Guam- Jet Lag & Cool School Week 1
I can say I have officially lived on an island (well, for 2 weeks anyways :). Guam is just beautiful! It's crazy to think that even though we're out in the middle of ocean on the other side of the world, we still have brothers and sisters in Christ that worship the same amazing God!
If you ever wondered what jet lag is, let me tell you— extreme tiredness and confusion about... the time of day, when you should be hungry, and what is going on in life in general. My first two days here seem really foggy even though we were running around going to all the meetings of the world and meeting tons of new people. I'm really glad they kept us so busy because it forced us to get adjusted to the schedule quickly :)
Our first goal was to prepare and plan for Cool School which started the Monday after we got here! We developed a whole curriculum for each grade we are teaching and prepped our classrooms for all the students of the world! Guam is quite the melting pot of ethnic groups and people. In my class alone, I have students from Japan, Taiwan, Russia, China, and Korea in addition to the students who are just from Guam or surrounding islands.
On Monday, I had 12 students come! And two of them did not speak English... I quickly learned to use my hands to "talk" as much as possible :) The best part of week 1 was when my two non-English students discovered that they both spoke Japanese! At least they could talk to each other :)
Overall, we had a great first week of K5! Since I just finished the school year with my Kindergarten class in MN, I was mentally prepared for students who had finished kindergarten but I remembered quickly that kindergarteners start out as K4 students in a kindergarten classroom :) We are slowly working our way through the alphabet, letter by letter and practicing writing each letter. I forgot how much time it takes when they are just learning how to hold their pencils, let alone write anything down on paper :)
Here's a picture of my first Cool School class on Guam!
If you ever wondered what jet lag is, let me tell you— extreme tiredness and confusion about... the time of day, when you should be hungry, and what is going on in life in general. My first two days here seem really foggy even though we were running around going to all the meetings of the world and meeting tons of new people. I'm really glad they kept us so busy because it forced us to get adjusted to the schedule quickly :)
Our first goal was to prepare and plan for Cool School which started the Monday after we got here! We developed a whole curriculum for each grade we are teaching and prepped our classrooms for all the students of the world! Guam is quite the melting pot of ethnic groups and people. In my class alone, I have students from Japan, Taiwan, Russia, China, and Korea in addition to the students who are just from Guam or surrounding islands.
On Monday, I had 12 students come! And two of them did not speak English... I quickly learned to use my hands to "talk" as much as possible :) The best part of week 1 was when my two non-English students discovered that they both spoke Japanese! At least they could talk to each other :)
Overall, we had a great first week of K5! Since I just finished the school year with my Kindergarten class in MN, I was mentally prepared for students who had finished kindergarten but I remembered quickly that kindergarteners start out as K4 students in a kindergarten classroom :) We are slowly working our way through the alphabet, letter by letter and practicing writing each letter. I forgot how much time it takes when they are just learning how to hold their pencils, let alone write anything down on paper :)
Here's a picture of my first Cool School class on Guam!
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