Waiau Pa School

 Last night after dinner, I started feeling sick. I had cold chills and could not stay warm even under all of my covers. I went to sleep early and thought that I was okay when I woke up. While I was in the shower, however, I started to feel dizzy, and I ran to the bathroom where I threw up several times. Throughout the day I was feeling really weak and tired, and I did not have an appetite. I am feeling much better now, so I am hoping that it was just a small 24 hour bug.

Today, we visited the school that Bryony teaches at. The first thing I observed was a reading recovery session. It was very similar to the one I saw at Koru. The student read a new book. Then, he read his book from the day before while the teacher did a running record. After that, he came up with a sentence that he wrote in his book. The teacher sends the sentence home with the parents so that they can practice the words with the child.

While Brittany taught and Dr. Lindsey filmed it, Dr. Fernandez and I wondered in and out of classes. We went into the Year 1 and new entrant classes. The Year 1 class was making colorful pictures, and the new entrant class was coloring 3-D drawings. After morning tea, I got to spend about an hour in the New entrant classroom while they did a full reading lesson. The teacher had a SmartBoard that she used. It was very interesting to see all of the things that a SmartBoard can do. Once again, the children were grouped, and the groups moved around to different stations.

The next class I went to was a Year 5 or 6 (I'm not really sure). The class was doing a unit about rights and responsibilities, and they were working on explanations. I did not think that the lesson was some thing special. In fact, it reminded me of something that I would see in Kentucky. One thing I did like about the classroom, however, was the math work that was displayed on the walls. There were a lot of graphs and fun activities that the children had done.

After lunch, Dr. Lindsey went into a classroom that had a pet turtle. She has about 15 turtles and 300 snakes at her house, so she answered student questions about  turtles and how to better take care of their turtle. It was really interesting to listen to all that she knew, and I definitely learned more about snakes and turtles.

At 2, we went to watch the students have their "rock star challenge." The students were asked to practice a song that they had to sing in front of the class. During the hour, about 6 children performed, and I was amazed by their talents. One girl played guitar and another played electric guitar. They all sang really well too. The goal of the challenge was to get stduents to take risk and not care about what others think. The students were very brave! I could not have gotten up in front of my entire class and sang when I was in middle school.

It has been a very long week! All of us are exhausted! I am very happy to be here, and I am learning a lot from the NZ schools. I am hoping for a long relaxing weekend at the beach. On Monday, we visit our first university which I am really looking forward to.