Greetings from New Zealand!

My first couple of days here in New Zealand have been very busy to say the least.  After arriving at the airport and meeting my wonderful host family, we rushed off to a rugby game.  It was quite an interesting experience.  After that we came back home and then were off again to go visit Kristin and Katie at their home, happily just down the street from mine.  While there, there host mom took me to have a tour of the school, Swanson Primary, that I will be teaching at for the next 8 weeks.  After that it was finally time to settle in and unpack my suitcase.  So all in all it was a very busy first day. 

My first day at school was a short day because the teachers had a union meeting so it was a nice easy way to transition.  However, despite the shortened day I am still feeling a bit overwhelmed with everything, although I have a feeling the jet lag might be adding to that feeling.  I am confident that everything will get better once I settle into a routine.  My class contains 29 students ages 9-11 about.  It is there year 5/6 which is about our grades 4 and 5.  They are all very independent workers and most of the instruction is done in small groups.  There are groups for reading, math, and spelling just to name a few and within these groups the material is adjusted to fit the needs of the students.  This is a very beneficial system for the students because it is able to meet the needs of each individual student however, it is going to take some getting used to and some time to figure out and keep everything straight.  Today I was also introduced to a “WALT”  this stands for “We Are Learning To.”  For every lesson the teacher writes the “WALT” on the board so that the students know what to expect from the lesson.

As the week has gone on I have settled more and more into the routine and the structure of the classroom.  I have learned all the names of the students and I have already taken over doing the morning role call.  I’m still a little nervous but I have an amazing teacher to work with who is SO supportive, helpful, encouraging and patient.  I have really lucked out with both my US placement and NZ placement to be parried up with two extremely wonderful people.  All the kids are nice, and like to ask about the United States.  I wish I could have answered “yes” to the question of have I ever met any famous Americans but oh well.  All the other teachers are really supportive and friendly also.  Although I still have some nerves I can’t wait to see what comes out of this experience I know I will learn A LOT!

 So in the spirit of learning I have decided to write a WALT (We are learning to) for each week.  So here is the WALT for this week:

WALT understand New Zealand lingo.  (We are learning to understand New Zealand lingo.)

            Tomato Sauce= Catsup

            Star Jump= Jumping Jack