Bittersweet...

This week was our last week in the schools.  On Tuesday all of us that are Special Education majors were able to take a trip inland to visit a school exclusively for students with special needs.  This experience made my week.  The students there were just completely full of joy and my heart was overwhelmed with happiness.   Going to this school just completely confirmed that I chose the right major.  I felt so at home and back in my own element.  One of the students I met there Byron just loved to jump on us and just laugh and laugh.  He was so precious and was definitely soaking up all of the attention he was getting.  Another student Ed ran up to all of us when we entered his classroom and just wrapped his arms around us, giving us the biggest hugs.  This day definitely melted my heart and ignited my passion even more.

The rest of the week was spent at Isla Bonita teaching my last lessons here.  I taught angles in math and prepositions and conjunctions for language arts.   I am so thankful for all the experiences I gained from this field experiecne.  I have became more culturally aware of different cultures and learned how to teach off the fly without a lesson plan or technology.  I've also learned some Belizean history and a lot of interesting facts about the island. I had an awesome class of students who tried to teach me Spanish although they normally ended up all giggly because of my southern accent.  I have loved every minute here and I wouldn't trade this experience for anything.

One thing that has surprised me the most is that as a teacher, I can make a lesson up on the fly and just go with it.  In the states we prepare lessons days or even weeks in advance and rely a lot on technology.  I am one of those that heavily relies on a plan and structure.  From this experience I have learned that some of the best lessons can be made with a moments notice and zero technology.

I hope you have enjoyed my blogs, they have helped me to keep all of my family, friends, partnership teacher, and students informed of my experiences while in Belize.  I also have formed a new love for blogging because I now have a lot of memories saved that I may have forgot about if it weren't for my blog!

Community Service Projects

While we are in Belize we are required to complete 20 hours of community service projects.  Last week was our free week to complete these hours...

For my community service hours, I served in three different areas.  The first area was with SAGA Humane Society in Belize. The humane society here in Belize has a small staff and limited resources, so we decided to devote some of our time to help them in anyway they needed.   I spent 7 hours along with a few other girls from our group.  The first day we were there, we spent two hours fixing kennels, cleaning up the dog kennels, and washing the dog bowls.  The second day we were there we spent 5 hours painting buildings and dog kennels.  We also were privileged to get to play with all the cute dogs that SAGA had rescued!  The next service hours I did was with ACES.  ACES is the American Crocodile Education Sanctuary.  ACES devotes their time to educate the people of Belize about crocodiles and also protect them from danger and harassment.   A group of us went out with the ACES staff and spent three hours helping them pick up trash and break down crocodile cages.  This community service project took a lot of muscle.  We were using hammers, wire clippers, and even our entire body weight to tear down the walls to these crocodile cages.  The reason ACES needed our help with this particular task is because they are relocating the crocodile sanctuary due to people harassing the animals at their current location.  My final 8 hours of community service have been dedicated to writing a book for the children in Belize.  The book is called The ABC’s of the Belize Zoo.  I spent two hours at the Belize zoo taking pictures and learning about the animals.  One hour was spent working with Emma on the script.  The remaining 5 hours I spent on formatting the book, adding pictures, and translating the book into Spanish to be able to have a Spanish version for the students that predominately speak Spanish.

 

 

Caracol, A.T.M Tour, and Guatemala

On my last post I left you with our experiences the first few days inland.  Our fun and adventures didn't end there.  After the chocolate farm and learning to play Garifuna drums, we ventured to Belmopan and San Ignacio.

Caracol...

  On Friday I went with a group to Caracol.  Caracol is an archeological site that we visited to see and learn about the Mayan Structures that date back to the A.D. time period.  Part of the tour included climbing the structures as tall as 173 feet!  For everyone that knows me this was a big challenge due to my fear of heights.  Climbing steps all the way up 173 feet in the air without any harness or safety net is terrifying until you reach the top and see the beautiful view for miles and miles.  A cool fact we learned was that you can see Guatemala from the top of the structure.  I really enjoyed the history aspect of the trip. Our tour guide took us to different Mayan Structures and explained to us what it would have been.  The structures mainly consisted of plaza's, temples, palaces, and a ball court.  A ball court is where they would play a ball game.  One theory is that the game consisted of two players and they could only touch the ball with their arm or leg.  The ball could not be hit using the hand without breaking it.  Once again this is just a theory, they don't know for sure how the game was exactly played.  On our way back to our hotel our tour guide took us by Big Rock Falls.  While at the waterfall some of us took a daring 15 foot jump off the rocks and into the water.  After our jump we were having a great time swimming around and then out of no where the strong current took me for a bumpy ride down the rocks.  I ended up with several bruises and a broke toe but I thankfully walked away with with nothing worse and a great experience and story to tell.

A.T.M. Tour...

