Sofia Somewhere

Just like that, another school year has come and gone. The kids have been on vacation since mid-October, while us teachers and staff have just a few more days left of work. We spent the extra month in trainings and workshops, and preparing for the next school year.  with some of my girls It's been a great first year for me at this new school. The start of the school year was a rough adjustment period, but I gradually got used to the work and the environment. The highlight of the year though was definitely my students. I got to work with such a great and sweet group of kids, and I will miss them when they move up to fourth grade next year, as I'll be staying to teach third. For our last big project of the year, we worked on a PBL (Project Based Learning) that consisted of the students coming up with and implementing solutions to a problem we posed, which was how to get the students to speak more English amongst themselves during English class. My kids came up with a...

As we go into April, the first quarter has finished, and we're about two weeks into the second. The past two and a half months have been non-stop busy with lessons to plan each week, quizzes to make, workbooks to check, activities to grade, and more. Nevertheless, I've been learning a lot, improving my skills, and enjoying the company and pleasure of teaching a great batch of kids. I'm teaching Third Grade, which is the biggest group in Primary with 18 students in my homeroom section and 20 in the other. I enjoy teaching this grade. These particular group of students have a good level of English, and I can hold conversations with them in English. Aside from that, they're at an age where they can understand my classes in English, they can work (fairly) independently, but still love to play games and receive hugs. I have some extra love for my homeroom section who have been very sweet to me, welcoming me as a new teacher, and always leaving me messages on the white...

It's been some time since my last post; as usual, life's been busy. In November, I said goodbye to La Esperanza , and moved to Antigua, a city I've come to love with my frequent visits. I spent November relaxing in Antigua and traveling a bit around Guatemala, and then to New Orleans in the first week of December. The rest of December was spent with family at home for the Christmas season, and I was back in Guatemala by the second week of January. The past four weeks flew by. I started a new job at a private bilingual school in a town next to Antigua. I had actually started working for a week in November, but there was still so much to do once I arrived. I spent the first week in meetings and workshops, and decorated my classroom in between. Then we had a meeting with the parents on Saturday, and bright and early on Monday morning, the kids arrived in school. At this school, I'm teaching English to third grade which has two sections. Section A has 18 students, and i...

In a blink, final exams were taken, classrooms packed up, and the school year has come to an end. There’s been a lot going on, leaving me no time to process my thoughts until now. I’ll get to that in a bit, but first, some last few events at the end of the school year. A — what seemed like a last minute — event that we attended was an Expoferia . The schools in the sector were each tasked to do an expo of events that happened at the school throughout the year. Aside from recreating posters and information of certain events (e.g. Science and Math Week, International Corn Day), we also had to come up with some sort of activity for the students to do while they visited our booths.  On October 1st was possibly one of the students’ favorite days in the entire year: Día del Niño or Children’s Day. Throughout the year they have Mother's Day, Father's Day, Teacher's Day, etc. where they are always tasked with making gifts and doing performances. On this day, th...