Wrapping up quickly!

This weekend, I took a trip to Zihuatenejo, about four hours southeast of here, with a couple of friends I met through CCL. It was awesome to see the ocean, and I went parasailing, which was pretty adventurous of me. I also thought it was interesting to take in the more touristy culture of Mexico. The items in the markets seemed a lot different than what is sold in Morelian markets. Some of the things seemed to represent how Americans stereotypically represent Mexicans, and I could tell that they probably only sell these things to tourists. You’d probably never see a Mexican buy these items.

I did get plenty of sleep during the weekend, but I think I’m more beat than I thought. I took a huge nap after La Comida today, and I almost fell asleep for the night! That’s why this blog is rather late.

The students didn't do as well on the math exam as I had hoped. Quite a few failed or got lower passing grades. I think part of the challenge was that some students struggle with some basic math functions like multiplying and dividing. Therefore, even if they know the process for the harder problems that involve fractions, they mess up on the basic things. Miss Monica and I talked about this problem and plan on including some of the basic multiplication and division facts in the curriculum as a review to help the students. I also think some students were crunched for time. Some of them take a long time for math, and we were only able to give them 40 minutes on a math test with 35 problems. They haven't all learned how to pace themselves. Plus, it was apparent that some students simply hadn't studied what we reviewed, since some forgot how to do entire sections. Although I wish they would have done better, I at least learned some good lessons about how to prepare my future students for unit or bigger exams.

My time in Mexico and at Varmond is wrapping up soon. I’m in my second to last week! My main goals for the rest of my time at Varmond are to continue working on my rate of speech, keeping all students engaged and participating, and keeping the students active with additional activities when they finish early. I’m about a day or so behind in the curriculum, so I find myself wanting to talk quickly to cover things, but I still have to remind myself at times to slow down. I can usually tell when students are checked out and not participating; I just need to remember to continually keep an eye out for them, so that I’m continually re-engaging in some way. The students also continue to work at very diverse rates, so I need to continually have extra activities. The sudokus were popular, so I need to bring more of those to school, since they’re all gone now. I also need to better guage when to move on to the next content or let students keep working. I think part of this week for me is challenging just because I need to get back into a rhythm after exam week, and the students probably do, too.

Today was a little crazy, because we were coming off of a three day weekend, everyone wore normal clothes (green) for St. Patrick’s Day, and we had a huge scavenger hunt during everyone’s recess times. Students had to run around the school and match clues to teachers, coordinators, and staff. Students were coming to the door throughout the day in the middle of class to ask Miss Monica and me questions. It was fun, but it made for a crazier day. They also sold cucumbers, chips, and drinks at recess, and they turned the water in the water cooler green! Anyone who didn’t wear green to school was either pinched or painted green! All in all it was a fun day, but I am looking forward to a more normal week.

One cultural tid bit to close:
I’ve mentioned religion is a big part of the culture here before, but I’ve observed something else that is interesting. In many of the taxis and public buses, the drivers have rosaries hanging from the mirror, images of the Virgin Mary displayed, or huge stickers of Jesus on the backs of their seats, sometimes with a message. I think this is really interesting, because this would probably never be permitted in the U.S.

Exams Over...Phew!

Well…exam week is over. Exams went fairly well from what is already graded. Only a couple students failed in each subject. I have all the test administering procedures down pat now…clearing tables (desks) except for a pencil and eraser, being quiet during an exam, raising hands for questions, reading through instructions with students at the start, and announcing how much time has passed/how much time they have left. The exams made for a lot of grading this week! Miss Monica and I split the grading work. She told me that if I’d grade the compositions (all 55 of them, and all at least one page long), she’d do the others (since they’re mostly multiple choice, fill in the blank, etc.) The compositions took so much time to grade, and I still have some to finish this weekend. I’m trying to leave helpful comments for the students so that they can learn from their mistakes, and that’s taking a little longer to do. Next week, the students will be correcting their exams as homework. This is part of Miss Monica’s routine, since she said the students will not check the mistakes they made otherwise. This is probably true for many of them, so I think this is a good idea.

