Counting Down the Days...

There are 10 more days of school left (Kids get out June 3rd), and there's 24 more days until I get to fly home for the summer. In some ways it doesn't seem like a long time, but sometimes it seems like it's taking foreeeeeever to get here! This past Monday we didn't have school b/c of the national elections. Election day was on Sunday, and the public schools were polling places. We were told that all businesses would be closed Saturday at noon through 6 a.m. Monday-- it ended up that there were some places open Saturday, depending upon the place. It was nice to have the day off-- well any day that we have off is nice! LOL For the last few weeks I've been helping a home school family from my church with some reading tutoring. Normally they come on Mondays and Thursdays to school, but since we didn't have school, they came to my apartment.
This week and last week I've been doing end-of-the-year assessments with my kids. I found a really good Reading Comprehension Inventory book- Flynt-Cooter, that I have really liked using. I really wish I would have had it at the beginning of the year to compare, but it'll be good to have for next year as well. I'm just starting to meet with parent's to show them the testing results, and also to sign SST contracts for next year. I will hopefully get them done next week. There will be some changes in SST next year-- the other Elem SST teacher is going to teach Elem Spanish next year. So there will be a new SST teacher next year. It's really hard to find SST teachers here, so not sure how that will all work.
Next Thursday we have off for a Catholic holiday, and then Friday is Field Day. I get to help with one of the games, so that will be another new experience.

April

The last two weeks have been filled with a lot of busy-ness...

Thursday, April 14th I took the bus to the capital, Santo Domingo (about 2 hrs away) to present at a workshop at Domican Americano-- the only English University (I think) in the DR. The other SST teacher teaches a college class there, and the Senior Education majors were putting on a workshop on Targeting Learning Styles with Technology-- and they asked me to present. This was my first time navigating the bus system-- but I was able to do it ok. I sat at the bus station for quite awhile (getting there at 2:45, and then picked up at 4;30), and then they picked me up to go to the University. It started late, and then the first speaker took a little longer than they thought (as well as some technical difficulties)-- she was a psychologist talking about what learning styles are, and the theory behind it. After my presentation, there was another activity, and I needed to wait for them to finish, in order to get a ride back to the bus station. The traffic in Santo Domingo is absolutely terrible, and though it isn't that far to drive, we sat in a lot of traffic on the way there. I had missed the 7:00 bus, so I took the 8:00 bus home, and was home by about 10:30...

Wednesday, April 20th, I flew out very early, to go to my brother' wedding in Omaha, NE (6 a.m.). Evidently taxi driver's do not like to pick people up at 4:00 in the morning, b/c I had a terrible time getting someone to pick me up! I almost thought that I wasn't going to make my flight-- as I got to the airport at 5:00, and was to board at 5:40... My connecting flight to JFK was a bit tense as well, as the line going through security at JFK took awhile, along with the bus shuttle to a different terminal, getting me to my gate just as it was boarding....Once I got to the Minneapolis airport, I had some time to actually sit and eat lunch, but I had to sort out my credit card (which thankfully Minn has free wi-fi!!). With trying to add minutes to my pre-paid phone (and possibly the connection), somehow it appeared as fraudulent charges, and my credit card was deactivated... After I got to Omaha, I rented a car, and drove to Topeka to meet my friend Alicia, who came with her two girls (3 1/2 and 5 mths) and her mom, until driving back to Omaha Thursday evening. They had driven 6 hrs to see me-- and though it was a short time, it was nice to be able to catch up. :-) We were even able to get a little bit of shopping in, but b/c I had only brought carry-on's, I couldn't buy too much... Friday morning my brother drove with me to take my rental car back to the airport, and then we had lunch with Rachel's family and our family.


 We had a few hours to kill before we needed to go to the church to help set up, so I went with Zach, Caleigh, and Dylan to Wehrspann Lake, which is a few miles from Jason's. It has a really pretty trail around the lake.

 The centerpieces...

Later that evening, Dylan and I went to the school park, and challenged me to 2 games of HORSE (Dylan won).... Saturday morning, my niece Caleigh and I had hair appointments before the pictures at 10:00, with the ceremony at 11:00 for immediate family only. The reception was from 1-4, and for me it went by so fast, with talking to family and friends that I hadn't seen for a long time. After the reception my dad's side of the family was able to spend time together at the hotel they were staying at, and later that evening my parent's drove me to my hotel that I was going to stay at, since my flight the next morning was at 5:40 (and close to the airport)! This time my flights were a lot smoother, but still with not very long layovers-- I got back to my apartment by 6:00. This morning came extremely early for me....

