GOOOOOL!! For the first time in 36 years, Peru is going to the world cup! Maeve and I got to experience all of the excitement here during Peru's two games against New Zealand! (*shoutout to the other student teachers in NZ...sorry for your loss..)
Last Friday night, New Zealand and Peru tied 0-0. Though there were no goals, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the game. I think the most popular sport in the world just received a new fan! Mind you, I JUST learned that the World Cup only occurs every 4 years...There was a lot of jokes in my direction.
Last night, PERU WON 2-0!!! They're going to the world cup! It was AMAZING to have been here for this experience! Every bar, restaurant, street, you name it was FULL of people repping their "polos" for Peru. After the game, Peruvian flags, smiling faces, and chants were happening all around. The post-game celebration might be my current favorite moment of this whole abroad experience. Now I'm hoping to go to Russia with the team to cheer them on in June - we'll see if the bank agrees with my plan.
After all that excitement, here's my 3 favorite lessons from this week:
(1)On Monday, I taught the kids the water cycle using hand expressions and motions. They LOVED it. I was proud of myself to have them get out of their seats and interact with the material. I also had them put themselves in the order of the steps in the cycle, which is the picture above. Somehow, I made it through this day without my co-op in the classroom and having to classroom manage in spanish. I will let you all know it is not that easy - while many spanish words come to me easily now, I still need some "think time" every now and then. Those few precious seconds sometimes make a difference when I am trying to begin a lesson. However, my students know I am still learning spanish, so for the most part they cooperate, and it makes for a happy Miss Lauren when they do!
(2) I also had some down time this week because my math lesson did not take as much time as I thought. Since my co-op had to leave early that day (Tuesday) I I decided to teach the kids how to make a "word web." By thinking on my feet (and in spanish) I had them draw a spider in their notebooks with the theme of "futbol" (pretty typical right?). They then told me parts of futbol that they thought were important. My favorite one was "amistad" which is friendship in spanish. My co-op loved the pictures of the board and loved the idea!
(3) My favorite part of the lessons this week was I taught the kids "Joy to the World" in english. At the end of their academic year (which is late december) they have a celebration right in time for Christmas! My co-op asked me to teach them a christmas song in english for that celebration. We started that this week! I cannot begin to tell you all how excited I am about this and the kids really loved the song! *Shoutout to Mom - I'm going to eventually teach them the claps during the refrain like you do!
Here's a few more quick tidbits from this week:
- I taught a bit of Peruvian history (which I did not know - so I was learning along with the kids)
- I prepared a math assessment for the kids which I was so proud of (shocking) but it was completely in spanish too! And the kids understood it! Yay!
- The kids were learning about volume in math and were using legos to count how much was in each figure. *8th graders back in Wisconsin, I know they weren't algebra tiles, but they were as close as you can get!
- I taught the kids the flipping waterbottle game AND I was able to successfully flip it. Go. Me. However, now I regretfully am thinking, "what did I start..."
*Check out the photos page to see more pictures from the classroom!
I am going to end this with a little story about my wonderful host family:
As a family, we were all attending a fundraiser for the Rotary club. The people there were making "Pachamanca" which is a traditional peruvian dish. They make it by digging holes in the ground and heating up the meat, beans, and potatoes that way. We got to watch them make it and it was so interesting! See pictures here:
However, about 2 hours later, the food was still being cooked and the family was getting a little "antsy." So, we left the fundraiser, walked down to a restaurant, and ate there. Hahaha. Don't you worry, we came back for support, but we grabbed the food to go and ate it later for dinner.
Now, why I think this is so funny is because it is TOTALLY something that would happen with my family back home. Right Mom, Dad, Mo, Sibs? Can't you see our grandma doing the same thing? Hahaha.
Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is that I really love being a part of my family here in Peru. I feel really close to them and am excited because this weekend we are headed to Chiclayo on a trip with my host dad. We're pretty excited for the adventure! (It's also the city of Amistad *see above for translation* and hopefully it lives up to its expectations!)
Ciao for now!
Lauren :)
Oh. P.S. The verb "transpirar" does NOT I repeat NOT mean "to transpire." So while asking people "what's happening" use the verb "pasar" which means "to happen"
If you as "que es transpirando" it means "what's sweating."
How do I know this?
...I've been using transpirar instead of pasar and have been asking people "what's sweating" for 4 weeks....
That explains all the weird looks!