Day 19 (1.22.24): Countdown to Valentine's Day!

Hello! This is Sydney Anderson, returning for a second blog post and a glimpse into my classroom experience with Standard VI. I am with the oldest age group, which is the 12-13 year olds who are in their last year at Fatima. They are an absolute blast to teach and interact with. My cooperative teacher is fantastic with them, so we have a great balance of fun and disciplined learning. My students show respect and are engaged in lessons, which makes my job easier and very enjoyable! I've been teaching math everyday in this class since I've been with them, and sometimes I bring a book as well to do a read aloud and followup activity. Today, the read aloud and creative writing prompt that I had planned required some added imagination.

I brought two books with me that both told stories about snow. One was called Snow Day, so that was the inspiration for the writing prompt. While we have been sweating like crazy and soaking up the sun here in Belize this month, our friends back at Taylor have had winter weather advisories due to the extreme cold conditions. They've also gotten quite a bit of snow, which I must say I'm jealous of. As a Wisconsinite, I love snow and have some wonderfully fond memories of snow days as a kid. After reading the books, I told my class all about the memories I have of snow days and tried my best to paint a picture in their head, since they will probably never see snow in their lives. I then asked them to imagine that they woke up to snow falling outside their window and a couple feet of snow on the ground-- what would they do? What would they build or play in the snow? They showed creativity in their writing, but it cracked me up that as I explained a snow ball fight to them, they all got excited at the idea of demolishing a sibling in a snowball fight. Typical of middle schoolers, I suppose.

Now for the purpose of the title of this post...

Last week, my students were talking about Valentine's Day being the next upcoming holiday. My cooperative teacher said that each student in her class is her Valentine, and so is "Miss Sydney", but the students asked how I could be their Valentine if I won't be around for Valentine's Day. My teacher decided we should have a Valentine's party on my last day- this Thursday- which made my students very excited. So now I am anticipating making valentines the next few nights for each of my students, as I prepare for that last day with them, also known as Valentine's Day.