The reviews I did for the exams went well. I didn’t have a chance to include many of the games or fun ideas I had other than the grammar matching at the start of the week, but I at least tried to make the review guides interactive. For math, we went through the whole review guide as a class. I asked students to explain how to do problems and provide answers as we went along. I tried to keep an eye out for students that had dazed looks or were tuning out, so that I could draw them back into the class. Sometimes I called on them to ask them to help out on a problem or make sure to check for their understanding. This seemed to help. I also left plenty of time for questions and was really happy when students asked for more explanations. Near the end, I had students write problems on the board, and then the rest of the class raised their hand afterward if they agreed or disagreed with the answer. When they disagreed, I had them come up to change it. Throughout the review, I tried to acknowledge all of the answers and consider them even if they were wrong. Usually, if a student was wrong, I asked them to think again and correct their answer. This seemed to lead to better student understanding. I also tried to make sure everyone was participating by asking for new volunteers and having them work out a problem and raise their hand when they had an answer. I guess I’ll see if this review paid off when the grades are all calculated on Tuesday!

Overall in my student teaching experience here, I’ve found that I really do love teaching. I love those light bulb moments when something clicks for a student and times when the students are really excited to participate and all have their hands raised. I’m also finding ways to have fun and not take my teaching too seriously. For instance, when I make little mistakes in front of the students, I try to make light of it. I’ve also found ways to act just a little bit goofy in front of the students (like saying the spelling word “groan” as if I’m groaning…they always laugh when I do that). Sometimes, some of the students look at me funny to try to get me to laugh while I’m giving spelling words, so I just make goofy faces back at them. These little things make class just a bit more fun I think. I think the students know that I can handle a joke…because on Thursday, I had the first trick played on me!!! A student pulled out a pen and asked me to write my full name for her. Well, it was one of those clicky pens that shocks your hand when you try to click it before writing…haha. After trying it twice, I just looked at the student and shook my head with a smile. She got me. I went right back to teaching, and I think only a few students that had plotted the trick noticed what happened.

I think I have found a good balance between a little bit of goofiness and being authoritative. The students know that I can laugh, but I won’t let them get away with things. I can walk closer to them or stare them down with my stern teacher look for a few seconds, and when they notice me, they usually snap right back to work. They know that when I mean business, I mean business. I’ve already removed things from students when they’re coloring in class instead of reading along or paying attention, and I think they realize that I’m generally pretty fair. I think they respect me overall, which I’m really happy about.

I’ll close for now with some fun cultural bits:
---St. Patrick’s Day is not celebrated in Mexico (probably because there’s so few Irish people). We celebrate it at Varmond, because the principal is part Irish. (My coop. teacher thought it was so interesting when I told her about some of the ways it’s celebrated in the States…with the green river in Chicago, green drinks, and Shamrock Shakes at McDonald’s.)
---Flour tortillas are kind of rare here (even though that’s basically the only kind we have in the U.S.) Corn tortillas is the norm here (rare in the U.S.)
---The chocolate used in sweets (donuts, muffins, etc.) here is a lot less sweet than what we use in the U.S.

