Alegría en el dolor- Joy in the pain

These past few weeks have been my "green light go!" weeks, but I've been waiting for the "slow down yellow light" days...even a "red light stop" day would be nice (but those days are almost here!) Time to explain...

Wow! What a nerd :)

 







These past few weeks have found me in full control of the classroom (This coming week will actually be my 4th week of teaching all the subjects in the classroom). I've been learning so much, but I learned one big lesson this week, which God used to humble me and draw me closer to Him. 


The beginning of this week started off great. We had Spirit Week at school, in order to pump up the girls and boys volleyball team because they were headed to Honduras for AASCA volleyball (I don't fully understand what AASCA is, but it is a big deal at the school).
Spirit Week had the students dressing up as Nerds or Hipsters (Monday) and as Cowboys or Hippies (Tuesday). I was a double nerd on Monday and had nerdy glasses, plus a homemade drawing of a box of nerds, which I pinned to my shirt. The kids loved it. 


Tuesday I came to school dressed as a cowgirl...I don't know if you remember from one of my 1st blogs, but the room I'm staying in belongs to my host sister, who is at college in Mexico. She LOVES horses and my room is full of horse gear/apparel. So I had no problem finding a cowboy hat. I was tempted to bring the horse whip along too and get my students in shape, but I don't think that would've gone over so well ;)

 






 *One of the cleaning ladies at school commented to my cooperating teacher, in Spanish, that I looked like a true cowgirl!*



During science class I took the students outside to observe different types of gasses. We've been studying "Matter" and after looking at liquids and solids it was finally time to checkout gas. I brought a balloon to play "don't touch the ground" and a bottle of bubble for them to pop.


The kids had a blast popping the bubbles, but I had a bit of a hard time persuading them to come back inside for art class. 


The following day (Wednesday) was an exciting/busy day! Both of my host sisters play volleyball and were going to Honduras for the big volleyball game. Last minute my host mom was invited to go along to chaperone, so it was just Leo (the dog) and I left to mend for ourselves. The night before they left (Tuesday) my host mom showed me how to work the security system in our house, which is a little complicated, but I was able to understand everything she said in Spanish :) As we said good night she asked in Spanish "¿Tienes miedo?" -"Are you afraid? I was a little nervous to be on my own for 5 days, but I knew I had God with me (My Ultimate Protector) and Leo too ;) So I told her, "No, yo tengo a Dios y Leo." -"No, I've got God and Leo."

Anyway...that is part of the reason why Wednesday was so busy because my host mom and sisters left super early for Honduras and I went off to school with the neighbors. This day was also the day my supervisor was observing me, for the 2nd time, and to top that off she was going to video tape my science lesson because it is a requirement I have for one of my classes back in the states. 

The school day went really great and I was all ready for my video taped lesson. I had gotten the room ready ahead of time and everything was in order. I set up the video camera for my supervisor and at 1:30 PM I was ready to roll! 
 
The lesson went pretty good. I'm still working hard on classroom management, but altogether the lesson was a lot of fun. (We made this green goo called "oobleck." You may have heard of it before from the Dr. Suess book "Bartholomew and the oobleck.").

 The ingredients are above: it is just 1.5 cups of corn starch, and 1 cup of water (More fun if you add green food coloring!).


The kids had a blast with the goo! But by the end of the day I was worn out from all the busy activities and trying to make sure everything ran smoothly. As I was cleaning everything up my supervisor stopped me and said, "I deleted the video." I seriously thought she meant that the lesson was so bad that she went and deleted it. 
What she really meant was that she accidentally deleted the video when she was transferring it to her computer. My emotions were all jumbled because I was tired, excited to be done, and now super confused. My supervisor kept apologizing about it all and saying she'd come tape any other lesson, but then a parent took her away to talk, so I made my way back to the classroom to clean up. 


I was very disappointed and confused and the tears started to slip from my eyes as I cleaned up everything from the experiment. Thankfully the little 3rd grade girl, who is my neighbor and I was riding home with her, came in to help me out and asked what went wrong. She was really sweet and just helped me clean up, as I cried and explained to her that my wonderful lesson was all deleted. Then we left and her mom, who is from the US comforted me the whole way home. She mentioned on our car ride home about it possibly being a good thing because I would have another chance practice my classroom management skills and she said that we are not perfect and we make mistakes. Both of these things were not necessarily things I wanted to hear, but once I got home I began to reflect on them all and I heard the Holy Spirit say "Stop before you start crying again and read my Word." 