We don't have school on Monday, for Dominican Labor Day, which will be oh so very nice, after having such a busy week!!!  :-)

Back to "Normal"

We are back to a full week of school after having 4 days last week, and prior to that was Spring Break. I stayed in Santiago for Spring Break, and taking advantage of having some down-time- (and to having the apartment to myself for a few days) Netflix movies, grocery shopping, picking up packages, La Campagna (coffee)... I'm a bit of a homebody, and really don't get bored being home by myself. On Easter there was a group of us that got together and had an Easter dinner-- pork chops, veggies, potatoes, and Reese's cheesecake, home made ice cream and puppy chow for dessert! Along with the dinner we decorated Easter eggs (which is an American tradition-- it is not something that Dominican's have heard of doing), and hunting for 100 Easter eggs in the apartment.

We have entered the last 9 weeks of school, which is so hard to believe we're there already. I'm finishing up testing another potential SST student, and will start doing end of the year testing my student's and then meeting with parent's to sign contracts for next year. I'm to the point in my schedule, where I can't fit any new SST student's, so if they qualify, then we have to wait till next year to provide services. As many other teacher's know, there's just not enough hours in the day to fit everything in, or get everything done!! One of my student's has alternate Math, and due to my schedule, I couldn't teach her by herself, so I have her with other student's at that time. I've been using Moby Max on the computer with the student, and so far it has been going well. There are also some 7th grader's that are using it for a Reading intervention. I just discovered it this year, and am trying to familarize myself with it. I also have another student that their class was reading a chapter book for Reading, and the book is too hard for him, so we decided to pull him, and he would come to my room during that time, and I have Reading independent work at his level that he'll work on-- I'll be multi-tasking, b/c I will have other student's in my room as well.

I've also been working on a presentation that I'm going to be presenting at a workshop for some college students at the University in Santo Domingo next week. The other SST teacher teaches at the Univ in SD and she told them about me, and a few weeks ago they asked me to present on "Targeting Learning Styles with Technology." I've never done anything like this before, so this will be a new (and a bit scary for me!) experience for me! The workshop is from 4:30-6:30, so I'm taking a taxi to the bus station from school to get the 1:00 bus, and then they will pick me up, and also take me to the station when I'm finished. That's been taking up a lot of spare time working on that, but It's been an exciting opportunity!

T-13 Days till I leave for the States! I fly out here at 6:10 on  Wed April 20th, to go to my brother's wedding. Every day is pretty much planned out with something to do-- it will be busy, but I'm very excited to be able to go, and see everyone!

Easter in the DR

What I've learned about the Easter holiday here (so far):
Next week is 'Semana Santa,' which is "Holy Week." Dominicans celebrate Friday, when Jesus died, rather than on Sunday when Jesus arose. Stores are closed on Friday, people do not travel, or eat meat that day. Thursday is a very busy traveling day, as people are going to where they are going to celebrate the holiday. They do not have Easter candy or the Easter bunny here. The teacher's here will decorate with Easter decorations, but b/c Spring Break is during Easter, there are not Easter parties. Friday, the elementary had a Curriculum fair, inviting parent's, with the grades displaying various topics, and then having a Chapel focusing on the Resurrection.
And let Spring Break begin! :-)

The month of February and the coming weeks till our Spring Break March 21st, has been the longest stretch of school since we started. There has been a lot going on at school the last few weeks, which helped with the days/weeks passing, but it still feels like a really long time. February 27th was the Dominican Republic's Independence. The Elementary had a Cultural program in the evening of February 25th, with Dominican songs and dances, and then that Friday afternoon, there were Dominican foods, and a program of events in the gym. Last night was the International Dinner and Talent show, held in the gym here. The money from the tickets is going towards classrooms in another school. The food served was from various cultures, and it was so awesome to see all the talent SCS has-- elementary, middle, and high school students! 

