Summer School

So, I'm finished teaching at my first ever summer school.  It was fun because they were elementary students and they can get pretty excited about small things.  Each day I was with the students from noon until three in the afternoon.  The first forty minutes we ate lunch and played outside. 

Here we are in the cafeteria eating lunch.  It was bring your own lunch.  

The thirty or so students were divided into three groups, mostly arranged by their ages.  We did a rotation between Art, Computers and Activities.  After about forty-five minutes, the groups rotated, so the students who were in Art moved to the Computers, those in Computers moved to Activities, and those in Activities moved to Art.  I was in charge of the activities.  Here are my supplies I used.  

Hula Hoops, first aid kit, skipping ropes (or jump ropes), rubber ball, hakki sacks, sidewalk chalk, and emergency contacts info. 

Puzzles of all kinds.  

I had puzzles for indoor activities and the other supplies were for outdoor games.  It turned out that Monday and Tuesday were quite warm out, reaching up to 30C with about 80% humidity.  Wednesday it turned out to be cooler, but it was quite windy out.  We still played games outside.  Thursday was a rainy day and did puzzles and some indoor games like ricki-tikki bear and duck, duck, goose.  

Here one group is doing the puzzles.  I had an excellent helper, Zach, who is in Japan visiting his parents for the summer.  He attends Redeemer University/College in Ancaster, Ontario.

This group was working on the raccoon puzzle.  They are sure concentrating.  

Friday ended up raining, but we spent about fifteen minutes outside playing hopscotch and the rest of the time was spent playing games in the mini-gym.
There is another week for these students, but I will be flying back to British Columbia next week.  Zach will be taking over the class.  It was a fun week and I think the students enjoyed it as well.  By the way, some of these students attend English as an Additional Language classes in the morning until lunchtime.  
After having collected jigsaw puzzles for me to use, Rita, a friend from CAJ, gave me this cute little puzzle.  It's  300 pieces, 10 cm x 21.5 cm.  I did the whole thing on my cutting board.  

 Do you see the little blue tweezers beside the box?  That was included with the puzzle.  I used it the whole time.  It was easier than using my fingers.  

I separated the pieces into edges and non-edges and used one of my plates to store the non-edges while I worked on putting the edges together, but otherwise it was all on my cutting board. 

There's my finger to give you some perspective.  

Here is the puzzle completed.  Sorry for the glare.  

One other new experience was driving.  I had been a bit apprehensive driving, but I realized just recently that I was so used to the left side now (only on bicycle), that being on the right seemed a bit awkward.  So, I was offered the opportunity to drive and did so on the expressway as well as some country type roads.  The biggest adjustment was hitting the wipers instead of the signal lights.  Yup, the windows were wiped a couple of extra times.  :)  

The next post will be from British Columbia!