Week 2 of Our Summer Placement

This past week was a bit crazy for me between my lingering (and incredibly annoying) cold, the trips, and the weather. I felt like I was floating in the clouds due to being congested, and my ears were effected by my constant nose-blowing, so I was more off balance than I normally am.

On Monday we met in the morning to discuss and divide up the trips and other at La Casa after Deb spoke to Hazel on the groups behalf. It was nice to have a trip schedule in front of us because this allowed us to compare the schedule at La Casa with the schedules we have at our individual NPS placements. We were able to assign ourselves trips at both programs, making sure that we were able to spend an equatable amount of time at each placement. We were also able to inform our lead teachers of the days we would not be able to go to our NPS placements due to trips with the students as La Casa.

Chamara, Keshia, Joanne, and I worked together to teach 4A and 4B two of the finance lessons in our curriculum. It has been difficult to find days where both classes were in the classroom for an extended period of time, so we took full advantage of our luck Monday morning. Not all of the students were thrilled to participate in another finance lesson, but with all four of us in the classroom, we were able to circulate around the room, keep the students focused, and answer any questions that they had about the material. It was not a perfect lesson (when are they ever?), but using our combined efforts, knowledge, and experience, I think we were successful as a teaching team. Later in the week, we were able to combine our efforts again to complete two more lessons with our group.

After speaking with Hazel on Tuesday morning, I fixed one of the bookcases in the library. (We noticed that the children like to push the books back into the bookcase making them harder to get, so I decided to create two stacks inside the bookcase, using the extra copies of the books.) I also took some construction paper home to work on letters and accents for a sign Hazel asked me to create for the PJ Party. (With all of the trips, surprise guests [like the Girl Scouts], curriculum lessons, etc. it has been hard finding time to create decorations for next week’s party with the students. However, we were able to find a bunch of decorations from previous years that we will be able to use next Friday.) 

On Friday, Keshia and I were able to help Hazel out with some of her paper/administration work, which will speed along money deposits and hopefully allow Hazel to purchase more supplies and equipment for the students at La Casa. 

This week I had the opportunity to speak with Hazel less formally than I was able to last week. She was very friendly, open, and personable. I believe that during our first week at La Casa she may have been under a lot of stress and had a variety of items to work with and around -including the presence of the ten of us- which can account for her seemingly less-welcoming mood/attitude last week. I am glad that things have calmed down a bit and that I was able to have more social/personal interactions with her.

This week at Abington I found out some interesting information about the Summer Program.... The students are allowed to sign in and out of the program throughout the course of the day if their parents checked a box allowing this on their registration form. While there is a minimum age requirement for the program (7) there is no maximum age, so anyone from the neighborhood can sign up for the Summer Program. So far we have had people in their 20s and one man who is older than that (I’m not sure of his age, but he likes to play basketball with the kids). Also, it was brought to my attention that some of the children are taught to lie about their age to allow them into the program. (We have a few students who go to different schools in the area, but come to Abington’s program.)

Through conversations with other cohort members, I learned that not everyone had received supplies and sports equipment yet. When we received our second delivery of supplies this week, I asked our lead teacher how the process worked, and she told me that our site was bumped to the top of the list because one of the security guards knows the person in charge of supplies. While at first I was confused by the lack of connection between the materials given to us, I am now very grateful that we have materials at all for the children. Even so, Deb wound up going to the craft store to purchase special string to make friendship bracelets with the students for Arts & Crafts. Throughout the week, we also used the stretch string, beads, and feathers to make headbands with the children. The stretch string is hard to work with, but the children were surprisingly patient and worked hard on their headbands. Our lead teacher wants to use them for the play the students will be putting on about the Native Americans in August.

This week the students went to various Sports Camps for volleyball, basketball, and lacrosse. Their golf day was cancelled due to the rain. Speaking of rain, this week’s weather was nuts between the intense heat early in the week and the drizzling then pouring rain. The students are not allowed in the school building during the Summer Program, but they were allowed in the tiny gym during the rain!?!?! While some students chose to continue to play baseball during the showers, most of them were stuffed into the gym, so Deb, Chamara, and I took some of them into the cafeteria to continue to create our headbands, while Joe supervised/played with the children in the gym.

  

Despite the chaos, it was another successful week at La Casa and Abington Elementary. Now onto my craziest week yet! (Well, first I’m going to use this weekend to kick my lingering cold’s butt.)