Here are some pictures for you!
Also if you want to check out the blog, the link is www.studentsoftheworld2013.wordpress.com It is kind of a mess because I am not very good at creating blogs, but it gets the job done!
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
That was fun!
For the past few months, Jill's class has been apart of my blog Students of the World 2013. Our kids have been chatting back and forth, asking questions, and talking about culture. Well today the Gods were on our side and we were able to Skype. The power was on at Chikumbuso, the internet connection was really strong, and my kids remembered to be quiet when their friends were answering questions. It was so much fun!
Here are some pictures for you!
Here are some pictures for you!
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Guess What? I'LL BE HOME SOON!!!
HEY Y'ALL,
I just wanted to send out a little note with a quick update on my life!
First of all, I will be coming home April 15th for 3 WHOLE WEEKS!! My brother is getting married so I'm makin the trek to be there, and figured, whats a few extra days? It's so expensive anyways so I better make it worth it! I do have to take my Praxis again during the trip, so unfortunately the beginning of my trip will probably be spent studying. But I think I will be coming back to Zambia around 9th-13th is of May, I still haven't bought my ticket yet. So I was thinking that if you are all free Friday May 3rd or Sat May 4th, we could all get together, go out on the town and catch up!! If my flight back is later, then maybe we could do it the next weekend. I am trying to fill my time up with as much "friend time" as possible. On the 5th I do have a bridesmaids brunch for Nicoles wedding, so if we did it Sat, I would probably have to leave in the morning. But if we did it Friday we could hang out ALL DAY ;) Also there is a winery by my house, and I just found out that my mom can go and have a free tasting of all the wines with up to 6 people. So if anyone wants to make an additional day trip and catch up over wine, I would be SO down for that. I will happily skip studying for wine, especially nice wine, out of a wine glass overlooking the orchard!
Also, now is probably a good time to tell you all that I recently made the decision to stay on at Chikumbuso for another year. I really feel like a two year commitment is going to have the biggest impact on the school. Right now I have a bit of a pushback from the teachers because they know soon i'll be leaving so if they fake their way through it then I will be gone and they wont have to worry about it anymore. So I have spoken with the founder and we think that if they know I am here longer term then they will be more willing to work with me. Although, my role will change for next year. I will be more focused on teaching math in all the grades. We haven't figured out all the details yet, but that means that I will be holding some fundraisers and going around doing presentations to schools, rotary clubs, and churches looking for some moolah so that i'm not eating my arm next year. So if you know of anyone who may possibly be interested, please let me know!!
Anyways if I get to see all of you next month, then I can tell you all about it!! :)
Also another year means more time to save your money and come visit Zambia!! Just saying, its pretty awesome here. Chrissy will tell you soon ;)
Love you all! xoxo
-Carly
I just wanted to send out a little note with a quick update on my life!
First of all, I will be coming home April 15th for 3 WHOLE WEEKS!! My brother is getting married so I'm makin the trek to be there, and figured, whats a few extra days? It's so expensive anyways so I better make it worth it! I do have to take my Praxis again during the trip, so unfortunately the beginning of my trip will probably be spent studying. But I think I will be coming back to Zambia around 9th-13th is of May, I still haven't bought my ticket yet. So I was thinking that if you are all free Friday May 3rd or Sat May 4th, we could all get together, go out on the town and catch up!! If my flight back is later, then maybe we could do it the next weekend. I am trying to fill my time up with as much "friend time" as possible. On the 5th I do have a bridesmaids brunch for Nicoles wedding, so if we did it Sat, I would probably have to leave in the morning. But if we did it Friday we could hang out ALL DAY ;) Also there is a winery by my house, and I just found out that my mom can go and have a free tasting of all the wines with up to 6 people. So if anyone wants to make an additional day trip and catch up over wine, I would be SO down for that. I will happily skip studying for wine, especially nice wine, out of a wine glass overlooking the orchard!
Also, now is probably a good time to tell you all that I recently made the decision to stay on at Chikumbuso for another year. I really feel like a two year commitment is going to have the biggest impact on the school. Right now I have a bit of a pushback from the teachers because they know soon i'll be leaving so if they fake their way through it then I will be gone and they wont have to worry about it anymore. So I have spoken with the founder and we think that if they know I am here longer term then they will be more willing to work with me. Although, my role will change for next year. I will be more focused on teaching math in all the grades. We haven't figured out all the details yet, but that means that I will be holding some fundraisers and going around doing presentations to schools, rotary clubs, and churches looking for some moolah so that i'm not eating my arm next year. So if you know of anyone who may possibly be interested, please let me know!!
Anyways if I get to see all of you next month, then I can tell you all about it!! :)
Also another year means more time to save your money and come visit Zambia!! Just saying, its pretty awesome here. Chrissy will tell you soon ;)
Love you all! xoxo
-Carly
Friday, March 22, 2013
How to Avoid the Same Mistakes
Hey Gals,
Hope you are all surviving the March slump. I know I'm feeling it. But I'm really proud of each of us, and all the accomplishments we have made this year. I think it is important to take some time to think back on where we were in September as the year was just beginning.
