A Quiet Week in Quintanar

Let me admit first and foremost that this will probably be my most boring blog post to date. I really don't have anything interesting to share for this post, but alas, it is Tuesday, so I will persevere!

Last week on Wednesday and Thursday, I was working at the elementary school with third and fourth graders. The English teacher for those classes asked me to prepare something, so I decided that I would come up with a lesson about fairy tales. Whenever I go to the infantil classes, I read to them, so I know that Spanish children like the same fairy tales that Americans like; they just have different names (Little Red Riding Hood is Caperucita Roja, for example).

I was planning on making a whole lesson for them but the teacher actually simplified things for me. Once I told him the topic, he suggested we just play a game (I'm a pro at games, because that's the only thing I do in my after school classes). He wanted me to describe fairy tales to them (in English, of course), and they were to guess the name of the fairy tale--in English. I went along with it, because heaven knows that was simple enough, and I prepared a PowerPoint that had pictures of the fairy tales to help them in case they didn't understand. But I was afraid it would be too hard. I didn't want to step on the teacher's toes, but I'm 23 and I studied Spanish for seven years and I know almost no fairy tale names in Spanish. And truthfully, I was right. The third graders, in particular, only got the ones that are the same in Spanish and English (Rapunzel and Pinocchio, for example).

I did discover something interesting, however. The children were familiar with every fairy tale that I shared, except one: Rumpelstiltskin. Out of four classes of 20 or so kids, I found a total of three students that actually knew the story. I wonder why that particular fairy tale hasn't made it to Spain. I'm going to keep it in mind for a future lesson, and maybe in the future I can read it to them.

In my after school lessons, I brought back a game from my childhood that I used to torture my sister with on long car rides: picnic. I'm actually surprised that I didn't think of it before now. For people who aren't familiar, in picnic, you say, "I'm going on a picnic, and I'm going to bring..." and then you work your way through the alphabet, repeating as you go. So the third person could say, "I'm going on a picnic and I'm going to bring apricots, a blanket, and cheese," and the poor soul who has Z has to repeat the entire alphabet. I still love this game, so I enjoyed playing it with my classes. I even played it with my high school students, which was really fun because they were more creative. Most of the picnics I went on with my older elementary students consisted of largely fruit, whereas I went on a picnic with a queen and a robber in my high school lessons.

My six-year-olds played "I Spy" and the hot and cold game last week, and they behaved well so I rewarded them with Red Light, Green Light, which has become their new favorite game. Who would've thought? But I'm still struggling to get them to speak English, because even when I explain the games in English, they end up playing the game mostly in Spanish. Like they would say, "I spy something green!" and then the other children would shout green things in Spanish ("la pizarra!" instead of "the blackboard!"). Oh, those six-year-olds. They're going to be the death of me.

I also picked up three private lessons within the last week, so now I'm teaching as much out of school as in school. Full-time elementary teachers in Spain teach 25 hours a week and now I'm teaching 24, so I'm like a real adult! (Just kidding, of course.) I have two separate one-on-one lessons with two four-year-olds (If you're thinking about how much I struggle with the six-year-olds and wondering what I'm going to do with four-year-olds, join the club.) and a lesson with a teacher and his son. The teacher works at Don Fadrique, a high school that is actually next door to the high school where I work. In fact, I almost went to the wrong one on my first day. You wouldn't believe the crowds in the morning on this street! But those lessons all went pretty well, except that I'm completely wracking my brain for something to do with four-year-olds. At least they're both four, so I can do the same activities with both of them.

My weekend was exceptionally quiet. Surely it was one of the quietest since I arrived in Spain. I spent most of Friday in the library using their WiFi, except when Morgan and I had lunch at the Chinese restaurant. Vicki, Morgan and I spent Saturday night playing board games, watching movies, and staying up entirely too late. Sunday I had a lazy day; the only time I left my apartment was to meet one of my new four-year-old students. The best part of my weekend was switching the language on my TV to English, so now I can watch Disney Channel and the Discovery Channel in English, and I also managed to find salted butter among the 14 kinds of margarine they carry in the grocery store. I consider that a good weekend.

The rest of the week and this coming weekend will be another quiet one, I think. After the craziness of getting here and getting settled, I don't mind having some down time. But I'm traveling the following two weekends, so the quiet time won't last too long!