If you have been following my blog for any length of time you already know I LOVE dressing up for spirit days and costume parties. Here at ECA I have been itching to get dressed up for something special so you can imagine my excitement when my favorite week of the year, Spirit Week, finally arrived in April.
Monday's theme was Pajamas. Even though it's pretty warm here I donned my fleece cupcake PJ pants and put on a brave face, knowing I would be sweating soon. It paid off, though, because I won the award for best staff costume that day!
My prize-winning PJs
I need a pair of these slippers
Tuesday was Decade Day, so I brought back the sock hop costume with a DIY poodle skirt and a cardigan. Since the staff didn't really coordinate any group costumes I was happy to match with my friend Marie today.
On Wednesday the theme was Mismatched, which was super easy. All I had to do was open my closet and grab a few random items to create the look.
Thursday's theme was sports, and I was lucky enough to borrow a friend's German soccer jersey to represent the Fatherland. One of my students is from Argentina so naturally we had a friendly rivalry going on that day!
Representing all the sports!
We can't all be World Cup winners ...
On Friday we wrapped up the week with a day at the polideportivo, our local sports complex. Students competed in various track and field events and we teachers ran the events while cheering them on. Naturally I helped run the shotput and discus, and in between flights I made it over to the track to cheer obnoxiously for my students who were racing.
A flight of middle school sprinters prepares for takeoff
I love races!
Demonstrating the proper form for shot putting. Not.
Refereeing for girls' discus in our makeshift throwing ring.
High jumpers go over the rules before taking the plunge
Middle schoolers did great at high jump!
More middle school sprinters
These eighth grade girls tied last year and nearly tied again this year!
As you can see I am very passionate about track and field. I love these kids!!
I had no idea what to expect this year for my birthday. It was really, really hard to think about spending it away from my closest friends and family, and I had even considered flying to Germany for a few days because my best friend Katrina was passing through Kandern that very weekend. Unfortunately that didn't work out for a number of reasons, so I ended up celebrating my very first Spanish birthday!
The day began like any other, but once I arrived at school I quickly realized something was up. Usually the third floor filled up with middle schoolers right around 9:00 but as the warning bell rang and no students appeared, the halls were still and my classroom was empty.
Where are all the students?
At 9:10 on the dot, the bell rang to begin first period and the familiar chimes sounded to signal the start of the morning announcements. They were nothing special, but I listened carefully for any sign of shenanigans. Just before signing off for the day, the announcer revealed that there were some people in the office wanting to wish me a happy birthday. Through the loudspeaker I heard a crowd of students singing, cheering, and shouting happy birthday to me while the rest of the school was forced to listen in. Turns out both the seventh and eighth grade classes had crowded into the office to partake in the festivities!
Meanwhile in the office ...
(photos courtesy of my roommate Robbyn, who was at the scene of the crime)
Moments later a stampede of students tramped up the stairs and burst through the door bearing huge grins and all kinds of wonderfulness.
Surprise!
My first period class, life science, had already made plans for a class party that day because it was the end of the quarter and they'd earned it as part of our class reward system. Those sneaky seventh graders hijacked their class party and turned it into a surprise party for me, and they were pretty proud of themselves for pulling it off! They lavished gifts and sweet treats on me and I had to spend the rest of the day comvincing the other teachers that I did not, in fact, plan a birthday party for myself! Thanks, kids!!
Some of the snacks and goodies from the seventh graders
Lots of affirming words on these cupcakes - how did they know my love language?
Not to be outdone, the eighth graders crafted a jumbo birthday card for me full of funny quotes, sketches, and some of our class catchphrases. Some of them also gave me individual gifts like a tin of cookies and chocolate milk, while others gave me the gift of the written word via a letter and even a personalized poem. To say I felt loved would be an understatement!
After school let out, a few friends and I went to one of the larger malls nearby for a visit to Starbucks and dinner at Foster's, a restaurant that is known for serving American style cuisine. I enjoyed a delicious burger and Coke, my splurge meal for the week! Due to the typical Spanish schedule the restaurant didn't open until 8:00 pm, so it made for a long day on a school night, but the meal and time with good company was definitely worth it.
Obligatory escalator selfie
And thus began the final year of my twenties. What will it hold? Only time will tell!
Third quarter with my seventh graders has brought a slew of fun, exciting activities relating to the human body. Typically I teach this unit through group projects, but my smaller-than-average class size meant I had to change things up a bit... so everything I did this year, I did for the very first time! Thankfully I had Pinterest and TeachersPayTeachers to inspire me and provide lots of resources along the way.
We went through the major body systems, identified and examined the organs, and investigated how they are all interrelated to keep us alive. I taught a lot of the major content and vocabulary through lecture and discussion, and then we explored various aspects of the human body through experiments, games, and YouTube videos that left a few of them feeling rather queasy! Eyeball dissection, anyone??