I'm continuing to stay busy at school testing new SST students, as well as implementing new plans for students. My schedule has condensed quite a bit more, so I have even fewer breaks in the day, but it has still been relatively manageable. Next Friday we do not have school, which will be a nice break as well. :-)

A School Day/Week

Monday and Wednesdays I tutor a student that has siblings that go to SCS, but he does not. He speaks Spanish (though I've been told he's fairly low), and I'm teaching him English. The 1st  semester I did a lot of paper/pencil vocabulary worksheets (which he actually likes doing). The last couple of months I've been doing a lot of bingo games with speech sounds-- and then asking/forming/answering questions/sentences. I've been trying to remember what the speech teacher's I've worked with have used, and use some of those type of activities. We do an activity and then he has a few minutes to watch these videos on Youtube that I found-- Dream English Kids-- Usually I leave there with having the songs in my head! LOL

Wednesday-- The other SST is gone the rest of the week (and possibly some of next week), having surgery, so I am helping out with her students. Two of her students are in my room taking a Math test, while I have my two students out in the hallway doing independent work and practicing fluency. They are given a passage on Tuesday (I don't see them on Monday's), and then every day they practice reading the passage for a minute, but continue reading the rest of the passage. Normally I'm the one that listens to them read, and marks the words. I decided to have them listen to each other, and mark if they missed any words. My students's thought it was fun to be in charge of the timer-- and also to be in the hallway-- something different I guess!

Thursday-- somewhat of a normal day-- though there are subs in 5th grade all week-- there is an exchange program in 5th grade with another magnet school in the Philadelphia area. Ten 5th graders are spending the week here, and then in April, several SCS 5th grader's are going there for the week. The exchange students go on field trips about every day, and one of the 5th grade teacher's is gone every day. Sometimes it makes communication a little fuzzy, especially with the student's b/c you don't always know what's going on!

Friday-- usually chaotic/busy normally, but with Arianny (SST) gone, I'm giving tests to her kids, so it's even more busy.
8:00-8:30--- Spelling/Phonics Test/1 minute Fluency/DIBELS --1 minute short vowel nonsense words/trying-to-get-them-out-the-door-but-they-like-to-chat-conversations (though they are a lot of fun to talk with).
The majority of the time, my  student's I have at 8:30 show up when I'm trying to finish up with them-- mostly b/c they are so chatty....
8:30ish-- 3 Student's show up for Bible Verse test-- I end up needing to print the Bible verse test and the reading test for them. I can't remember how long they stay, but one of them stays till 10:00ish (I think),  and has to come back during Study hall at 10;50 to finish, as well as take her spelling test.
8:45--  1 student shows up to take his Reading test. I read the test and questions aloud to him. I'm in the middle of reading the Reading test for my 3 student's (which I don't always need to read to them, but today I do), and thankfully his teacher's has a student teacher, so she takes him to do the test.
9:15-- Arianny's three student's show up to take their Reading test (they're in different classes/sections)-- they leave at 9;45, and one of them has to come back during study hall to finish.
9:30-  student shows up to do a Reading Assignment. The student wants to do the assignment with Ms. Siri-- she speaks fluent Spanish, and it helps him when she can clarify things in Spanish. I send him back down to class.
9;45ish-- student shows up for Bible Verse Quiz, spelling test, fluency (the room is actually empty then). She finishes, and then comes back to do the same Reading assignment. After doing the assignment, realize that the other student  needs an easier reading passage, so I print out an easier one from Reading A-Z.
10:50- student's come back to finish Reading Tests, Spelling Test, and Bible Verse Quiz
11:30ish-- Lunch- YAWAY-- I love their sandwiches-- they deliver to school!
12:15- 1:30ish student- Spelling/Reading Test, Math/Prefixes worksheet redo.
12:30ish-- Two students show up for Reading test-- thankfully MS Siri can take them for their test.
1:30- SST meeting with SST supervisor and para's. Chit Chat about SST stuff,
2:30- back to my room!! Finish planning for next week-- usually I start planning for the next week on Thursday's-- I have 3 student's that I do their spelling lists for-- and I use edhelper.com to type their lists -- and then have another student that I type out the words for, and uses the worksheets from Edhelper to practice the words. I have 5 student's that practice fluency every week, so I find passages for them on Reading A-Z. Two of the student's aren't able to use the Reading A-Z passages yet (too high), so I have Dolch passages I found for them. I have a new SST student now-- and they will require an alternate curriculum, so I also was starting to do some planning for them. 

It's been raining a lot this week, and Friday it rained all day--which seemed to add to the chaos (though I actually like the rain). I've been told that in February it does rain some, but not usually this much. 

