Week 18: Work and Toledo

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This week has been very relaxed compared to last week. Monday I woke up and headed to work. My days at work are nearly always the same but Monday was a bit different. The morning started off with pulling out 2nd graders for two hours and then reading journals in 5th grade. After patio the day got switched around. In Spain most schools celebrate Peace Day. My school was supposed to celebrate on Friday but it was raining so they postponed it until Monday. The whole school lined up and headed outside. We had music playing and the students were dancing and then the 1st graders went up front and sang a peace song. It was so adorable. Afterwards the 6th graders came up individually and read peace poems that they had written. When that was all finished we played more music, the students sang along and we celebrated the day. It was great 😊. After school I had another surprise. Rather than a normal Monday lunch with the teachers we had another gourmet meal prepared for a goodbye lunch for the ceramics teacher that had retired the year before. It was so good! By the time the party was over it was time for my first class so I headed to Marco’s house. He is still a little sick but much better now. We spent the class playing with cars, coloring pictures and finally after much pushing I got him to complete some English work book pages. It was such a successful lesson. After his lesson I headed to Ignacio’s house where we played an English flashcard game and a word game that I printed off that involved actions. He had a ton of fun with the games but he really hates to lose, and tries to cheat a lot so he won’t. After our lesson I caught the bus back to Madrid and to bed.

Tuesday morning I pulled out the 2nd graders again; trying to get them to describe their parents. Tuesday was our meeting time so we worked for a few minutes assigning each grade one of the auxiliaries to work on Valentines. I will be doing second grade. I meeting only took 15 minutes so for the rest of the hour I ran to the bank to pay my rent and then finished the hour on the computers. After Patio I headed to 5th grade for a full afternoon where I spent the first hour pulling out groups to work on comparatives and superlatives, and the second hour brainstorming ideas for science experiments with Monica. After school Sandy and I headed off to San Agustin for tutoring and visited a bit before heading to our classes. I started off at the sister’s house and it was one of the worst classes I have had with them in a long time. I had brought games and scenarios to act out and they were so hyper they couldn’t sit still and kept fighting with each other. So then I took them outside, in hopes to burn off some of that energy, but they continued to fight, until the younger one got hurt. So then we went back upstairs and the older sister stopped participating. So the mother had the younger sister and I work on a practice English exam for the one she will take in May. Finally it was time to head out so I went to Lidia’s house and spent the hour and a half working on verb conjugations. We went through all the different ways to conjugate and made a list of when to use each and examples of each. When I finished up there I headed to Nacho’s house and spent the hour completing science and English homework that he didn’t understand. After his lesson I headed back to Miguel’s house and worked on his English homework. We ended up finishing early so we spent the rest of the hour playing word games I brought with me. After my lesson I headed to the bus to get back to Madrid, where I waited…and waited…and waited some more. The bus finally showed up at 845, a half an hour behind schedule. By the time I made it back to Madrid it was 10 at night. I was pretty tired and headed to bed.

Wednesday was a very relaxing day. I got up and spent the morning pulling out 2nd graders and grading science exams for 5th grade. Today was my short day so after patio I only had 45 more minutes with 2nd grade, however, a Spanish teacher needed a document translated into English so I went to the computer lab and translated it for her in place of my class. When I was finished I caught the bus back to Madrid where I spent the afternoon relaxing, doing laundry, starting my blog, and uploading pictures to facebook.

Thursday was once again another long day. I woke up and headed into work where I pulled out 2nd graders, read journals and pulled out 5th graders and then relaxed during patio. My 3rd grade class was canceled so I spent the class printing off games for my lessons that night and then headed off to 1st grade to end the day. In first grade we went through the daily routines and then played some more animal bingo. After class was over I caught the bus to San Agustin and headed to my 2nd graders lesson. We spent our hour completing science book work and then a practice quiz for their test the next day. After their lesson I headed to Lidia’s where we spent an hour writing a composition on vegetarians and the last half an hour working on conjugating future tense verbs. After her lesson I headed to my two sisters house. Today I pretty much worked with the younger one. The older sister only wanted to play video games so the younger sister and I worked on her power point presentation about energy. When the class finished I headed to Miguel’s lesson. We worked on science; unfortunately he needed more than the hour lesson to complete it. He had tons of homework and a study guide to complete and we hardly made a dent in it. After his lesson I caught the bus back to Madrid (which arrived on time😊) and got ready for bed.

Friday was a very different day for me. Next week I will be going to Dublin so I will be missing a Wednesday and Thursday of work. I got up early and headed to school to make up for one of the days I will be missing. I spent the morning with 2nd graders pulling them out and then headed to 5th grade. Today I got to help in citizenship, which I have never done before. The students wrote an essay and I walked around translating words for them that they didn’t know in English. It was a lot of fun, because I learned a few new words in the process. After that I tried to go the 3rd grade but once again they were taking a test so I spent the hour on the computer and then headed to 1st grade to finish my day. In first grade Sergio had the students draw animals and write their names while I cut out and painted egg cartons to make lady bugs for next week’s craft. The class flew by really quickly and I caught the bus back to Madrid. Unfortunately it was Friday so there was tons of traffic and it took forever to get back into the city. I spent my evening reading about Dublin, researching the next trip I am taking and eating dinner with my roommates.

I had the intention of staying in Madrid this weekend, planning for my lessons and catching up on a lot of sleep but that didn’t happen 😊. A girl I met on the plane to Madrid back in September (the one who sat outside my apartment with me for 3 hours waiting for my roommates to show up) was visiting Madrid and I decided to spend the day with her in Toledo. I woke up bright and early and met her at one of the many bus depot’s to head to Toledo, unluckily we were at the wrong one so we had to get back on the metro and go to a different depot, missing the early bus by minutes. So we had to wait a half an hour for the next bus and then we were off. Upon arriving in Toledo we hiked up the hill and began our tour of the city. The city itself was very interesting. Everything was crammed together covered in tiles and cobbled streets; it was beautiful. We walked around, saw a few places like the cathedral and Monasteries, but only decided to head inside the San Juan Monastery. It was beautiful, with some really intricate works of marble, an upper level looking down into a garden with orange trees and so much art. After the monastery we went and found a place to eat Bocadillas (sandwiches) relaxed a bit before walking around the city. We walked around the old wall of the city, toured the many gardens and walked through numerous gates. Finally we decided to head down the hill and up the other side to an old bridge and castle. The castle has been refurnished into a hostel but we walked around the outside and got some great pictures of the city. Toledo is pretty small so we ended up finishing our trip pretty early in the afternoon. However the weather was unbelievable so we went to a park overlooking the river and sat and visited with each other. Finally when the sun was starting to set we took the hour long bus ride back to Madrid. It was such a relaxing trip and so nice to see her again.

Sunday has been a very relaxing day. I slept in nice and late and got up and finished my blog for last week (I have been procrastinating that for way to long 😊). Afterwards I headed outside (another beautiful day) and did a quick work out at the park. Regrettably I still had to plan my valentine’s lesson for next week so I couldn’t stay out all day. I spent the rest of my afternoon researching the history of Valentine’s Day and coming up with a craft that I will do with the 2nd graders. Afterwards I had dinner with my roommates and then wrote this blog. It was a very productive day.

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Photos

Toledo
Me