You Know You're a Fourth Grade Teacher When...

1.  You're listening to Rihanna in your car and you incorporate the sign language for simile into your dance moves ("...shine bright like a diamond...").

2.  You're calling parents on a Friday night, after sending home progress reports, just to to tell them how great their kid is.

3.  You listen to the chorus of the Owl City song at the end of Wreck-it Ralph and think, "Wow, I should show this to the kids--that's three different sound spellings for long o."

4.  Your biggest smile of the week is when the class multiplication average goes from 74 to 82.

5.  You can't stop thinking long enough to fall asleep because you're so worried about creating differentiated instruction so that all of your kids reach their big goals and get the education they deserve.

Cabin 2012

I rounded out my summer of traveling with my annual trip to Grandpa Smiley's cabin in Wood River, Wyoming.   It is probably my favorite place in the world.  My friend John Strott accompanied me for the trip and it was amazing.  Amazing.

 

The 14-hour ride is make so much sweeter by Maddi's homemade ice cream...

...and beautiful scenery along the way.

We hiked...

....saw incredible views of pristine wilderness...

...and basked in Wyoming awesomeness.

You know it's legit when you get your water from a mountain spring.

Probably my favorite cabin activity--picking wild raspberries.

We drove through Yellowstone on the way home.

Perfect Procedures

I taught this workshop today.

My Favorite Pictures from Guatemala

Thank you SHe for an incredible experience.    I loved Guatemala, the Mayan people, and the other expeditioners.   It was truly amazing, and I cannot wait to join another expedition sometime very soon!

If you want to learn more about SHe, check out their website: http://www.singularhumanitarian.org/ or like them on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/singularhumanitarian/

Daily Life of a SHe Guatemala Expeditioner

Take the cattle druck 10-30 minutes to your village for the day

Work on whatever team you're on that day for 5-8 hours

Come back to home base and play with kids.  Bubbles, soccer...

.... cats cradle, Frisbee...

Eat delicious meals.  Thank you, Marta and the kitchen crew!

Hike to the showers and bathrooms.   We actually were lucky enough to have toilets,
which I think was a first for the expedition.  Thank you, Santi and Jorge!!

Education Team

So lets get down to what was really going on.   Singular Humanitarian Experience (SHe) is a group of LDS singles that does humanitarian trips abroad.  They've been going to Guatemala for quite a few years now, but this was the very first time in this specific area, the Polochic Valley.    There were about 50 of us in the group, and we were split into four teams: Medical, Business, Education, and Construction.  Before we arrived, I volunteered as co-leader of the Education team.

On the education team we spent the the first two days with 24 teachers and school directors, teaching a series of workshops we had prepared.  I taught about how to successfully introduce and model procedures so that everyone in your class can do them right.   They really liked that, and it set a good tone for the week.  We were also excited to learn from them--many of them teach two grades at the same time in the same classroom.  Wow.   The last two days of the week were classroom observations.  We got to visit some of the schools in the Polochic Valley, play with the kids, and exchange ideas.   I loved it.

I made a point of working at least half a day with each of the other teams, to see what everyone else is doing and experience the maximum possible.   That same desire drove me to wake up early one morning so I could spend an hour helping prepare breakfast.  That is one of my favorite memories of the expedition, cooking in the kitchen, butchering tomatoes, onions, and the Spanish language. :)

As I taught, John would translate into Spanish.
That's Khiah, my education co-lead, always fashionable. :)

Me and School Director/Teacher Edin Salva

Juan Jose shows us how he uses an abacus to teach place value

No idea what I'm explaining here, but I sure have managed to captivate
audience.  :)   I sure love being a teacher and I sure love kids.

Pretty sure I was mostly lost on cross multiplying fractions.

The Polochic Valley

After lunch on our way to the Polochic Valley

The most amazing bus ride I've ever been on

Our welcome from the village

Frankie

We played with the kids almost everyday

This is our view riding out to the villages.   So Jurassic Park.   I kept expecting
a brontosaurus to raise its head above the trees.  Absolutely beautiful.