purpose in his life on earth. In order for us to be able to really serve others, we must be focused on the Father and our relationship with him.

Besides teaching and learning- we also got to play a bit too. One of the highlights was seeing the collaboration of groups as we all wrote and performed songs outlining what we learned about service. Our group parroted the “We will rock you” song and switched it up to “we will serve you”. Ed and two of his groupies rocked it and now are considered rock stars in the ECA staff world.

We are excited about Colombia!

Just a little fighting...

And a lot of eating!

As well as rock starring

and naturizing

and maybe a little goofy-izing!