First Days of School!

More update about my school!
I am teaching at the Mackay (pronounced Mc-Kai) School in Vina Del Mar Chile.  It is a private school with grades Playgroup (preschool)- Senior 4.  There are approximately 60 students in each grade preschool to 12th grade, and the school serves about 800 students.   I am working specifically with the third grade classes.  There are three classes, 3a, b and c.  I am working specifically with the 3C class, although I teach about 4 hours a week of English in the other two third grade classes.  The students are broken up into 4 groups:
Infant- Playschool through Kindergarten
Juniors- 1 through 4th grade (the group I work with)
Medio- 5th through 8th grade
Seniors- 9th through 12th grade

The Mackay School was created in the mid 1800's by British settlers who desired a 'proper' British education for their children.  Originally, the school was in Valparaiso (about 10 miles away) because it was the largest port in South America.  All goods coming from Europe and Asia into South America came through Valparaiso (More on Valpo in a following post).  Mackay is a sports school and all of the students are involved in futbol (soccer), rugby, cross country, swimming and sailing.  The students attend about 27 hours of academic classes a week and the other 13 are reserved for sports practice or games.  Each class; A, B, or C is also the student's sports team and they move through the grades together.  By 12th grade the students in each class are a cohesive team and seem to be very successful.  There are many other British and private schools in the area that the students compete against in sporting events.  The school is based on the British education system.  There is a head master at the school, Prefects (just like in Harry Potter) and the students use the word 'toilet' for bathroom.  The instructional practices are different that I have learned and been practicing in the United States so that has taken some getting used to.  The students are the same though, they are all very sweet boys with a desire to learn.

Here I am all dressed up for my first day of school! I even laid my clothes out the night before!! I was SOOO excited!

The first day of school, Tuesday September 21st, we had a teacher development and planning day! It was a great first day! I got to meet my teacher, then learn about the different areas of the school.  I attended a conference about the IB program (inter- baccalaureate) then a few seminars about math and one about technology in the classroom.  After we had the morning seminars we ate lunch (which is delicious and health, way better than any school lunch I have EVER seen in the states) then we were given some time to prep for our classes.  I got my schedule for teaching English and was asked to start the next day.  My first lesson went really well and I feel very confident in my classroom.  From here on out I am teaching at least a few periods of English everyday.  It was nice just to be thrown in rather than having the anticipation of just getting my feet wet.  My first formal observation is tomorrow and I am quite nervous, but I hope things will go just fine!  The last week of October and the first week of November I will be doing my full time student teaching and I will be teaching English and Math and conducting the whole class.  Since the school is a bilingual school, some subjects are still taught in Spanish.  My cooperating teacher will still be responsible for those because I do not have the academic language skills, or the training to teach in Spanish!
Wish me luck, the time is just flying by and I am enjoying every second of it!
Miss and love you all!
Miss Ehlers