Play-Doh

I have spent too much time over this past school year working on letters with my kids, and now I'm finally focusing on some real English basics. I think this has been an okay decision in two ways:

1) Now that my kids have heard English and have, by themselves, picked up English words through class usage, I feel that they're listening more intently and repeating better.
2) Sadly, we have less kids during the summer. This is sad because this means some kids won't get these English lessons. However, this means that the kids I do have focus more easily and it's a little more fun to do activities with them (not as much classroom management).

At the end of last week I was teaching the kids "my name is _____", but I know that they can't simply repeat it a couple of times and have it memorized. I had to think of some activities to help them cement it in their brain. So, we did a few fun things.

*On the first day that I taught them the phrase, I gave them a piece of paper that said "Hi! My name is ______". I filled in the blank and gave them a circle for them to draw their own face. I made my own example of "My name is Meghan" and drew my own face.
*On the second day, when we reviewed, I found little paperdoll-esque cut outs and had the kids color in the figures as themselves. When they were done, they attached these to a popsicle stick, and I had them practice with their "puppets", saying "my name is ____".
*Then, in their first lesson this week I had them work with play-doh. We needed something to break the monotony of paper and crayon. I instructed them to make a little person out of their play-doh, a model of themselves. When they did that, I asked "What would your person say? They would say 'my name is____'."

I can see now how these lessons have really helped to make the phrase stick in their heads, and given them ample opportunity to see it used. Also, by giving them a lot of positive reinforcement (even if their speaking wasn't that good), I've given them the courage to try even more things, as I had a class today try to say "What's your name?" and have someone give an answer.

I didn't take many play-doh pictures, but I got a few from my oldest class. This was one of my examples for making a version of yourself. I'm pretty impressed with myself and how the hair turned out. I know I impressed my kids.

 Oh yeah. Hard at work.

 At least Martha is hard at work.

 Rodrigo's rendering. I told him it had big muscles, and he said "Yeah - like Kevin!" Kevin is our super tall intern.

 Two more little people. Sorry they're not upright!

Graduación

Our Kinders' last day of kindergarten was on Friday, and the school held their graduation ceremony. We decided to stop in. We had to wait a long time for it to start, it was unorganized, but it was the best decision to be there. Many of my kids ran up to me to give me a hug, and later on were telling me "I saw you there! You were there!"

They call the kids' names to receive their little diplomas, and there are songs. I didn't have a good view of the proceedings because of all the people, but I managed to get a few shots.

 See Oliver Josue? He's a special kid. He decided to take off his shirt in the middle of the program. He really loves wearing his tank top.

Felicidades a mis niños!

Playing favorites

On Friday the daycare staff held a celebration program and lunch for the mothers of our daycare kids. It's really neat that they put this on for them, as many are single mothers and deserve some recognition for the hard work they put in for their families. Most of the daycare kids stayed home, but some came because they were giving performances for the moms. I only got to take a picture of the baby class before I had to run off and do other things.

Now, I'm not going to lie. Ruben, on the left, is one of my favorite students, if not the favorite. For one, he's adorable (just look at him!), he's funny, and he's sweet. When I have him in class he likes to playfully argue with me about what a horse is called.
"Se llama 'ballo!"
"No, Ruben, it's a horse".
"No, se llama 'ballo!"
"Horse"
"Se llama 'ballo!" he says through gritted teeth.
This escalates until he gets up in my face, and with his very best angry face tells me that it is, in fact, a 'ballo. Then he walks away, I whisper "horse", and he comes running back again to argue with me. It's really cute.

 Ruben has a thing for that purple guitar. He will play it right-handed, left-handed, backward, forward, and even move his hands up and down the fretboard as if he was really changing chords.

Gosh, I love that kid. Even when he refuses to say hi to me when I see him at church.

The classroom project is coming along, thanks to our construction guys. Almost done being the structure. We have to wait to finish the whole project until we have the money, but hopefully it will be completed this summer.

Now what?

Brrr it's cold here today!

Sunday was U.S. Mother's Day. Tuesday was Mexican Mother's Day (it's always May 10th). Yesterday I had my kids color cards for their mom. I decided to write "Thank you Mom!" and "I love you!", two phrases that my kids know. I told myself over and over that I would take a picture of at least one class coloring the cards, but I always get so caught up in being with the kids that I forget! So, here are a bunch of uncolored cards. Don't laugh at my heart shapes, because I did them all freehand.

 Since I've pretty much given up on the tomato plants that I transplanted outside (and have since given up on life... them, not me!), I planted new tomato seeds last week. They are already this big, and now I don't know quite what to do with them. Do I wait? Do I put them outside in their pots? Do I transplant them? Someone should tell me.

There are two great running giveaways going on right now in the blogger world:
***Hungry Runner Girl is giving away a pair of New Balance Minimus shoes! HOLY COW. I want these.
***RunningHood is giving away Kara Goucher's new book, which, uh, I also want. Also, it's signed, which isn't a huge deal to me (I just want to read it!), but it might be to you!

Children's Day

Run: 4.4mi/45:45 This was pretty bad, to try to get through this, and I had planned on five miles, but couldn't get it. There was a serious lack of energy.

