Teaching some lessons, seeing some sites!

Oy! (hi)

I have to say, I love teaching at OLM! The atmosphere is so loving and safe. All of the students respect each other, I have witnessed zero bullying! This is every teacher's dream! I have been doing the English review every morning and I started teaching Social Studiesthis week too! I taught an introduction lesson on the 5 regions in the US. It was so fun! Most of these students do quite a bit of traveling in the US, so as we were playing "Which region looks like this", they all had a lot to say and share about places they have seen. For my game, I made a Power point and each slide had pictures of each region's landforms and climate and the students worked together in groups to guess the region. It got a little loud, but that's not a bad thing here. It is completely normal for the students to be in groups with friends, much like in the states, but here it seems to be a little more loud and crazy. That is just my American opinion though. At times I want to make them work quietly because that is how I was taught to manage my classroom. I am starting to like the Brazilian way though. The teacher trusts that even though the students are talking, they are still working and will get their work done. I am definately finding my feet in the middle of what I like to do as a teacher and what my teacher likes to do.
I start teaching my unit on Monday. I am teaching the letter writing process, which is also a learning experience for me! In Brazil, the mail is addressed different than in the States! Monday, I will be teaching how to properly address mail, Tuesday we'll discuss the greeting of a letter, next day the body, and so on. Week two of my unit will be writing to pen pals in the states! My cousin is a third grade teacher and we will be writing to her class! I am super excited!
Friday we didn't do too much. A week of teaching really took a lot out of us! Saturday we took a taxi to the Copacabana beach and walked around an antique fair in the Sofitel Hotel. It was a little pricey, but interesting! Lots of imported rugs. Next, we went to the Forte de Copacabana. It was so amazing!

Today was the highlight of my trip thus far, we went to the Jardim Botanico! (Botanical Gradens)

Ahhhh it was amazing!!! I can't really describe it so here are some pictures :D

Christ Statue in the distance!

Me and a pretty pretty flower

Shop, beach, samba!

Alright.... a lot has happened since my last blog and it's 11pm right now. I'll try to make this quick and to the point.

Friday: My new friend Vivie took my roomies and I to the Botafogo mall. She said it is the smallest mall in Rio, it had eight floors. These Brazilians like to shop! And eat, about 3 of the floors were strictly places to eat! The view of the bay from the top floor of the mall took my breath away.

See.

Friday night Vivie took us to her friend birthday party at Drink Cafe by our house. My CT came too, which was great. I got to talk and get to know her more (kind of hard at school with trying to teach the little ones and all).

Saturday: We went to Copacabana with Vive (we love Vive!!!) We went around 10, Amanda and I walked around and waited for Vive at the Metro while Caitlin and Claire soaked up the sun. When we got to the beach the first thing we did was buy umbrellas! It was soooooo hot by 11am! (obviously, it's Rio!) even though I applyed SPF 50 and hid under an umbrella, I still got slightly fried (Sorry mom/sister:[ ). I think the sun wiped us all out because we didn't do anything that night.

The beach, and yes. Men wear those...

:)

Sunday: We slept in until noon and then went to the Hippie Fair in Impanema. We actualy got pretty brave and took a taxi to the metro in Copacabana, then took the metro to Impanema square. We shopped at this fair from 12:30 until 4:00! It was amazing and half of my gifts for my people back home are bought (for cheap!) Yippie! I got such authentic Rio gifts, but I can't tell you what because it's a surprise! ;) The fair was so popular, we ran into so many English speaking people! It was great! We even made random friends and may be going to the beach with them later this week. Rio is so friendly (People back home, I am being safe and not naive so stop worrying). Sunday night Amanda and I took a walk and an Americano Express Blockbuster. Holy jackpot! We found Disney movies for 12.99 reais, translation= Pocahontis and Alice and Wonderland for 7 US bucks a piece! Yup, Rio is amazing ;)