I went to another swim meet today-- this time at Pucamaima-- which is part of the college here. It's and Olympic-size pool. I've watched swimming a lot on tv (mostly during the Olympics though)-- and it's been a lot of fun to see swimming live. Though I had to ask the security guard to tell the taxi people to explain where I was at -- Saying "Pucamaima, La Piscina" (pool) evidently isn't descriptive enough for them to know where I'm at! (I have a number that I call to get a taxi-- I've gotten pretty good at 'Necissito un taxi-- I need a taxi-- La Espinola/Thomas I (Uno)!) 

February Update

This week seems to have been exceptionally busy at school, but it hasn't been too stressful-- at least so far anyway. I haven't had as many of my usual breaks in the day (and out of the ordinary things that I usually work on), so it's made for a lot of last minute working on modifying tests/planning, etc. I usually know what I'm doing with my students everyday (unless I have interruptions or a student doesn't happen to show up--- my 5th grader's have the responsibility of coming on their own, and sometimes they forget...) , but if my students need something in-class-- a test modified, assignment, or to try to schedule a time to take the test(s), I may not know without much notice, so I've gotten pretty good at just "going with the flow...."  Today one of my 4th grader's took a S.S comparing the Midwest and the West (Southwest). They learn about all the regions of the U.S. It feels rather strange to be teaching/explaining about the U.S. when I'm living in a different country! But the kids also get Dominican Republic history-- I think in 4th and 5th grade (and I think upper grades as well). This morning I had another 4th grader that had both a Bible test on Solomon that she took at like 8:15 (after trying to help her teacher get the Science test printed for over an hour...), and then an open book Science test on electricity/lightening she took 30ish minutes later. Normally she wouldn't have taken both tests that close together, but with scheduling, sometimes it ends up being that way... 
The school has someone that does DIBELS testing for the students (1 minute fluency --reading a passage, and then retelling what they read)-- She uses a room that is close to mine-- so when she's here, I see her quite often-- She had to train some teachers how to administer DIBELS (and wasn't used to training teacher's how to do it), and though I hadn't planned on it, I helped her find some video's to show the teacher's, and sat in on the hourish training. 

I got a referral for a student few weeks ago, and was working with her teacher on starting some interventions with her (I love Explode the Code!... The student is working on reinforcing short vowels, along with what the class is doing)-- then last Wednesday met her parent's to sign for testing. She's an interesting case-- struggles with phonics/decoding (ELL also), and found out parent's took her to a neurologist and then did a sleep clinic-- she doesn't go into REM sleep, and therefore doesn't have good short term memory retrieval (I think that's the explanation anyway). Parent's are going to another dr for 2nd opinion--- looking to whether they want medication or not, b/c of side effects. I started testing her this week-- it's with an assessment that I wasn't familiar with, but wasn't too hard to administer. We give the Detroit Test of Learning Aptitude (DTLA), Gray Oral Reading Test (GORT), and the Key Math-- and then I'll probably do some other informal tests as well. 

Besides her I have another student who's in 3rd grade that we signed on Monday to do testing with--I haven't started her yet... very low in reading comprehension and math, and really needs her own curriculum... doesn't have ELL services, but English Language Learner services wouldn't help her anyway. 

I still have several other students that I will most likely get referrals/permission to testing. We actually may have to close SST, and put the qualified SST students on a waiting list until next year, b/c between Arianny (the other SST teacher) and I, we just don't have enough time in our schedule to keep adding students. It has been really nice to be able to pull materials/resources that I brought back with me during Christmas. There are still times where I wish that I had other resources that are sitting in my parent's basement, but I know that I just have to make do--- or I have to try and find an electronic version.... :-) LOL

Last Saturday I watched one of my student's compete in a duathalon-- run/swim/run-- and she came in 1st. This was something separate from what she normally does-- and this was the first time that she's ever done a competition like this before. This weekend her classroom teacher and I are going to go one of her swim events. 

Tonight (Thursday) we have another Open House for parent's. As a sped teacher I'm used to not having parent's come see me, so it's usually a chance for me to catch up on things-- but by this time  of day my brain is fried... so I'm working on a blog post.... :-) 

The last few days (to me) it has felt warmer than it has been (upper 80's)-- I feel like I've been sweating during the day-- which hasn't been the case for several weeks (months)-- though I've been told that these days are just more warmer than usual--- it's usually not into the 90's until Aprilish. I've noticed at night that it hasn't been as cool, or when I wake up in the morning. Today it rained off and on during the day, which made it humid throughout the day.

Valentine's Day is celebrated here (they go all out for it, I'm told...), and tomorrow there will be a lot of classroom parties going on. The kids get to wear red, pink or purple shirts if they want, instead of their uniform shirts.