Today is Children's Day. I know, we don't celebrate that in the States, but we do in Mexico! Because Children's Day fell on a Saturday this year, we celebrated it yesterday here at the daycare. Games, a bounce house, singing, a skit, crafts, food, piñatas, and of course - candy. Let's get to it!

The babies! Yoseline getting some pretty sweet air.

 Another Yoseline doing a crazy jump.

 Ruben was too scared to go in.

 Martha

 Ashbye

 The pile of shoes.

 Ruben, who held his guitar most of the time, and pretended to play along with the music.

 The teachers put on a skit about Jesus letting the children come to him. It was pretty funny.

 Watching the skit.

 Martha vs. the piñata! (This is a Mexican cartoon character, which our director said is new, but is based off an old Mexican TV show.)

 Andres means business!!

 The scramble.

 Esteban and Isaac waiting their turn.

 The babies and their horse piñata.

 Obed and the Woody piñata.

Letters

Run: 3.4mi/35:00

I keep on keepin' on with getting these kids to learn their letters. They are most enthusiastic about laying down on the floor, so why not?

Tomorrow is Children's Day in Mexico, and we're having a big party today. I hear there's going to be a bouncehouse! And there are 4 piñatas hanging up in the cafeteria. It's gonna be a good time!!

A random assortment

On the running front: For a while after my half marathon I got a little crazy with my running. It wasn't crazy to want to be doing 30 mile weeks, but it was crazy in that I was running almost every day and I was so focused on making those week markers that I was angry with myself when I wasn't hitting a good number. Result? I got burned out on running because it felt like a chore and I've been incredibly lazy over the past couple of months. For now I'm trying to tone it down a little and just enjoy it, which means cutting back to 4 days a week and not feeling bad that I'm only running 4 days a week. Because 4 days a week is totally normal and fine. So that's that.

Tuesdays are our globos day, the street market. You can find used clothes, produce, CDs, new clothes, assorted garage sale type items, etc. I don't spend a lot of time at the Tuesday globos because I don't have much to look for there, but every once in a while I'm reminded that I can buy a Mango-In-A-Bag! Why is Mango-In-A-Bag so awesome?

1* It's already cut! No messy mango-cutting!
2* It's cheap! It's 15 pesos for a huge mango. That's about $1.25. FOR A FRESH MANGO!
3* Add Reason #1 and Reason #2 together.

 And at the end? The core on a stick! MANGO-ON-A-STICK! You could gnaw on this all day, but I don't recommend it.

After you finish, go floss your teeth.

Maricela is one of our preschoolers. She's a big bundle of contradictions. One minute she's grabbing your neck and smothering you with kisses and the next minute she's throwing a tantrum. She's full of love and attitude, and the other day I thought she looked like a female trucker. So I took a picture.

And lastly, lest you think that Lucy is a perfect dog (although... she kinda is), this is what she did one Saturday morning. I decided to sleep in, while she was left chained up. She didn't like that.

Mostly Lucy is sweet and lovable and just a wonderful dog. As demonstrated above, she can also be crazy.

I Love You!

So here's a video I took this morning of my kids, singing our new song that we've learned. We only had a few kids today, due to the rain, but these guys were enthusiastic. They're just adorable when they sing this song.

After a couple takes, I decided to get in the frame (you can see how well I set it up by the fact that you can't see my face at all). I had to post this because Isaac, in front, is just so funny. Please don't curl up in horror at my horrid teacher-singing-voice.

We are all headed out to a staff/board retreat and will be gone the entire weekend. Definitely looking forward to it!

H says huuuuuuuuhhh

Run: 3.4mi/35:00
I finally got myself to go farther. Finally. 

We have a group of doctors here this week. They've been running around to different places to serve. They've been at a local clinic, out in communities, at an old folks' home, and still going out to other communities today. The other part of their team is a group of teenagers that are helping our construction foreman, Colores, work on our classroom building. I've decided to take progress pictures from my balcony, so here is the latest.

While out on the balcony I heard my name being called. I finally (after a while) figured out that the kids were loaded in the van, ready to head home.

And the babies were coming, to get into the van. Welcome to our daycare, where we put babies in wheelbarrows.

Yesterday in class we talked about the letter H.

Hand Heart Horse House Hi Happy Hair

And like always, we made the letters with our bodies. We've learned up to letter H, so we sing the ABCs slowly while we put our arms above our heads to make A, two side circles with our arms to make B, etc. 

But wait. I added a new bucketload of fun yesterday by having the kids make H on the floor with their bodies. The younger class (first picture) was totally confused and I had to do it for them. The oldest Kinders class, however, was totally into it and barely needed instruction. I took the picture, showed them, and they thought it was the greatest thing ever. 

Green Eggs and Ham

Run: 2.5mi/25:00

Over the past couple of months I have occasionally read Green Eggs and Ham to my older three classes. They seem to like it, and we've talked about it a lot, so I think they get the idea of the book.

I decided they needed to try green eggs and ham. So I whipped some up on Monday morning.

 I gathered my kids, read the book, and then surprised them with a taste test. They all got a cup with a little bit, and a spoon. It was fun to watch their reactions, to see who would taste first, who refused to taste it at all, and to watch those brave ones encourage the others by saying "Son huevos!"

"Say, I like green eggs and ham, I do, I like them, Sam-I-Am!"