Today: I taught my first lesson today and I gotta say, I went well. My lesson was on commas and using them correctly in a series. I brought in objects from home and put them in a bag. For the lesson I had the children pick the objects from the bags one by one and as we did that we formed sentences. For example, "I found a pen, a sock, and belt." I wrote the sentence on the board with no commas and had the students copy the sentence in their English notebooks with the correct punctuation. May not sound amazing, but they loved it. They loved seeing my things and some of the objects were pictures so it was a "getting to know me" exercise as well. It was also great because all of these students are ESL (English as a Second Language) Their first language is Portuguese and two of them are new and speak only Spanish. Having real life objects made it fun for everyone and easier to understand! Of course there are things I would change, but I think it went well for my first go at it. It was funny beacause some things I had were so American and I had no idea. My class didn't know what mouthwash was and when I pulled out a flip flop and started writing that on the board their faces were so confused. They were saying, "flip flop, what's a flip flop? That's a sandal Mzzzz. Hawke". PS, the way they say Ms. is so cute I could die.

After school the librarian told us about a samba show, so we went thinking we would see some authentic dancing. Well, we did. It was not like a show that you sit down and watch. This was like a pre Carnival extravaganza. We were in downtown Rio (for the first time) and seeing tall, amazing old buildings and in these buildings we were catching glimps of Carnival floats. This "show" was just one big celebration!There was music and food, people dancing, and in the buildings next to this "show" was where the floats were being worked on for this year.

Claire, Caitlin, me, Amanda, and one of the floats from last year.

And again :)

I really liked this one

This was taken at the beginning, The people quadrupled like an hour later. Crazy.

Me on the trolly that played live samba music!

Teachin' and beachin' :)

Second day of teaching and it's only getting better. Today I found my teacher and classroom with no problems, and that's saying something if you know me :p
I am really building a rapport with my class. I have about 7 of my 18 student's name's down! And let me paint you a picture... Their name tags say their full name, like Isabella Fernada Gudaloupa, and the teacher calls her FeFe... Makes it tough to learn a name, but the students are so sweet it's hard not to remember them :) They are all saying my name so well now too and it's only their second day with me! (It's so funny how they can say my name, makes me feel better that I can't say theirs just yet!) When I indtroduce myself to the staff they say, "Brittany, like Brittany Spears?" I think that's pretty funny.

 The students are such amazing and smart children, I just cannot say enough about them. They speak Portuguese as a first language and English as their second. Well, not all of them. One little boy came from Spain last year and spoke only spanish, but here we are in the second semester and he's speaking English and Portuguese very well! He also helps the new student that started yesterday, he moved here to Rio from Argentina and speaks only spanish (for now). These kids catch on so quick! OH! I forgot to mention I am teaching third grade, which is neat because that is what I just taught in the states so comparing the to will be interesting. I talked to my teacher about their curriculum here and their standards for teaching and they are trying new things and really trying to challenge the students to get them where they know they can be. Those two boys are not the only natives to Brazil. There are two students in my class that are from Portugal and one student from America.

Seeing these awesome kids speak multiple languages makes me determined to learn all the Portuguese I can! I know they say it's easier to learn when you're young, but I'm not old yet ;)

Here is my classes DEAR section in the room (Drop Everything And Read) love it. :)

 Some students in my class hard at work!

After teaching, Amanda, Claire, Caitlin, and I decided it was too nice not to go to the beach. Everyone told us Impanema beach was the nicest and youngest beach in Rio so we tried it out. After a 20 reais taxi drive...we finally got there and it was completely worth it. Even just driving in the taxi around the Laguna (lake) and passing the mountains was amazing... and sitting on the beach you could see those very mountains. Magnífico, see...

 Impanema Beach

What I was looking at while laying on the beach :)

<3

:)

They have sunflowers here!

No big deal, just a mountain inbetween and as big as two huge buildings...

Sunset mountains over the Laguna <3