I really do try to post more often, but the thing is the internet isn't so kind to me. Sometimes I have enough patience to spend an hour trying to load one page, but other times 5 minutes and I give up! Sometimes it takes only two tries and I accomplish something. Other times it takes weeks to complete a task. I had found a sweet spot to sit in that received excellent signal most of the time (except for trying to upload videos...), it was such a sweet spot that if I moved just six inches one way or the other I would complete loose signal. Now in the past two weeks I have run into two issues: That spot is in direct sunlight so it's beastly hot AND it doesn't seem to be receiving such great signal anymore.
Being honest, I've mostly reverted to the stone age of handwriting my drafts for everything! If I don't write it down then it doesn't happen. By the time I get signal to work I generally forget things even if I do have them written down because I get so frustrated. For the first time in my teaching career my lesson plans are handwritten instead of typewritten! I should probably scan them and to save them, but oh well. I am glad I've had more than 5 years of practice teaching so that I'm not as dependent on doing research because I don't even have a team of teachers to check in with unless I have internet!
With the beginning of April the kids finished the school year and I got to attend several closing ceremonies and experienced many firsts. Catholic mass at a public university graduation. Watching parents get to process with their graduates into the room. Seeing proud parents given the opportunity to publicly don their children with the awards they have just received. Many group songs and dances. I even had the opportunity to be the "proud parent" for one of the young men in the compound as he was awarded honors for high marks and participating in Boy Scouts of the Philippines.
With school being out the kids are also around a lot more. It got me to thinking and so this week we started some new classes just for the summer months. The first is simply an hour class to come and play word games. I have Scrabble, Bananagrams, and Quiddler to start. We also had word searches and played hangman. I will be doing some research to find more games as well... feel free to share if you have ideas.
A second option for the summer is the idea of pen pals. I will take a month or so this summer to teach the idea and give them practice. We will cover the basics of what writing a letter takes as well as what is appropriate to share and ask. After this I will need help from my sponsors to match students here with people back in the US. If you are interested please e-mail me for more details at: juagdanenglish@gmail.com
I also recruited two of the young people to help teach the little kids. They will meet twice a week and cover basic English and Visayan for things like colors, shapes, parts of the body, and animals. The first class we a hit and they ended up spending two hours together instead of my expected one!
Tomorrow I will be spending a day at a higher elevation in which I hope to be able to post more pictures... be on the look out! (Again, being honest it might take two weeks even though I already know which pictures I want to post!)
Hope you had a blessed Holy Week. Kristos Anesti! Alithos Anesti! Our Savior Reigns on High!