I've already learned that when I hear the Holy Spirit speak I need to obey, so I went and got my Bible and opened to the Psalm of the day (I'm reading through the Bible this year). Psalm 64 was the chapter I read and I believe this chapter is David writing about Saul trying to harm him. I didn't know why God wanted me to read this, but I just kept reading and this is what I discovered: "We have devised a perfect plan! Surely the mind and heart of man are cunning" -That struck me first because I realized I had thought I had devised the "perfect" lesson plan for that day. The chapter goes on and talks about God shooting these "perfect plans" down and bringing them to ruin. Then in verse 9-10 it says "all mankind will fear: they will proclaim the works of God and ponder what he has done. Let the righteous rejoice in the Lord and take refuge in Him; let all the upright in heart praise Him!"


I am a very independent person. I like to do things on my own, and after reading these verses I realized that I had been doing my lessons on my own, and trying to do them in MY strength. Which is the lamest idea ever, but sinful Rachel somehow thought it was a great idea. My "perfect plan" was perfect in my eyes, but I never once stopped to ask God's help or to ask His blessing upon the day. I was ready to go tackle it on my own, and in return the lesson was deleted. Not from history, but from the record I had wanted to keep. Funny how God used this science lesson on "matter" to teach me what really matters. And that is to rely on Him today, tomorrow, and everyday. 

I can't even describe the peace and joy I had that night, after I confessed these thoughts to God and asked for His forgiveness. What a loving God we serve! One of my professors from college had wrote me a few weeks before this incident that she was praying I would find joy in the midst of all my crazy situations and hardships. This was one hardship that I was able to find joy in. 


And even though I was still disappointed that it got deleted I was able to share with my cooperating teacher that it was a blessing in disguise. I sat down with her and explained that I want my teaching to reflect that of Christ, and this lesson I was not reflecting Christ, but I was trying to do it all on my own. My teacher was a little taken back, but she said she was glad I am flexible. What a special opportunity to shine the light of Christ into her life. 


That was certainly the highlight/hardlight of my week :) But there are two more quick items I want to share! 


#1. Like I mentioned before I've been home alone. My mom said she hopped it wouldn't be like the Home Alone movies, and I am glad to say it has not :) But I have been kept busy in this big house. 

 I've had fun in the kitchen making my own food and thought I would share with you some of my tasty dishes.

Fruit is always plentiful in this house: see if you can name all of the fruits above :) P.M.G.L.O.P. C.W.B- Those are all the initials of the fruit names. 

I also thought I'd bake some welcome home cookies for the girls. This time I was able to use real flour :) But I did include crushed up corn flakes and oatmeal. I realized that I just like to add oatmeal to everything. I made pancakes this morning and added a packet of instant-cinnamon-oatmeal to the pancake mix. Talk about delicious pancakes!

I also managed to do four loads of laundry, and I watered all of my host mom's flowers/plants tonight. That took forever because our yard is seriously like the rainforest! And I got bit by two bugs which left welts on my leg the size of Texas. But on a positive note, I finally realized why our fridge is always stocked with aguagates-avacados. We have an avacado tree in the backyard! I'll have to take a picture sometime. 

Oh, and the other crazy adventure is back to our alarm system. No, we did not have any intruders besides myself. Each room in the house has a special sensor in it. Two rooms in the house: the garage, and my host mom's room, have a security panel which has a number for each room, so the numbers light up when someone is in those rooms. Well, each night before I go to bed I am supposed to go into my host mom's room and press "en casa"(in home) and then type in the alarm code. It beeps for 1 minute and then the alarm is set. This means that I can be in the rooms upstairs, but I cannot go in the office downstairs or open any of the door downstairs because that will set off the alarm. 

However, there is one other type of alarm. This alarm is only to be set when I leave the house because it sets off the sensors in all the rooms of the house, so if it senses someone in any of the rooms it will go off. Wellll...I was doing so good with setting the right alarms and then I blew it last night. I was really tired and all ready for bed. I quick ran to my host mom's room and put in the code. BUT, I forgot to put "en casa" before I typed in the alarm. Sooo...while it beeped for one minute I went and hopped in bed. As soon as it stopped beeping I suddenly realized I had forgotten to put "en casa"...this meant that as soon as my sensor in my room sensed me in it the alarm would go off. I began to imagine how I could be smarter than the sensor and started to doze off when I guess I rolled over and BAM! I was out of my bed before you could say "Merry Christmas!" The alarms were all screaming their noisy whines throughout the house and I could hear the rest of the neighborhood go silent.


