First Days of School

School has officially started and under the conditions, it runs very well. This is considering there are only 4 grades being taught now and two of them have to share a classroom. If you don't think teaching is tough, try sharing your Kindergarten classroom with the 1st grade teacher. Two different teachers teaching two different subjects at the same time to two different classes. This is all happening within 6 feet of each other. Definitely a little distracting.

The ship has finally left Majuro! This means that within a week we should have: desks, chairs, and tables for the new classrooms, as well as school supplies like paper, pencils, crayons and I'm hoping construction paper. I've been watching my paper usage over the last week because I wasn't sure when our supplies were coming. I've had students use the front of a paper
for one assignment and the back for another.
On this ship, I will also have my luggage which has taken a month to get to me. This is because of a series of
delays and several boat changes. I'm
really excited! I was starting to run
out of toothpaste.

I absolutely love my
classes! My Kindergartners are the
best. I'm teaching them the alphabet and
the different sounds for each letter. I'm
doing the same thing as my Kindergarten master teacher, Mary Barnes. I'm using gestures that go with each
sound. There is nothing cuter than 10
little 5 year olds making the T sound and making a gesture like pushing a tack
into the wall. All the Marshallese
parents love to come watch my lessons and I often hear a giggle from them
throughout this whole process. I also
taught them "I'm a little teapot" and I couldn't even get through the
whole song because they made me laugh.
They were so serious and focused, trying to follow along with the hand
motions so when they all tipped over at the end, I cracked up. The parents loved it. My other classes are equally wonderful but my
third graders are rowdy which is hard to manage when I don't speak their
language. But I'm working on it. My 8th graders are amazing and really work
hard. There is an 8th grade test at the
end of the year to determine whether the
students go to high school or not so they are focused to say the least.

Life on the island
has infinitely improved because school started.
The kids know me now and I've been playing volleyball, collecting
shells, and drawing pictures in the sand with them. I'm really excited for the ship to come and
possibly have school supplies, my luggage and maybe some letters for me!