Teaching English in SPM, Dominican Republic: Ice Cream and Cake

Well, my adult education class is starting out slowly. I have one student who has come to class, but she's very happy to have individual lessons. Two other woman are signed up, but one can only come when she doesn't have night secretarial school and the other's son is sick, so she's been home with him this week. I'll announce the class in church on Sunday and once word gets around, I'm sure I'll have more interest. I'll post more about it when there is more to report!

My 3rd graders are a little unruly sometimes, and with 30 kids in the class, I'm always a little nervous what I will encounter when I teach them. I've been working very hard to have structured lessons that include some time to sing (which they love, but they can get out of hand with this if we sing for too long), to draw (which works well with them except that when some finish early, they goof off waiting for the others to finish), speaking and repeating their English vocabulary, and taking notes in their notebooks (which is always very short). Yesterday, we started colors and they colored ice cream scoops in different colors that I will put together into 2 giant ice cream cones, one with the colored scoops labled in English and an identical one with the scoops labled in Spanish so that they can see and read the colors in both languages. We'll mount the cones on the wall after we talk about them and go over them more in class tomorrow. They'll also learn a song about the colors, though they're sad we haven't been singing "This Old Man" anymore, so we might sing that too! Even though they are a challenge, they rush to greet me with hugs and high fives and they love my class, and many of them are now experts at the alphabet and the numbers 1-20 in English.

My 3rd grade class working on a color project

The kids here go to school 1/2 days. They are either assigned to morning or afternoon sessions, so there are always kids out of school during the day with little to do. There are a bunch of girls who have afternoon school that help their mom's with work around Centro Buen Pastor, and when I'm between classes, they come and visit me. They like to sing songs from school and talk to me about what they are learning in class, but they especially like to write and draw. I always have paper with me, which they don't have a lot of access to. Sometimes they write things like their names or their siblings names, other times they draw pictures of houses. Last time, the oldest one practiced her math tables and was proud to show me how much she knew. They also have me write on their papers with comments, smiley faces, and "100"s. I think we're basically playing school. I'm probably going to go to the school library and borrow some books in Spanish that I can read to them, because kids here aren't read to often at all, and they probably don't own any books of their own to read.

"Visitors" in the CBP office who come to draw with me

This week was Angelito's 10th birthday. He is my friend Teresa's son and his dad is one of the teachers at Centro Buen Pastor. We had dinner of hamburgers to celebrate and I made the cake. His parents gave him a basketball which he's been asking for ever since they put up the new basketball hoop at the school. It was a fun evening and he was really happy and emotional about having a special meal in his honor. He actually cried as he was blowing out the candles because he was so excited.

Angelito with his new basketball and
his sister Angelita

Angelito blowing out his birthday candles

The dogs, cats, and I are getting along well at the convent. The dogs love me and they love that I pet them while I'm on the computer or watching TV. The cats aren't sure if they trust me yet, but we've got a routine around feeding time and they're starting to nuzzle up to me more. Most of the time, they are sleeping on the beds in the front room, and generally enjoying life.