Exam Week...on the other side this time

Hello, all.  This is trimester exam week for the students at Varmond.  It's so interesting to be on the other end of giving big, important exams that are a big percent of the students grades!  I'm mostly doing review guides and administering exams.  So far, so good!  Overall, the students are doing decently.  To avoid situations in which the students could cheat, Miss Monica divide the class of 27 or 28 in half and put them in two different rooms with each of us watching a room full.  This allows them to all have their own table to work at.  The students are responding well and respecting my authority when I tell them that they need to be completely silent during exams unless they raise their hand and I come to talk with them.  So far, we haven't caught anyone cheating (and cheating has been an issue in 6th grade in a number of circumstances) on the exams, so I'm happy about that.  The reviews seem to be going fairly well, too.  I went through half of the math review guide that I wrote with each class.  I made sure to leave time for students to ask questions, and I was happy when I could tell a few of them were remembering things or relearning how to do them.  I learned that it was helpful to ask students how they solve the problems, since one student shared a method that they've used in Spanish before.  I encouraged them all to use it, since I figured it would be the most familiar method for them.  In grammar, I had time to fit in one fun matching game with subjects and verbs to compliment the review guide.  I'm hoping that helps them remember how to make subject-verb agreements.  I guess I'll find out tomorrow after the grammar exam!

In other exciting school news, my coop. teacher and I are helping to plan the Kermesse for St. Patrick's Day, which will be complete with a scavenger hunt.  Students will need to look for teachers that match obscure clues (e.g. I am the teacher who still has a baby tooth that never fell out!)  We have to come in green on Tuesday, and fortunately, I packed ONE green shirt for Mexico!

I'll close for now with some fun and random cultural things I learned:

• If you show up too early to a place (especially in the morning), they ask you, "¿Te caíste de tu cama?"  This means, "Did you fall out of your bed?"  Jaja (haha in Spanish)
• If you show up too late?...."¿Te pegaron tus sabanas?"  This means, "Did your bed sheets hit you?" as in did they cover you up and prevent you from getting out of bed?
• Here, and afilar (a sharpener) goes around the streets to go to people's homes and sharpen their knives!!  He plays a flute sound to let you know he's in your street, but superstition has it here that when you hear the flute sound, it's bad luck for your money.  Why?  I haven't a clue...but that's what my host fam. told me.

I hope the randomness of all that entertained you!  

Full Time Teaching :)

This is a fountain at the end of La Calle de Romance.  When I saw it from a distance, my first thought was that it was covered in snow!  Silly Caitlin, there's no snow in Mexico!!  When I got up close, I learned that it was all bubbles....how fun!  You can pick up some of them and play with them.  I saw one girl throw some at her boyfriend...haha.

This is La Calle de Romance, a little walk where couples can go.  It's too narrow for cars, so it's just for walking.

My first week of full time teaching went pretty well for the most part.  Since I write lesson plans to turn into the coordinator over a week before I actually teach them, I've found that I need to plan everything again to adjust to where we actually are in the curriculum.  Everything changes for my actual plan, and I've found it helpful to plan throughout the week before each day.  We always seem to be a bit behind, which seems to be common for the teachers at Varmond due to the constant volume of content to cover.  I finished up the main content from the February book and fit in time for some review this week, but we've yet to start the March book.  This is in part because this was a short week.  Varmond is hosting a huge fútbol (soccer) tournament this weekend (Thurs. afternoon through Sunday), so we had an early release on Thursday and no classes Friday.  Due to the short week, I was squeezing everything in as quickly as possible.  My cooperating teacher had a history review guide that the students needed to copy from the chalkboard (42 questions).  We did this over the course of three days, but it took a lot of time.  My cooperating teacher told me at the start of the week that we could do the same with my math review guide.  When I realized that there was no way the students would have time to copy my guide, I typed it up and had copies made to hand out.  I decided to look up some internet resources (websites with math games) to add to the guide as optional extra practice.  This was kind of fun to look up, and it's a way I can integrate technology a little bit more.  Technology is very, very minimal in the primary curriculum.  The students have a computer class, but the other classrooms are not equipped with any computers, overheads, etc.  They only have CD players to play the disks provided by AMCO.  The secondary students are required to all have laptops at school to use, but before 7th grade, the technological integration is minimal.