We started with the skeletal and muscular system to give us a framework for the rest of the body. The students voted on a name for our life-size "mascot" and each time we studied a new system, Steve earned a few new body parts. In the beginning we labeled each part, then removed the labels as we memorized all the names.
Skeleton Steve was a work in progress!
While studying the digestive system, we simulated the digestion process through a relay race that was adapted from an activity I'd found on Pinterest. The students thought it was both hilarious and disgusting at the same time...
To wrap it up the digestive system, we enjoyed brownies that tasted much better than they looked! ;)
Only the best for my students!
When it came time to learn about circulation, I really wanted them to see visually how the blood vessels were the transport system for substances within the body. I found this free game and they played in teams of two. The object of the game was to be the first team to move all the oxygen from the lungs to the body cells, the carbon dioxide from the body cells to the lungs, the sugar and proteins from the intestines to the body cells, and the waste from the body cells to the kidneys.
The circulation game!
It wasn't nearly as boring as their body language would suggest!
We also had a lot of fun learning about the brain, the nervous system, and our sense organs. We watched clips from the show Brain Games, made "thinking caps" (pattern here) to learn the areas of the brain, and conducted experiments related to taste, smell, sound, and light.
Middle school means wearing these awesome hats!
Wearing thinking caps while watching a BrainPop video on the brain - brainception!
Mapping the tongue and looking for a connection between taste and smell
Observing and describing the effect of light on the pupil (she had to look deep into my eyes!)
We also got our hands dirty with some actual specimens, as a student went to the butcher and acquired some "leftover"pig parts. It was pretty neat for them to see with their own eyes the actual body parts they'd been studying - the lungs, liver, and heart for example. They also got to see and feel the difference in texture, structure, etc. of the trachea compared to the esophagus and they got quite a nasty surprise when, after squeezing the esophagus, some undigested food oozed out!
Warning: my science class is not for the faint of heart!
To wrap up the unit and give the students an opportunity to extend their learning, we created cereal boxes "advertising" a particular body system. I wish I could take credit for this project but the original idea came from TPT - I just modified it a bit to meet my needs.
For the front, they had to come up with a creative cereal name and then draw and label their system.
On the back they had to describe a common disease or illness that affects their system. They did research on causes, symptoms, treatments, and prevention of the condition and then had to summarize the information into a quality paragraph. Language arts connection!
For the other panels, they recreated typical cereal box features such as the ingredients list (naming the organs and their functions) and fun facts about their system - more independent research for them.
Overall, I was quite proud of their final product, and am excited to give them a chance to present their work to the rest of the school in our upcoming school-wide science gallery in April!
It's hard to believe we are now in fourth quarter! Our final areas of study will include zoology and ecology - characteristics of the animal kingdom and the relationships between all living and non-living things.
Thank you for your continued support and prayers over this last quarter!
The last time I witnessed a solar eclipse was roughly twenty years ago. I was in the fourth grade and we stood outside on the kickball diamond with little pinhole viewers made from index cards that we used to watch the Sun hide behind the passing Moon. At the time, I didn't realize what a big deal such an event was, but it was magical nonetheless.
When I started teaching it became my goal to share such magical events with my own students. As a science teacher living in the age of discovery and invention, there are so many hands-on, real life things to share with the students relating to our studies. One thing that I had yet to share, though, was a celestial event. Sure, we'd gone stargazing and looked at the moon phases and even watched podcasts from the International Space Station. But we'd never gotten to share a once-in-a-lifetime event like a solar eclipse!
Until today.
Yesterday I and another science teacher worked together to build a pinhole viewer using a very handy YouTube tutorial.
This morning I awoke to cloudy skies. Disappointed, I prayed that the skies would clear in time for the point of maximum eclipse, which was schedule for around 10:08 am here in Madrid. Just before heading to chapel I checked once more, only to see more clouds. I watched part of the live stream while listening to our speaker, until I lost the signal about five minutes later.
At 10:00, after a brief tutorial on the mechanics of a solar eclipse with my seventh graders (earth science is an eighth grade topic), we marched downstairs armed with my giant pinhole viewer and I breathed a desperate prayer for a break in the clouds.
Thick stratus clouds coated the entire sky, but they were thin enough that the outline of the Sun shone through and the eclipse was vaguely visible. Together we attempted to set up the pinhole viewer but the clouds were thick enough to block most of the sun's rays. Try as we may, we were unsuccessful in getting a clear image on our viewer.
To say we were slightly disappointed would be an understatement. It will be around ten years before this region sees another partial solar eclipse of this kind!
And ... everyone knows it didn't happen unless you take a selfie...
