ann eliza odette: miss annie

so our first week of teaching is officially done! i definitely was super nervous to start. i teach the beginning class. my kids are anywhere from 4-7 and i love them so much. it is a struggle to write lesson plans and teach them to kids that don't speak english. you want them to get as much language as possible out of the lessons while keeping their attention. it can be kind of hard at times, but it is so much fun. this week i taught arts & crafts and games. the other teacher that i teach with, katie, taught shop and drama. so it has been fun to see how the kids respond to each subject.

we teach everyday from 3:30-7:30. we have our first block from 3:30-5:30, then the second block from 5:35 to 7:30. during the first block, katie and i solo teach because there are more kids that come during that time. during the second block we team teach because there are fewer kids. in the second block we also have younger kids that don't speak/understand as much. every lesson and block is completely different and you have to adjust and pretty much just roll with whatever happens. all that matters is that you're speaking and the kids are talking back to you. it's only been a week and you can see that there is progress being made. i love it!

while teaching has been fun, it is also super exhausting. lesson planning and being with little kids everyday for 4 hours can get pretty tiring. so i'm way excited for the weekend! tonight we're going to sushi with edgar and greta and i'm way excited for that! i love sushi and it's something other than potatoes! then tomorrow we're going to trakai. it's a lake town with a huge castle in the middle of the lake. they're having some kind of medieval festival, so it should be interesting. then when we get back from trakai, nike is having a women's 5k tomorrow night with a festival after. so obviously we're not running the 5k, but we'll go in to old town for the festival. i'm excited for the little break from teaching.

OH!! and one of my kids calls me miss banana. and if anyone knows what that means, you would understand how cute that is. growing up i was called annie bananie and my brother still calls me banana. so it is a little piece of home when i hear a sweet voice calling me miss banana.

i hope everyone is good at home. i find myself missing america sometimes. mostly when i want durangos, benjas, when i realize i can't flush my toilet paper down the toilet, and when i want a dryer to dry my clothes. but other than that, i'm so happy here.

love to you all.

xoxo,
ann