Week Two Reflection

La Casa

Last week at La Casa was interesting.  I missed Monday due to one-on-one morning meeting.  Tuesday my class was on a trip.  I spent the day working on the closet and trying to get the sports bag together.  It was difficult to understand what Miss Hazel actually wanted me to do.  It was unclear whether there were multiple bags to be put together or just one bag that needed to be completed.  So I went spelunking in the closet to see what I could find.  It turned out there was one large sports bag that had a lot of stuff already in it.  Frisbees, wiffle bats, bases, some balls, and three of those fake things that make it look like a baseball is lodged in your car window(still in the package).  Not sure what those were for.  I also found in the closet a net ball bag that had the soccer balls.  The basketball were on a shelf.  Of course, all of these balls were flat.  I was informed there was a pump in the closet.  After another long search, I can vouch that there is no pump in the closet.  I'm thinking I might go buy a pump and donate it.  Evan also found the hockey equipment and we inventoried it.  It looked very pre-used.  

Later in the week, I got to work with Deb and Octavio with the Yearbook Committee.  That was lots of fun.  These kids really want to put this project together and use the cameras and video.  I also observed that they tended to lose focus after about 30 minutes(pun intended).

Abington

Last Tuesday, I was asked by Mr. Fernandez, one of the other teachers, to go on an afternoon trip with him to watch the kids.  It was a basketball camp.  He pitched by saying that it was air conditioned, but we'd get back to Abington around 4:30.  He had me at air conditioning.  We picked up a group of kids from First Ave school which is just west across Bloomfield Ave.  During the trip, I observed that our kids were much louder than the First Ave kids.  I had also observed this during the Lady Liberties trip.  Our kids were much louder than the group we shared the bus with.  Anyway, we went to Shabazz for the camp.  It was a long trip but I found myself recalling locations from the scavenger hunt.  The bus drivers for these trips in Newark seem to like to stay off the avenues and instead drive through neighborhoods.  So I got to see some of the different housing stock and flavors of neighborhoods.  

When we got to the camp, one little girl was wearing flip flops.  The trip permission slip states that kids had to wear sneakers for this trip.  So was there but was not going to be allowed to participate.  This is the little girl from Chamara's trip that she had to keep almost carry her to get her to keep up.  She's a tiny thing and our lead teacher does not think she is 7yrs old.  Any way, she was sitting on the side and looking sad.  One of the other students had found a tennis ball and gave it to me.  I decided to give it to this girl.  She played with it for awhile, but then she started trying to shoot baskets on one of the side baskets.  The only problem was the some Shabazz girl basketball players were also playing in that area.  I was afraid she might get accidentally stepped on.  So I went over and stayed with her.  We shot baskets with the tennis ball until we lost it in the bleachers.  By this time, most of the HS girls had finished, so this little girl walks over to the ball rack and took a basketball.  She stood there for a moment to see of they or I was going to say anything.  Nobody said anything.  So we started shooting hoops again.  She couldn't get the ball over the 10ft rim.  But that didn't stop her from trying over and over again.  I noticed that we could no go shoot on the 7ft hoop since the HS girls had cleared out.  She made 11 goals before it was time to go.

I've also had a child "claim" me.  So I have someone more specific to write about in my child study blog.  But I'll save our adventures for the end of the week post.