FLES (pronounced "F-less")

FLES (Foreign Language in the Elementary Schools) is something I have recently become a huge fan of. I've always liked younger children, but never thought I would want to teach elementary school....however, these past few days I've felt differently on the subject. I've been teaching/helping in Senora Turco's class at Green Hope Elementary school for the past three days. Because I am K-12 certified I have to spend time teaching in each of the grade levels. My days have been filled with songs, games, excitement, ethnusicatic kids, hugs, smiles, more singing, kids wanting to hold my hand and sit in my lap, kids wanting to be in school, and of course, more songs. I have loved it. Each day Mrs. Turco sees a Kindergarden, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade class. The school has five classes of each grade level, so each class gets Spanish once a week for 40 minutes. Essentially Mrs. Turco repeats her days five times each week (what SIMPLE lesson planning!!!). Also practically nothing is written in a FLES classroom...it's all verbal (half the students can't even read in English yet anyway). Today we played musical numbers with the kindergartners to learn numbers in Spanish and used PICTURE dictionaries to create really cool family trees with the 4th graders. I play all day!...and I love it.

The great thing about teaching a foreign language in general is you can be creative and play even in the high school level...because they too are learning basic speaking skills; but sometimes it's just harder to get those high schoolers to be excited about singing little songs and doing the hokie-pokie in Spanish. One great thing about high school are the relationships you can form with the kids...slightly different then the relationships you can form with the younger kids.

I'm not saying I've made a life altering decision to switch to elementary school, I'm just saying it's been refreshing and fun to be part of these past few days and I'm glad my licensure is K-12 so that I always have the option of teaching any level I choose. For that I am thankful.

desk, race,birthday, and PICTURES

These are pictures of the really awesome desk my dad built for me. It's perfect in my room!





Let's see....

I went home again this weekend to run in the Asheville Citizen-Times Half-Marathon. It was AWESOME. I felt great and enjoyed every minute of miles 1-12. Mile 13 was not so enjoyable, but I loved the race and I'm so glad I did it. I would definitely like to do more in the future and as of Monday I have started on a full marathon training plan that has me ready to run a marathon in December. I'm not sure if I will be able to stick to it with student teaching. I would have the time, but I won't be able to run before school (4am=insanely too early) and soon it will start getting dark around 5:30pm...so we shall see. I rested Sunday, ran 5 miles yesterday, and today I ran 3 miles and did some sprint work. My legs did feel pretty tired today. This evening before Destino, I went and swam for 45 minutes. If felt good to give my arms a little work out.



















I was having problems with blisters on my feet. I attributed it to increasing my weekly running (which is adding to the problem) but I got new shoes on Saturday and I LOVE them. They don't rub where my old shoes rubbed. The lady at the Jus' Running store where I buy my shoes thinks I was running in a shoe that was a size too small. (So, I'm guessing my race time would be like 15 minutes less with my new shoes...haha...just kidding!) I also bought some running socks (basically non-cotton) and that has helped reduce friction which causes blisters.

(This paragraph was more for my mom and grandmothers who love me and were concerend about my feet.)

While home I also got to celebrate a friend's birthday. We had a nice celebration for Rico (who also ran in the race with me) and I made him a homemade white chocolate cake with white chocolate iceing.