Child's Play... or Rather Work

Well was a very busy week like predicted. I started my placement on Monday. Was placed in a year 5 and 6 split (in Canada grades 4/5). Was pretty good first couple days. I had to teach an art lesson within my first hour of being in the classroom (my associate taught it to half the class, and then I had to repeat it for the other half when they returned from a different period block).

Second day we went on a field trip to teachers college! What an exotic destination I have to say... Seriously I went on a field trip with my kids class to MY skool. The reason is the class I'm with has a communication exchange going with a Japanese class, and the college facilitates the video conferencing. It was actually very cool to watch.

The trip back to the kids school was interesting though. I was responsible for the bulk of kids in the rental van as the vice Principal had driven the remainder in his car. While I was in the back of the shuttle van tightening kids seat belts, the driver suddenly decided he had another fair to get too, and ordered the kids to shut the back door. I meanwhile was still in the back dealing with the seat belts with no empty seat for me. Suddenly the driver takes off leaving me to hang onto the "oh shit" handles. I was NOT impressed. Not only was I unsafe the whole trip, but I was role modelling bad driving practise on my first week in class!!!

After that it was on to the rest of my week of lectures and classes. Lots of homework to be had.

However with them MOSTLY out of the way (I'm taking a short break from them right now) me and my friend Scott hammered away at the children's picture book we've been working on for the last month. Here for the first time is a sample of our work from The Sunny Side of the Hill

Keep you post on this project as it comes along. It's about 55% done at moment, and is mostly being held up by the fact me and Scott have a lot of homework weekly, and that it takes me about an hour per picture like this.

Upcoming stuff for me: tomorrow I'm going on a fishing trip with Scott south of Dunedin. This will mark the first time I've been out of town since I got here! The day after that I'm back in the classroom on placement, but only for an hour, as we are going to CAMP!

Meaning it might be a few days before I get a post up, but will be good when I do finally get back! So stay tuned mid week!