Day Two of Teaching: May 21

    The second day of teaching I began to loose my voice. The kids were so excited they were cheering and yelling for the majority of our lessons and I definitely had to say “silencio por favor” or silence please, more than once. Alexis and I had our Aboriginal people of Canada lesson all ready, we were teaching them about those who lived in British Columbia (who fished and built totem poles) and the Inuit in the Arctic, and the Plains people (with Tipis and who hunted Buffalo with bows and arrows). I had a lovely book from Chapters that had beautiful pictures of Canada's aboriginal people and their history. After that portion of the lesson, we then showed them dream catchers and finished off with braiding bracelets (each kid was given some cute beads as well to add to their bracelet). Unfortunately though, Alexis wasn’t feeling well so she left after the first lesson to go to the doctors and it turned out she had an ear infection :( poor thing. But luckily, because some of the classes were out doing sports, I had some of my fellow Brock teachers helping me out, which was awesome since Alexis and I did not realize how much time it would take to prep the bracelets the kids would be braiding. So, as I did the first part of the lesson, others helped cut the yarn and tied three strings together. The kids loved seeing pictures of Canada’s aboriginal people, but the one that shocked and amazed them the most was the picture of an Igloo. They could not believe people lived in an “casa hielo” or ice house, they couldn’t imagine how cold it would be. I had to laugh since they have never seen snow and they thought that it was amazing ... I don’t think I could say the same ... hahaha. Later on, Nicole told me how much they really liked the lesson and that warmed my heart, for Nicole said that after the lesson, kids were running up to her asking if she had any more books about Canada.
    It was also really cute to watch the kids trying to braid their bracelets. But what was really beautiful was how they helped each other. One little girl really understood the concept and quickly finished her braid. After, she went around and helped her classmates with theirs. Alexis then told me she saw the young girl collecting all the little ends of the bracelets we had had cut after we tied the finished product around their wrists, and after she had these little pieces, she began tying them together so that she could continue braiding. Alexis was so moved she prepped a few bracelets for the young girl and snuck them into her backpack.
    I was so glad to have such a helpful translator with me for this lesson since there was a lot to describe. For the first lesson, I was trying to explain how dreams catchers worked (since Alexis had gathered a whole bunch of them as donations for the trip and we were leaving eight dream catchers for each classroom). Yet, I was unable to explain what I wished to say with my limited Spanish. But, the next lesson, the translator was amazing and when she described how the dream catchers trap bad dreams so you can have good ones, their eyes lit up and they began hold the dream catchers above each others heads while the others pretended to sleep so they could catch all the bad dreams. It was adorable. After a few lesson, I had a group of kids from the previous class run up to me all upset, I wondered why and they explained that I had forgot my dream catchers in their classroom and they had brought them back to me. I smiled and carefully explained that they were for the class to keep forever and thanked them for being so helpful though. What cuties!
      My throat was feeling very sore that day after having to lead a lot of the lesson, so when we got back from teaching and had some free time, I went to Starbucks and nursed my Vanilla Latte while updating my travel notes. It was quite relaxing. I then showered and got ready for dinner.
Since many of us were tired and feeling a little groggy due to early mornings and climate changes, Raoul thought it we should have the night off. So, Ashley and I did a little bit of lesson planning. Afterward, we were going to watch a movie, Pay it Forward, but unfortunately the DVD wasn't working. But that did not stop us. We thought it was quite fitting to watch "The Emperor's New Groove". We popcorn and chocolate and definitely had a few laughs. Then it was bedtime, and boy was I glad lol.