A.T.M. stands for Actun Tunichil Muknal.  This tour was absolutely amazing.  On this tour we went a little over a mile in a cave to learn about Mayan ceremonies, see skeletal remains, and pottery that was left behind in the cave.  What's really awesome is that all of the things left behind are in their original place, they only removed minimal remains from the cave to use for dating the pottery and preserving a few items.  To get to the remains we had to take a hike through the jungle, swim through water, maneuver and squeeze through rocks, and finally once again I found myself conquering my fear of heights and climbing rocks to get to various parts of the cave. For this tour I don't have any pictures because they ask us not to take anything in the caves as a way to respect and preserve the historical remains so that future generations can come and learn just as we did.

Guatemala and my roomies birthday...

 

Easter Sunday was special for two reasons.  One it was my roommate Molly's birthday and two we took an awesome day trip to Guatemala!  To celebrate Molly's birthday we showered the room in balloons and surprised her with both a lunch and dinner celebration (and of course some yummy dessert!). While in Guatemala we went to Tikal and spent the first part of the day zip lining (yet another heights challenge for me, but totally worth it).  The course consisted of 8 zip lines through the Guatemalan jungle.  Swinging through the trees at a pretty fast rate made me feel like Tarzan and Jane.  It was a blast! After zip lining our tour guide drove us to Flores.  In Flores we had lunch and spent the evening shopping.  Flores is a beautiful little town, decorated with colorful buildings and stone streets.  Once we finished eating lunch, we had limited time for shopping and we were all running around crazy trying to find great deals and unique buys without being late for our bus! After shopping we made it back just in time to hop on the bus and cross the border before it closed at 6!  The rushing was a little stressful, but hey what would life be without a little edge? The rest of the evening we spent celebrating the last few hours of Molly's birthday at a cute little restaurant by the name of Fuego.  

Garifuna drum school

It's our first full day in Punta Gorda and we didn't really have any plans.  My roommate Molly couldn't sleep at all last night, so while the rest of us were sleeping she researched what adventurous things we could do.  She stumbled across Garifuna drum lessons and ask me what I thought.  I love being fully submerged in other cultures so I was definitely in!  Once talking with the group several of us spontaneously decided to take drum lessons.  The adventure began with us wondering down a long gravel road and asking several natives if we were on the right track.  It was about a 20 minute walk and our lesson actually took place in this really awesome outdoor area with a thatched roof.  We took lesson from Ronald Ramon McDonald.   He is part of the Garifuna culture and gave us the history before teaching us how to play the drums.  The Garifuna people were placed on a ship to be brought to the sugar plantains in West Indies.  Along the way the ship wrecked, half of the Garifuna people died and half were saved.  Throughout their journey they picked up 6 different languages which make up the Garifuna language.  The languages include English, Spanish, Carrib, Arawa, African, and French. 

Traveling Inland

Today (4/15/14) we traveled inland.  Our first means of transportation was the water taxi.  We took it from San Pedro to Belize City.  The water taxi has a lower and upper deck and travels pretty fast.  I sat on the upper deck.  There was a wonderful, cool breeze.  Occasionally we would hit waves hard and I would get splashed all the way on the upper deck! The view was beautiful, as we passes several islands and were surrounded by the Caribbean Ocean. Once we arrived in Belize City we took a cab to the bus station.  There were A LOT more cars in Belize City than in San Pedro which made it feel way more crowded and created chaos.  At the bus station we waited about an hour and a half to board a bus that we would spend the next five and a half hours on and when I say bus I mean a school bus.  The bus has no air condition and the seats were quit uncomfortable  but the breeze through the windows make up for that.  At first the bus ride was okay then they kept stopping and putting people on until all the seats, back and even the isle all the way to the door of the bus was SLAMMED pack!  At one point I counted 70 passengers!!  We spent 3 or 4 of our hours like this, thankfully everyone on our trip were lucky enough to have a seat.  The bus travels at what feels like race car speeds. The first time I was actually scared was when he completely slammed on breaks and came to a halt to avoid hitting another car coming across the bridge.  The roads and bridges are very narrow in Belize and only one car can pass across a bridge at a time.  Along our journey we passed through Belize City, Belmopan, Dan Gringa, and a few small towns to reach our final destination for the next three days, Punta Gorda! One area we passed through the natives used horse and buggy to get around.  I've seen more livestock here than I have in San Pedro.  There are chickens, horses, and cows but it is very sad to see a lot are malnutrition and very underweight.  Although the ride has been uncomfortable, we have had beautiful views of mountains and I have enjoyed seeing a lot of the country.  This was one of those situations you could be very negative, instead I see it as a very positive things because it's an experienced and adventure and that is what we are here for.  I have enjoyed being thrown on in a packed, crazy bus because it has showed me how the transportation here in Belize works as well as made me thankful for the "luxurious" transportation we have back in the states.

Oh my that shark's as BIG as me!