I also can't believe that it is about time for me to start planning for next year already! I'm excited to make some changes and improve some of the challenges I had early on. But I also wanted to create a space for us to share ideas and strategies that worked for us in terms of planning, organization, and management.
I've been focusing on organization this month and I've been debating the merits of a thematically organized binder system or a chronological monthly or quarterly system. What do you guys use to organize curriculum and your lesson materials? Any other systems that you've found to be successful?
And I've also been thinking about how to organize my weekly handouts and worksheets. I think I want to try and have them organized in 5 baskets, one for each day of the week, but I don't have that set up yet. Do you have any other systems that work well for you all?
And lastly in terms of organization, I've been thinking about organizing my daily schedule. I find that my students struggle a lot in the afternoons, so I'm thinking of moving silent reading to that time period just to give them some chill out reading time. What "challenge" time blocks do you guys have and how have you been planning to tackle them?
Three ideas I had that I am excited to try out (and wanted to share with you all) is an individual homework log, behavior sheets, and enrichment block. Currently my missed homework log is just organized by date, with a mess of students, and if I want to see how many assignments a particular student has missed, I have go back and find them and count them all, but next year I want to keep them all in one binder, but each student will have their own sheet to record their misses. This will give me a quick at a glance snapshot of how many homeworks one student has missed. I also want to have a behavior log, where right after students change their card, they have to fill out a one page paper, saying what they were doing and what they will change, this will also give me a quick record of what behavior issues we are having. And the third idea is to schedule a once a week "enrichment" block, where students can work mostly independently or if I need to see a small group of students I can work with them. This will also give me a flexible block where if I need to have a make up science lesson I can do that. My last idea is one I got from a third grade teacher here. She has skills packets of things that she doesn't teach, but the students just have to know and they work on them at random times (like when the teacher is so frustrated she can't continue, or when they finish early, or when they are between units) So I'm trying to gather some ideas, and I thought we could all use each other as a resource.
Hope you are all surviving the March slump. I know I'm feeling it. But I'm really proud of each of us, and all the accomplishments we have made this year. I think it is important to take some time to think back on where we were in September as the year was just beginning.
I also can't believe that it is about time for me to start planning for next year already! I'm excited to make some changes and improve some of the challenges I had early on. But I also wanted to create a space for us to share ideas and strategies that worked for us in terms of planning, organization, and management.
I've been focusing on organization this month and I've been debating the merits of a thematically organized binder system or a chronological monthly or quarterly system. What do you guys use to organize curriculum and your lesson materials? Any other systems that you've found to be successful?
And I've also been thinking about how to organize my weekly handouts and worksheets. I think I want to try and have them organized in 5 baskets, one for each day of the week, but I don't have that set up yet. Do you have any other systems that work well for you all?
And lastly in terms of organization, I've been thinking about organizing my daily schedule. I find that my students struggle a lot in the afternoons, so I'm thinking of moving silent reading to that time period just to give them some chill out reading time. What "challenge" time blocks do you guys have and how have you been planning to tackle them?
Three ideas I had that I am excited to try out (and wanted to share with you all) is an individual homework log, behavior sheets, and enrichment block. Currently my missed homework log is just organized by date, with a mess of students, and if I want to see how many assignments a particular student has missed, I have go back and find them and count them all, but next year I want to keep them all in one binder, but each student will have their own sheet to record their misses. This will give me a quick at a glance snapshot of how many homeworks one student has missed. I also want to have a behavior log, where right after students change their card, they have to fill out a one page paper, saying what they were doing and what they will change, this will also give me a quick record of what behavior issues we are having. And the third idea is to schedule a once a week "enrichment" block, where students can work mostly independently or if I need to see a small group of students I can work with them. This will also give me a flexible block where if I need to have a make up science lesson I can do that. My last idea is one I got from a third grade teacher here. She has skills packets of things that she doesn't teach, but the students just have to know and they work on them at random times (like when the teacher is so frustrated she can't continue, or when they finish early, or when they are between units) So I'm trying to gather some ideas, and I thought we could all use each other as a resource.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Something to Make You Giggle :)
Hi everyone, Happy Tuesday!
Some of you may have seen this already but I just found the funniest interview Mila Kunis did with a BBC Radio interviewer for Oz The Great and Powerful. He is hilarious!!! Plus he references a ton of British things that made me nostalgic.
Here it is!
Hope everyone is doing well - miss and love ya lots!!
Chrissy
Some of you may have seen this already but I just found the funniest interview Mila Kunis did with a BBC Radio interviewer for Oz The Great and Powerful. He is hilarious!!! Plus he references a ton of British things that made me nostalgic.
Here it is!
Hope everyone is doing well - miss and love ya lots!!
Chrissy
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