Another School day

July 27th

Before school today all of the stage 1 (1st and 2nd grade) teachers got together to share some ideas, which I thought was great! I think it is important to collaborate and pass on ideas you have to one another rather than just locking yourself up in your own little classroom with your own students.
As the students started to make their way into the classroom one of them presented me with a very colorful  card that they made for me! I love when I get stuff like this :)First thing we did as usual was our reading groups. However, I must admit, I kicked some butt playing a homophone memory game with my reading group today haha. I've still got it! I remember mom use to hate playing that game with me ! After that they moved on to their Phonics routine, which I admit I find a bit odd. The teacher holds flashcards up with various phonemes and they all "chant" together the different sounds that it can make and then sometimes even say the number of letters it is to clarify things such as "f" and "ph". Definitely a new method that I'm not familiar with.

They also have this think called "sip and crunch". It is a designated time in class when the students are go get out fruits and/or veggies with water or juice while they work; in our class they get read to during this time. I guess this is to promote healthy eating? These kids also have scripture inlcuded into their schedule, which I found to be a bit of a surprise since this is a public school. The students get split up into groups based on their religion and those who don't have one or theirs isn't offered go to a room that is for non-scripture where they are just given busy work.

After school we headed to the mall so Jill could find some crafty items for the art projects the kids are working on. While she did that Katie and I headed to the bookstore to see if we could find some books with Australian authors. No such luck there but I did find a really cute book about fall that I'm really excited about for some reason. There falls here aren't the same as ours, even though it's winter a majority of their trees still have their leaves on them.

For dinner, Katie and I got to experience our first meat pie. I must admit I was a little nervous to try something called a meat pie, but it actually wasn't too bad! It seemed to me to basically be a pie filled with sloppy joe stuff. I told Jill this and she looked at me funny wondering what exactly as sloppy joe was. I guess here they call sweatshirts without hoods "sloppy joes" haha. I can see how this might be a little confusing. After dinner Katie and I decided it would be a good idea to go downstairs by the fireplace (its actually warm here!!) and do the hw that we had due that night and Sunday since we probably wouldn't have much time to do it the rest of the week.