Friday, February 17, 2012

A Not So Typical Week at OLM

It has been such a busy, crazy, fun week here at OLM! On Tuesday we celebrated Valentine's Day AND the 100th day of school, then on Thursday we celebrated the Carnaval Ball AND Ms. Cruz's birthday. The students have been so wound up and wild, but so excited about being at school.

The students exchanged the valentines that they had made with me and the valentines that they had made with Ms. Souza. The students randomly picked the name of the friend who would be receiving their valetine to avoid people being fiesty about who they were sending their card to. "You get what you get, and you don't throw a fit." The students are all at the point in their lives where the girls think that the boys are gross and the boys think that the girls have cooties. So it was super funny to watch the some of the kids exchange valentines and squirm when they had to give each other a hug.

In the afternoon, the students had a "100 Day Exhibition". They had brought in a collection of 100 something-- balloons, stamps, coins, whatever, and then counted them out on their desks for everyone to see. We brought various teachers into the classroom to ooh and ahh over the kids' collections. They also made 100 day hats which had ten rows of ten different items on them. Some of them really hated it, but some didn't really want to take them off.

They also had to bring in 100 of a certain food, so we had 100 Bis, 100 brigadero, 100 jelly beans, 100 chips, 100 of some sort of Argentinian candy. 100 stomachaches. But seriously, it was so fun. The kids and the teachers all loved it.

Yesterday was the Carnaval ball, and wow, let me tell you. That was crazy. I had absolutely no idea what to expect. The kids brought in costumes and changed after lunch. It was basically just a wild Halloween party. They dressed up as princesses, superheroes, Jasmine, Woody, soccer players, hula girls, anything. Each kid got a GIANT bag of confetti to throw down in the cafeteria.
Brittany, Vivi, and I at the Carnaval Ball.
We marched on downstairs and into the cafeteria. They had a sound system hooked up and played music really loudly while everyone danced around and threw confetti. It was SO FUN! It's so awesome to see the kids out of their "typical" element, just letting loose and having fun. It's been moments like this that have really allowed me to connect with my students so well, so quickly.

That ended in a nice faceful of confetti. Thanks, love.
After the Carnaval Ball, we trekked back upstairs (bringing loads of confetti with us, which I'm sure the cleaning ladies loved) for Ms. Cruz's birthday. The kids all thought that it was a surprise, but Ms. Cruz actually knew it was happening and just acted surprised. Again, SOOO much food! More brigadero, cake, ice cream, cookies, chips, candy. A child's heaven.

Carnaval Ball.
This week was wild and crazy and hectic, but so much fun. It's been a good experience in how a change in the daily schedule can affect the students and what the teacher wants to teach. It's also been fantastic experiencing another culture and how to teach the students about their own culture-- especially when Carnaval is such a huge part of Brazilian culture.

No comments:

Post a Comment