An Egypitan Afternoon

 let's begin with a few of the decadent Egyptian deserts Eirini and her mom crafted!

Eirini and her mom spent the whole morning preparing these traditional Egyptian deserts!

Just as soon as I was started to feel like an accomplished baker, I see this and realize I'm completely amature!

Babaganoush made by Eirini!

The eggplant was cooked on an open flame (not a pot or pan used) which gave the dip an amazing smokey flavour.

Eirini and Julie looking at the delicious handmade falafals made with sesame seeds, chickpeas, parsely, cilantro and so much more! These were made by Eirini's mama.

Peppers, zucinnis and eggplants, stuffed with rice.

Eaten by and adorable couple with fabulous neck decor.

Grape vine leaves steamed and used to wrap up minced beef and veggie rice.

One of the most traditional Egyptian delights.

Also one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten! definately not like the canned stuff in the supermarket!

The family/The cutest

My humble contribution...date squares with maple syurp

(Canadian syrup sent by mama Wilson -thank you mom!)

yogurt, cucumber and mint! made a beautiful salad dressing!

Made by Eirini

Sharmeens nails need a pause of admiration!

shall we have some more desert? Yes!

My favourite were the baked oranges Eirni's brother made- dipped in chocolate-

 Tasted like a Terry's chocolate orange but better!

cups of coffee and some chocolate pots

A lovely Sunday afternoon!

Crazy Hair Day!

It was the last week of my five weeks of teaching rounds and crazy hair day!

It was so fun to see all the kids pile into the hallways with all kinds of creative hair styles! It was also a little sad because I have really enjoyed teaching the class I was placed with and it was difficult to sad goodbye to them. I got lots of cute cards, sweet words and big hugs. I’m happy to be on vacation for three weeks now but it is a little sad to no longer see them every morning.

crazy hair attempt

(I have to walk to school and I really don't need to feel much more silly than i usually do on a daily basis!)

Miss Souza/my roommate^^

(I take full credit for this hair creation, she later went on to win the teacher with the craziest hair!)

walk to school

Miss Catherine and her Easter basket creations

(I also take credit for her "Kayla just not too crazy" hair)

cutest bunny ever!

Math

a little present for me:)

Mapping and Measuring

My mission for three days was to introduce orientation (NESW, 90 degrees right, 45 degrees left) bird’s eye view and mapping to the children. I wanted every activity to be fun and creative and managed to pull it off quite successfully (meaning the kids were smiling, learning and understanding!)

I’ve really gotten the hang of using all the visual cue cards for almost all of my instructions (this really helps the Autistic children in the class) and helps reinforce what the expectations are.

I have also learned a lot of the hand signals that I use while I’m talking to those children. It’s incredible how effective they are at communicating with them^^ I want to learn more!

The third lesson was conducted outside. Their missing was to create an obstacle course for their friend by drawing a birds eye view map of the playground and writing out instructions that their partner would follow (walk North, turn 90 degrees to your left). It was an effective method of assessing the students knowledge of what had been learned within those lessons.

The best part was, when the kids found out that was the last maths lesson I would be teaching them, they all made a disappointed “ooohhhhhhhh” I couldn’t help but be so pleased with myself! Hehe.

Picture Story Time

I'm sorry all my blogging has been about teaching but I really have nothing else going on at the moment!

I was asked to teach a computer lesson on a program for story writing. The kids had already written a narrative story about space. Their mission for the class was to type their story and create a picture.

fractions with bread and butter

I was terrified to teach the kids about fractions.

I thought the best way to introduce it would be to give them food^^ they loved the bread and butter...hehe...yuck!

my first pie!

Rhubarb and Apple Pie

my first time even eating rhubarb!

I even made the pie crust with my own bare hands! Following a strict pie crust receipe the lovely teaching assistant Ms Kelly gave to me.

Pie face!

It was yum and I was as proud as pie.

"What a risk taker you are!" was my thought for the day.

The Giant Zuccini

A teacher recieved this home grown veggie delight from a student. She lugged it into the classroom I was sitting in and said "I have no idea what I will do with this! I think I will throw it out!"

I couldn't believe my ears!

"I'll take it!"

 I didn't even really think through whether that was rude to invite myself to take possession over it.

But the teacher was more than happy and the next day I brought the staff Zuccini muffins:) YUM

My lovely roomate posing with the zuccini!

What is gravity?

How high can you jump?

It is required, as a part of this course that we work in partners to create and teach four sequential science lessons. Since Alicia and I live together and have our working placement at the same Primary school we decided it would be best if you teamed together.

Since my class was already learning about Space, we decided to take a group of four boys and have them feel special by being part of our ‘special science club.’ They are amazing children and really benefit from the special treatment. They ask me everyday “do we have Science with you and Miss Sousa today?”

We’ve been ‘probing’ their knowledge of gravity and it’s amazing how much they already know!

They were all too smart for our lessons really! Alicia and I went home after being thrown through such a learning curve and decided our lessons should be a little more challenging in the future.

I loved the boys explanation about gravity after we asked them “Why can’t you jump up to the roof of the school? Why did you come back down to the ground?”

The boys: “it’s a gigantic magnet in the earth and we’re all like metal and it doesn’t want to let us go and it wants to pull us back down!”