Back to School Night

Last night at school was Back to School Night. This is when the parents of all the kids come to school and go to each of their kid's classes so that they can figure out what it is their kids are doing all day. I decided to do mine in Spanish, which I was nervous about for about a week in advance. I went through my syllabus and translated the things I needed to beforehand which really helped. When the parents first got to school they had a presentation about the new things going on in the middle school, and then the seventh and eighth grade parents went upstairs to start the class rotation and the sixth grade parents stayed for a welcome-to-middle-school-type presentation. Some of our kids had been chosen to be guides, I think they were calling them edecanes, and they dressed up and escorted the parents around. They were so cute I could have puked. Anyway, when the parents finally came up to my class I had to firmly grip my syllabus to keep my hands from noticeably shaking, but the parents were very patient with me and laughed politely at my jokes and everything. Thank God. It was the second time since I've been here where I have really felt like I stretched my Spanish abilities, and I felt really good about it. Thankfully, I found some vocabulary and verb tenses that had been lying dormant in my Spanish lexicon for a long time and it came in very handy. Overall the Back to School Night went far better than I expected.

Today we went to school and reviewed for our upcoming language arts and spelling exams. The kids took their social studies exam and they did amazingly. I was really happy with their results. We played some review games during which I pretty sure the other teachers throughout the hall thought I was murdering my students from their screams. JP has been coming to school all week this week sick as a dog. He had a bad fever a few days ago and spent a round 13 hours at school for his own Back to School Night. He is feeling much better now though. When we came we watched a bit of Harry Potter and wandered around on El Conde for awhile. I think this weekend we are going to go out around here which I am really looking forward to. Hopefully I can use some Spanish, we'll see. I am working on sending emails, please keep them coming I love hearing from you guys!