On Thursday of this week, I encountered a challenging classroom situation.  I found out that the Spanish teacher needed to be in a meeting during his class time.  My cooperating teacher asked me to go to their room and teach them in English, so we could use it as time to catch up on our Feb. book.  Well, the students were really confused to see me in their Spanish room, they all wanted to know where the Spanish teacher was, and they did not want to work from their English books during what should have been Spanish for them.  Nevertheless, they at least all sat down and took out their English books.  However, at least half the class was chatting with their neighbors and not paying much attention.  Despite my switching into Spanish to give directions and explain what was going on and telling them that I needed them to be quieter, they continued goofing around.  I think part of it was due to the unexpected situation and part due to the fact that we were working in Language Arts, a content section that is full of really hard workbook pages with unfamiliar words, difficult puzzles, and obscure references to American culture.  Sometimes I can't even figure out the answers to the questions in Language Arts.  Moreover, the students know they don't receive a grade in this content; they just have to fill out the pages in class when we go over them and sometimes as homework.  Few students understand the questions, so they aren't very fun activities.  This means there's really no intrinsic or extrinsic motivation for students to do these pages.  All in all, this made for a pretty crazy classroom.  I started removing 5 minutes of recess for students who were not paying attention, but this didn't help significantly.  They were just completely unmotivated, and I didn't know how to make these pages more interesting.  Looking back, I probably could have tried having time for team work or turned them into some kind of competition.  However, given no time to prepare to teach this extra class, I was just glad to get through it.  It was a good lesson for me, and hopefully the students will take me more seriously now, regardless of whether I'm teaching in the English classroom or another classroom.

Tomorrow I'm heading to Varmond to be a "Staff" person for the soccer tournament.  I think this will mainly consist of telling people where the bathrooms, food, fields, etc. are.   I hope I can also catch some of the games.  From what I've seen at recess, the students are quite skilled in soccer here!!  The rest of the weekend, I hope to see more places in Morelia.  There's some more sections of the Historic Central colony I want to check out.  Also, I borrowed the movie "P.D. Te Amo" (P.S. I love you) from my cooperating teacher, and Sonia and I plan to watch that at some point.  I haven't seen it in English, so I hope I can follow it all in Spanish.

I'll close with some more cultural tid bits:  

• A typical thing said at the end of a visit in the evening or before one goes to bed:  "Que descanses" ("That you rest")
• Calling (on the phone) during the main meal time, La Comida, is considered relatively acceptable (as opposed to our American culture in which it's rude to call during dinner). Since people know they can find someone at home during La Comida, they'll call then.  However, my family hasn't received many calls during our meal tim
• About 70% of Mexicans are diabetic...!!!  (I heard a Doctor give a presentation on diabetes tonight...more on that on Tuesday.)
• A lot of stored a more old fashioned (not sure if I've mentioned this before or not.)  Many smaller shops still have all the supplies in back.  You go to the counter and ask if they have something; if they do, they go look for it and find it for you.  Then they give you a receipt for the things you want to buy.  You take the slip to the cashier to pay for your purchase, get a stamp that says "PAGADO," and return this slip to the other clerk in order to pick up your purchase.  This can at times make for a longer shopping trip, especially if the clerk takes a while to find the item you want.

Time is sure MARCHing on

Haha...sorry for the pun.  That was a bad one.  I do feel like time is going quickly though.  I have just over 3 weeks left here...so hard to believe.

This is my first week completely in charge of the class, and it's going fairly well so far.  I'm realizing how challenging it is to keep the whole class active the whole time.  On Monday, I introduced a couple new things.  When I was looking for something to make a sound that I could use as a classroom management tool over the weekend, the only thing I could find was a baby rattle.  It doesn't look too much like a baby toy to me, so I figured I could at least try it.  It helps some, and I prefer it to shouting above the volume of the students.  I also introduced Sudoku puzzles and the 5 chapter books I brought along with me as things to read/do during extra time.  The students seemed very interested in these.  I also still have my "mail box" in which students can leave me notes.  There's a few students who seem to enjoy writing me notes as they wait after school.

