Little ones

Here are the 4 year olds that have pre-school in the mornings. (Three year olds come in the afternoon). Miss Max, is their teacher and she is just out of high school, not even 18 yet. This is the first year for a preschool at Santa Teresa and about 40% of the children ages three and four come. Ms Max is impressed with how much her four year olds have learned already this year. After my first visit in the classroom, I thought I would be helping with creating learning centers, but to my surprise the room was transformed already. One thing we can work on is story time. I hope we can get some big books or maybe even make some!

Here are the Infant 1 and 2 children. Mr. Coh is their teacher and has been teaching for six years. I loved how they started their day when I was in their classroom, with a song, of course. "Hello _____, Hello ______. It's so nice to see you again. With a 1 and a 2 and a how do you do? It's so nice to see you again." What a great way to feel you belong. I think we need to remind each other more often how it really is nice to see them. I was surprised by how they all wanted me to check their work and was glad they weren't as scared of me as the preschoolers were. We'll just say I have a few new best friends that like to draw me pictures and walk me home.
And here are the Standard 1 students. Mr. Perez is my most experienced teacher besides the principal, I believe and I can tell. He uses many great strategies and wasn't about to have me simply observe. He kept asking what I was going to do while in his classroom and wondered if I knew any phonics games we could play. The only thing I could think of off the top of my head was to sing the I like to eat apples and bananas song. This was a hit! Before we sang it though, I asked the class for the vowels and vowel sounds. When I asked what word made the long a sound, they all said, "Miss Amy!" I also started some diagnostic reading assesments with this group and will continue with the rest when I get back from Belmopan. Most of the students were reading at a pre-primer level and even the ones who read better could only comprehend the primer passage. I look forward to seeing improvements as I spend more time here.