Thankfully my speedy skills had the alarm shut off in no time, but I was dreading the next part. This was when the security system would call and make sure everything was okay and that there was not an intruder in the house. This would not be such a big deal except I knew it would all be in Spanish. Thankfully the security guy and I were able to communicate just fine and I gave him the password, so he knew I was fine and he wished me a good night. And that was that! 

This morning I woke up and heard little beep, beep, beeps coming from the security alarm. I guess the power went out last night, but I don't know how to reset the whole system, so I'll just have to wait for my host mom to get back to figure that out :) Well, I've babbled on enough. Time to catch some zzzz's so I can be refreshed for my last full week of teaching and for the ARRIVAL OF MY PARENTS!!! Only three days until they leave for Costa Rica and four days until I see them :) Super stoked! 
 

This is Pastor Cesar Castellanos-both him and his wife spoke, and their daughter was one of the main musicians.

 *I wish I had more time to highlight the Christian festival I went to last week, but here is a nutshell of the festival and some pictures-youtube clips you can look at if you want to :) 

The concert was packed and the worship was amazing!

Basically it was like a Billy Graham crusade, but smaller and a Latin America version. I went to a prayer meeting in the morning, which was wonderful and later in the evening they had a big worship/concert with a variety of speakers. I went with Mani and Majo. And Majo's dad was friends with most of the pastors that spoke, so we got to sit on the side of the stage by all of the band members and keynote speakers! The mayor of San Jose was even there :) *He is a Christian and wants to become the next president of Costa Rica.


It was an amazing time! I had previously met one of the head band leaders, who is also a pastor and worship leader from Columbia (he spoke at Majo's church awhile back and we went out to lunch with him). Here is a youtube video of him singing in the band
Generacion 12 (the name of the band is Generacion 12)
And this is a youtube clip I found of the festival from last year...
it was certainly filled with the Holy Spirit!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvPQmJwgRng&feature=related

Next time I write I will have seen my parents and it will be approximately one month until I'm home!

Maestra, March Madness- Teacher, March Madness

This is not only my "IT'S FRIDAY" happy face, but also my excitement in surviving my 1st full week of teaching!!!

 

 

 

  

 I've been due for a blog update...but as the title says "March Madness" has got "Maestra" Rachel all tied up. Not literally! Thankfully my students like me more than that ;)

Here are some pictures and quick updates of what I've been up to at home and in school. 

Last weekend I did lesson planning, lesson planning, and more lesson planning. I was able to go to a church "pirate" skit/outreach evangelism event with Mani and Majo and that was a nice break, but I also enjoyed some more time with chef Rachel in the kitchen.

These little beauties came from some creative improvising, which thankfully all worked out...normally my cooking improvisations do not taste so great, but these were "delicioso!"

I had some leftover peanut butter from when I did my girls trip to La Fortuna (I must add that this peanut butter was not cheap, but very tasty!) so I decided to whip up a batch of peanut butter cookies. 

One way I take after my dad is that once I've set my mind to do something I am going to do it, one way or another :) Well....once I had started mixing ingredients I realized that I didn't have any baking powder. I also realized there was no flour. 

Hmmm....so I checked online and found a recipe without baking powder, but the flour was a must. 

 

That is when I remembered seeing a box of pancake mix in the pantry. Pancakes use flour so I decided I would just use the pancake mix as a substitute for my flour. And it worked! 

I will admit that the cookies tasted a tad different than what I was expecting, but they were still really good and my host family has not stopped begging me to make more.

 Here are some pictures of the other ingredients that made up my cookies:

                  

I also enjoyed jamming to some Hillsong, as Leo (our dog) watched me with one eyebrow raised :) And caught the sun setting in the west. Day well spent.

Now on to my 1st week of full control in the classroom.

Here are some pictures to give you a preview of the behind the work scenes that go into my lessons. 

  
The picture above shows some of the curriculum I use, which aid me in writing up lesson plans each week. And my #1 tool to the right, a teacher/ journal book that some of my college friends gave me before I left for Costa Rica. This book contains all of my schedules, important information, and lots of random teaching things.

This is what a week of lesson planning looks like. I have to record it in the computer for my site supervisor to review each week, but I also like to have it written out and in order so I can refer to it in class each day.