Balancing time has been a bit of a challenge.  I'm just about done with the February book, and I need to start March.  I've also been squeezing in time for reviews for the English exams next week.  Today, I realized that most of the students didn't really understand the homework I assigned in grammar, which my cooperating teacher wants to count as a quiz.  I had to take time today to go back and explain the content again in a different way with more examples and ask the students to look back at their homework to make sure they did it correctly.  The students seemed to understand it better after this.  I think when I'm pressured to go quickly through the content, I take less time explaining content or checking for understanding.  I find it so hard to teach this way.  My cooperating teacher told me today that teachers at Varmond are always expected to cover content very quickly and perfectly while filling in all the pages, so they're always working under a certain level of stress from these high expectations.  I think high expectations are good, but there needs to be some wiggle room to allow for the needs of individuals.  Many times, I can tell that some students do not understand the content sufficiently based on their homework, grades, etc., but there's always very little time to go back and teach for mastery or allow individuals to re-do their work for better grades.

This week I'm mostly trying to get completely comfortable running the entire day and keeping everything moving along.  In the following several weeks, I want to figure out how to keep everything moving while making it more engaging.  I'm trying to at least include more student participation in a large class discussion format for now.  I can tell I need to vary my instructional methods more though, since some students look completely zoned out when they're just listening to lecture regarding content.

I'll close for today.  Here's a couple cultural tid bits:

• Baby showers here are called "Baby Showers," but with a Spanish pronunciation.  I went to my host cousin's this weekend, and it seems similar to ours...with games, food, all women, and gifts.
• If you ever come here, here's a couple basic things to know:  "Con permiso" (with permission) is used to pass by someone on the street or in a room or when getting off of public transportation.  "De nada" and "por nada" (the response to "Thank you") are interchangeable.  I first thought that people were saying "por nada" (for nothing) as in "Thanks for nothing"...as if they hadn't helped me.  Since this would be rude to say in the U.S., I was really confused...until I realized the two were the same.
• They eat pizza here, and it's pretty much made the same way.  BUT...ketchup is the condiment of choice. They pour it all over the top of their pizza slices before eating.  Ketchup packets even come inside the pizza box!  My host dad told me that pizza isn't pizza without ketchup.  I tried a slice like this.  It was okay, but I think I prefer my pizza plain.  

Challenges but Blessings...always

This is La Iglesia de San Diego.  (Church of St. Diego)  I went here for mass, and it is gorgeously decorated in gold over the whole inside.  Since they had a sign with a camera crossed off at the entrance, I didn't take a photo of the inside.  This is the church where my host parents were married....neat, huh?

This week seemed to fly.  I can't believe I have literally one month left.  This week was full of some challenges but also blessings.  The students in one of the classes were caught copying English homework from each other in another class, and my cooperating teacher reprimanded them by telling them that they will not be able to take the trimester exam.  This made me think about how I will handle this kind of situation when I have my own classroom and have to give consequences.  I'm not exactly sure what I would do, but I realize now that rules and consequences is something I need to give more thought to before setting up my own classroom some day.  This week was also challenging in that we are under pressure to finish the February book.  There are honestly too many pages in the book to cover in depth in one month to the extent that students will really understand the content.  Unfortunately, I think my math presentations will have to be cut.  My cooperating teacher told me that we'll likely only have enough time to share the answers.  I think I will have to adapt my original plan, and instead, maybe I can have students share their general problem solving strategies as a large class.  This won't allow everyone to share, but I'd rather do this than just share answers and move on.  I'm definitely learning how to be flexible with my lesson plans so that I can still follow the curriculum and school requirements.

