An Irish Thanksgiving

This week has been a very good one! I have never taught art or p.e. before but I find it to be kind of fun. This week in art I taught the students how to mix one color of paint with both black and white to get darker, medium, and lighter shades of the same color. Some students used purple while others used yellow, blue, or red. They each painted in a picture of a snake divided into four parts. The first part of the snake was the darkest color and then each part after that became lighter and lighter. Their projects turned out incredibly well! For p.e. I had them warm up by playing a game on Simon Says and this way Simon would tell them to do different exercises. Then we played a "tidy up" game where students could only pick up one item from off of the floor at a time and put it back in the proper bin. It's amazing how little kids get so excited to clean up when you turn it into a game haha.

Yesterday I went into the 6th class to teach them all about Thanksgiving. It went really well! I made a website on iweb all about Thanksgiving about 3 years ago for a class in my sophomore block. The link to the website is here. It definitely came in handy! I also had the students do a follow up activity which involved making a Thanksgiving Tree of Thanks. Students traced a tree stump with tree branches and then cut it out and glued it onto a piece of paper. Next, they cut out leaf patterns and glued the leaves onto the branches. On each leaf, students wrote something that they are truly grateful for such as their family, their home, and good friends, instead of things like video games, sweets, tv, etc. Their projects turned out really nicely! 

Right before I left their classroom to go back down to the junior infants class, they gave me a Thanksgiving card that they had made before I came in to teach them. It was soo sweet! 

Yesterday during lunch, I was also surprised with a cake and a box of sweets from the Dromclough staff! They wanted to help make it a nice Thanksgiving even while I am away from home. It was so sweet and generous of them, it really did make for a nice Thanksgiving after all! I'm so happy that I am student teaching at a school with such a nice group of teachers and staff :) 

Last night for Thanksgiving my host dad and I went to a couple's house for dinner. My host family knows this couple because they came here to do missionary work and they are involved a lot with the church that my host family attends. They came here from California about one week after I arrived here myself. It was so nice having a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes. My host mom also sent my host dad and I with an apple tart that was so "gorgeous," as they say here.
Happy Thanksgiving weekend :)