Last but not least, the picture on the right is one of my biggest areas of growth as a future teacher:
Classroom Management 101

I love my 2nd graders but they have a lot of growth when it comes to being quiet in the classroom and respecting the classroom rules. It is hard because I was not here when they established their classroom rules, so coming in now I am trying to reinforce good behavior in the classroom.

Last week I knew I had to figure out some classroom management strategy because my voice was starting to hurt from talking over my students, and I was feeling very frustrated by how much time we lost in noisy transitions. 

I started reading a book on "Positive Discipline," which the school counselor gave me and there were some good tips, but I decided to use my resources and ask for advice from my wonderful Blockheads. The Blockheads are my friends back in the states who are also doing their student teaching now (We all had Junior Block classes together at Trinity and got the nickname of being "The Blockheads"). 

Anyhooo...one tip for managing my classroom was to  reward the students with fake coins for good behavior and at the end of the week they can cash their coins in for prizes or save them for bigger prizes. I implemented this plan and had one week of success! Here are some examples of the amazing prizes the students are saving for:
$1: pick a sticker out of the treasure box
$4: pick a book for T. Rachel to read
$5: eat lunch with T. Rachel
$7: receive a good behavior slip

In addition, we have been studying about Helen Keller and my students have been pretty impressed by my sign language skills...I only know the alphabet in sign language but to 2nd graders this is quite impressive. 

My cooperating teacher recommended that I come up with a signal for getting the students attention and being quiet, so I decided to put my hand over my mouth (just like in the picture) and wait until all of my students copy my behavior. Once the classroom is quiet we put our hands down, and this is the sign (in sign language) for "Thank you." And it is a thank you for the students quietness and following good behavior. It has been working and hopefully it will keep working!

 
One thing I have had to adjust to is the many pieces that make up teaching. It is not just lesson planning, delivering the lesson, grading, and classroom management. Nope, it is also communicating with parents, sending weekly progress reports home, attending staff meetings, staying after school every Thursday until 4:30PM to help struggling students catch up and stay on track, etc... 

However, I finally feel like I am at a point where I know most of the routines and am able to comfortably accomplish the tasks. When I began to take over more subjects I was becoming very overwhelmed and discouraged, but God has been reminding me to take one day at a time and just continue to give it my best and leave Him with the rest. 

*Grouping: currently I have the students grouped into tables of three. This has really helped them keep each other accountable for staying on task, as well as provide opportunities for students to work together and help each other, instead of me being the only one who can answer their questions.

 I have also implemented best practice teaching methods in my classroom by differentiating my instruction. Some lessons are targeted at my visual learners, whereas other lessons reach my auditory and kinestethetic learners. For example, I partnered my 18 students in the classroom for reading time outside, which allowed them to read a book that was at their level, with a partner, as well as be outside in an area on the playground, which they got to choose. 


Here are some projects from our classroom: 

  

 

And I will close with a fantastic Friday finale: International Day

 Apparently every year my school celebrates one day at the school as "International Day." The parent association of the school has parents sign up to bring/serve a dish of food from their home country and everyone dresses up in a way that represents their home country. Today was extra special because the students were encouraged to wear green (since tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day: and a shout out to all of my Finish relatives, as today we celebrate St. Urho's Day!) 
 




    I hit the jack pot, as I had a green shirt, which also represented the United States. Double dipping!

I also had a pair of big green glasses, which my students enjoyed trying on and making funny faces. 

                               





                                                

 Here is a picture of my 18 little rascals: 

 

And here are some pictures from the day's events and large supply of yummy food!

  

This was just one of my plates of food! We also had a huge plate of desserts, which were just as tasty, but so rich.


I had my first taste of Costa Rican coffee in a chocolate/coffee pie. That is one recipe I need to get :)

And that wraps up my week! Tomorrow I am going to a Christian festival called "Somos Uno." I am not sure what it will all entail, but I will be there most of the day tomorrow, and I am excited to see what God has in store for me there. (I'm going with Mani and Majo)

Finally, I have my wall of love/encouragement to share with you :)

One wall in my bedroom is covered with cards I have received from family/friends, as well as some of the precious drawings my students have drawn for me. These words are special and dear to me, but the most important words are the ones found in my favorite book, the Bible.

God is so good, all the time, and I am grateful for the opportunity to be learning every day. The days might not be easy. Some days are downright hard, tiring, and stressful, but I am taking one day at a time and searching for the joy within these tough times. Because no matter what God is here.