Have you ever been asked, "what is the craziest, most adventurous thing you've ever done?"  This question always leaves me pondering with no response because I tend to play it safe.  After yesterday I I now will have a response.  Yesterday we spent the majority of the day snorkeling and exploring Caye Caulker.  We set sail on a Catamaran boat that had awesome bean bag chairs and something similar to a trampoline to lounge on.  Our snorkeling adventure had two stops.  The first stop we made was Hol Chan Marine Reserve and we spent 45 minutes snorkeling the reserve.  We seen fish, turtles, nurse sharks, and sting rays!  It was so exciting and enjoyable to be in basically a whole other world.  It was nice to sea all the see life in their natural habitats.  Our 2nd stop was Shark Ray Alley.  As if this doesn't sound scary enough, when I took my first look over the boat I said, "oh my! That shark's as BIG as me!"  Keep in mind I was very nervous and excited at the same time and everyone had said they weren't that big, so when the first one I seen was the biggest I was shocked.  I quickly got myself calmed down realizing this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.  I put my snorkel gear on and jumped straight in the water with the sharks. It was an amazing experience.  The sharks just swam around and didn't bother us at all.  I'm glad I reached deep down inside and found my adventurous side instead of letting fear take control.  

After snorkeling the boat dropped us off at Caye Caulker.  A group of us ate lunch at a little restaurant called Bambooze.  This restaurant is known because of having swings for seats.  I enjoyed a choco berry smothie and delicious nachos.  After lunch we walked down to a place called the "Split", a famous swimming area which is a waterway that divides the island into. For our remaining time we wondered around exploring the island.

My biggest surprise...

As a special educator, we have always been taught that planning while being flexible is the key to being successful. Since teaching in Belize I have been surprised at just how flexible I can be and will continue to be.  There have been lessons that I've been given less than 5 minutes to prepare and lessons that I've prepared in advance and needed to change once school began.  Before being placed in the position of quickly putting a lesson plan together I would have second guessed my ability to do so, now that I've successfully taught a lesson planned 5 minutes before, I feel more confident as a teacher.  In the states sometimes my whole lesson would be centered around technology and I never really thought about what I would do if technology failed me.  Being here has already taught me that technology is not neccessary to teach children but should be used to enhance teaching our students.

It's all about polygons!!! (And an crocodile)

Hello to all my readers!

I will start if by talking about my wild adventures with the crocodiles.  Last Saturday half of our group set out to catch crocodiles with an organization here in Belize known as ACES.  They protect crocodiles and make sure their habitat stays safe.  We left Pedro's Inn around 6pm and hopped on a boat around 6:30pm and sailed out on the Carribean Ocean. We left right as the sun went down because it is easier to find a crocodile in the dark.  They use flashlights to scan across the water.  When they do this they are looking for an orange glow.  When a light hits a crocodiles eye in the night it glows back orange.  I was very excited until they spotted a crocodile and jumped in to catch it.  I instantly grew nervous but trusted that they knew what they were doing. Each time they jumped in to catch a croc the mood grew tenseon the boat.  Once they caught the croc we all cheered in excitement.  We even got lucky enough to name one.  We named him Squish because he had a really squishy belly.  Although the name is adorable having a squishy belly we learned was bad for a crocodile.  A soft belly means the crocodile is eating lots of trash.  Good thing we caught the little guy in time!  For all you animal lovers out there you will be happy to know Squish was safely relocated to a cleaner environment that is still within his habitat.  Not only did we get to see them catch crocodiles we also learned a lot about them and about their history here in Belize.

Just a little background knowledge before I talk about my lesson today.  Yesterday (April 9th) I taught my students all about polygons.  They learned what a polygon is as well as it's definition.  Once they understood the concept of a polygon, I moved on to teach them about the different types of polygons and how they get their names based on how many sides they have.

Today was all about polygons! I started my lesson by reviewing polygons.  After review time, I told the class we were going to make our own magic carpets! But not just any magic carpets.  These magic carpets were going to be designed with polygons.  The students were very excited. I gave them a few guidelines to follow: the carpet could only be decorate with polygons, they had to include more than one type of polygon, and the carpets must have some type of pattern.  All the of the magic polygon carpets came out fabulous.  After completing the carpets, I split the students up into groups of three and gave them a stack of cards.  I taught them how to play the memory card game and yes of course all the cards had polygons on them.  I simply used construction paper and markers to create the game. It took the students a few minutes to catch on how to play the memory game, but after a few minutes they were all very into it.  The game has some competition to it, so naturally the students began getting rowdy.  To bring the class together  in a calm way, I read to them "Hector the Tapir: A Geometry Story."  This book was written by two girls who were apart of the Belize trip in 2012: Bailey Elliot and Jessica Johnson.  All the pictures in the book are actual pictures of Belize.  I chose this book because it included several polygons and showed how polygons are out in the community.  The students were so excited when they recognized the pictures and knew those pictures were taken right in their community. 

After lunch ACES (the group that took us out Saturday night) came to Isla Bonita to show the students crocodiles and teach them about the importance of their safety.  The students absolutely loved it and asked so many great questions.

Tomorrow is beach blast for the primary school, and then the students 2 week Easter break begins and all of us will be traveling inland for a week to visit San Ignacio and Guatemala.  Also while we are inland we will take a day trip to the chocolate factory, go cave tubing, go snorkeling to explore life below sea level, tour the Myan Ruins and many other adventurous things.  So there will be many blogs and pictures of all our adventures to come!