Despite some of the challenges, I do enjoy teaching, and I feel like I'm getting better with time. One day this week, I gave the students a list of pages in their book to work on independently after I explained them.  I really enjoyed giving them work time, since it allowed me to circulate the classroom and help individuals or small groups with specific questions.  This is another way I've found that helps me differentiate.  Students can work at their own pace, are always active doing something, and I'm able to meet their individual needs through 1-1 conversations.  In one of my classes, I also realized that over half the class understood the math page we were doing well, but a chunk were still confused.  I set them to work on the page and pulled a semi-circle of students up to the board for further explanation.  I think this was really helpful, because just about everybody seemed to know how to do the math problems (multiplying decimals) when we were done.  The only tricky part about this independent work time is that I have to eventually pull everyone back together, so that we're on the same page.  Overall though, I think it made classroom management pretty easy.  Only near the end of the day did I have to remove them from partner work to go back to their own seats, since I could tell they were starting to get chatty and unfocused.  The students are responding well though.  When I have them move from teams to their own seats, I tend to include a countdown from 10 so that they move more efficiently and know that I'm serious.  So far, this seems to work well.

Next week, I'm moving on to full time teaching.  I'm excited to see what the week will bring!  I need to finish the Feb. book, start the March book, and do reviews for the trimester exams that start March 9th.  I think I'll learn a lot about time management and balancing priorities!!

This weekend, I'm going to be doing a bit more planning than normal, since I decided to take advantage of some cultural opportunities this week in the evening.  Wednesday night, I went to El Museo del Estado for a torito exposition.  I learned that they throw painted egg shells filled with confetti and closed with tissue paper at the torito and on top of each other's head as a way of celebrating.  My host aunt was so kind as to make sure I was able to have a head covered in confetti.  :) I saved a confetti filled egg, and I'm hoping I can travel with it uncracked back to the U.S.  in a small plastic box I have.  Thursday night, Sonia and I went to a concert at el Teatro José Rubén Romero.  It was a woodwind quintet playing classical music.  I was surprised that maybe only 40 or so people attended, and it was in this fairly decent size theater.  Maybe classical music isn't so popular here?  I learned from my host family that these places have cultural or music events like this EVERY Wed. and Thurs.!!  There's also a place that has cultural events on Fridays.  The best part about all of this?...Todo es gratis.  (Everything is free of charge!)  What a blessing it is to live within a 15 minute walk of all of these amazing cultural places and events that are generally free or very minimal costs!!  Moreover, I feel really blessed to have met Sonia and be able to share all these things with her.  Our host families often are busy with jobs, house chores, and their every day lives/responsibilities, so it helps that we can go out and explore the city together often.  We live 5 blocks away, have some basic things in common, and get along really well...what a blessing!  Plus, we can talk Spanish together at a rate that we both understand, but we're still learning new things, since we can share new vocab. that we picked up.  I feel very privileged to be here and be taking in all of the cultural experiences in addition to teaching.  Even when some days are hard, something good follows it and I am always, always surrounded by a lot of really great, caring people.

I'll close with some fun cultural tid bits.  I must say first though that some of these may just be the culture of my host family and not the culture of all Mexicans:

• Here, we put salt on fruit to cut the acid and prevent canchor sores (How intelligent, eh?)
• The people here seem to eat a lot more parts of the animal (and not just in sausage form!) One comida this week included tamales with entire shrimp inside (yes, the legs, heads, and shells).  I picked these parts off, but my host dad definitely ate the head.  My host brother ate out every part that was edible other than the shell. 
• I drank a really red water that had shreds of lettuce, orange slices, and peanuts in it.  At the end, I asked why it was so red.  I found out it was made with the juice from raw BEETS!  I do not like beets, but this water was actually pretty decent!  (I learned that it's just best if you try something and eat it all before asking what it is....best to avoid any preconceptions.)
• Chile and limón go on absolutely everything...meat, fruit, vegetables, and even french fries!
• Oh, this is all of Mexico:  PDA is not acceptable within the house.  That's why you see it all over the street and in parked cars.  My host mom told me that it's completely taboo for unmarried couples to be in a bedroom together at all and if you're really traditional (like my host grandma), it's completely taboo for unengaged couples to even be in each other's houses at all (even if it's just with the whole family for a meal, visiting, etc.!)  At night, couples will be outside the girl's front door saying good night or spending their more intimate time on park benches, quieter streets, or in vehicles.  This is pretty much the opposite of our culture in which the joke is always, "Get a room."  I think if there were a saying like that for here, it would be "Get a quiet street." However, it seems more acceptable to have PDA here.  Couples constantly walk the streets with the guy right behind the girl and his arms wrapped around her (as opposed to holding hands side by side).  Sooo interesting.  My "norm" is their oddity and vice versa.  Such is life.

Half way done...wow!

Well, I am now about half way through my time here, which I can hardly believe.  It is going very quickly!  So far, I feel like I've gained more confidence as a teacher, improved my Spanish, become part of a new family here, and learned a lot about the culture in Mexico, Morelia, and at Varmond.  I've also definitely had the opportunity to practice being flexible, open minded, and positive.  I find it kind of amazing that I feel pretty much at home here.  There are still times when I can't follow some Spanish conversations well or participate.  However, for the most part, I feel like I fit in here...not to the extent that I could live here indefinitely or for a very long period of time, but I know I'll miss the people, places, and culture here for sure.

Over the weekend, I went with my host family to Copándaro de Galeana, a small pueblo less than an hour away.  There was a Carnaval there which involved a "toro" (bull) parading around the city streets.  Don't worry...it was just men under an adorned, flashy bull costume.  A band came behind the toro to provide music (brass, drums, and woodwinds), and the toro stopped at assigned houses that provided drinks for the huge mass of people that were parading around the city with the toro.  When the parade stopped, there was a dance in the street with the toro.  I have some neat videos of this parade to share but am unfortunately experiencing some technical difficulties with my camera right now.  If I'm able to, I'll upload the video in another blog.  The Carnaval also entailed much of what we would think of as a carnival with rides (tilt-a-whirl, ferris wheel, etc.) and food vendors set up in the middle of the pueblo.  

Toros have been parading around Morelia since Saturday.  When someone pays them, they stop in the street, play music, and dance!  I've heard them pass by my house as late as 11p.m. when I'm trying to sleep!  It's a little crazy, but just part of the tradition here.  They have toros now, because they signify the bad.  They celebrate with them before Lent starts (like our Mardi Gras, except it's a 4 day event here!)

In the school, I'm doing most of the teaching this week, and I'll be completely on my own next week.  This week is a little crazy, because we're trying to finish up the February book with enough time to review before the standardized exams in the second week of March.  Some students are leaving for vacation and need to take parts of the exam early, so that makes things yet more interesting! 

One way I'm trying to keep the focus more on the process of learning while still completing all the pages is by turning all of the math word problems in the book (over 20 of them) into presentations.  I assigned a word problem to each student, I'll give them time to work on it in class/ask questions, and I'm going to have them present their problem to the class on either this Friday or Monday (or some on each day).  I found that this was a great way to differentiate.  I read through all the problems first so that I could assign problems according to students' ability levels.  I'm hoping this will allow all of the students to successfully complete the assignment of being able to explain the process of solving a math problem to their classmates.  I'm also using this as a way to get them talking in English more.  

Classroom management is going fairly well.  The students know that I'm watching them, and making eye contact and using physical proximity has continued to be helpful.  My only challenge now will be to bring them initially to attention at the start of a class or in the middle of an activity when there's more noise in the classroom.  I want to find something that makes a noise (like a stuffed animal or whistle) to use as a signal to start class, bring the class back from team work, etc.  I think I'll be making a little shopping adventure this week or weekend.

Okay, well I need to get ready for bed now.  I'm not sure how soon I'll be sleeping.  Two more toros just went by our house complete with bands.  (I've given up on early bedtimes during the Carnaval.)