New School Supplies

On Monday, we heard back from the camera shop that our camera was repaired, so right after school we hopped on a train to Ružomberok again.  Katarina had talked on the phone with them, and the camera works just fine now, at no additional charge.  We were very relieved that they stood by their service and made sure things were done right!  :-)  

While in Ružomberok, we also went to a sporting goods store where we found some nice, but inexpensive stop-watches for school.  We will use them when students are giving oral presentations during conversation classes, and they will also come in handy for the Speaker's Corner competition, since there are specific time parameters for each division.  The stop-watches were also purchased with the mission funds sent by our church back home.   :-)

Miro and Vierka trying out the new paper cutter for the teacher workroom.  It will save a lot of time not using scissors for jobs!  

This is just a sampling of the school supplies purchased with the mission funds from Immanuel Lutheran Church in Waukee!!  :-)  The paper cutter is a big hit, and several staplers and stop-watches are already in use, plus jumbo paper clips, stickee notes, and scotch tape will all come in handy!  

Remember the photos in an earlier post showing the students' changing rooms?  Well, ALL students are required to change out of their "outside" shoes/boots every day when they arrive at school.  Most of them wear comfy footwear inside during the day - Crocs, Birkenstock-style sandals, or even slippers are popular!! 

More "indoor" footwear at school!  :-)        (Also, whenever we are invited to people's homes, everyone takes off their shoes, and often, slippers are provided for guests to wear inside.)

We came home from our shopping trip in a beautiful, gentle snowfall.  Monday night ended with volleyball at school.  Tuesday we had our Slovak lesson after school, but with Dominik, the husband of our regular teacher, Maria.  It was kind of fun working with him, because he started just by asking us a bunch of questions in Slovak to assess us informally before moving on.  It feels like we are finally making a little progress with the language, thanks to our two different teachers and approaches.  (Janka teaches us at school for one period every Monday, so we appreciate getting instruction twice a week!)  There was another gorgeous snowfall for our walk home after Slovak lessons, this time with HUGE flakes that I literally was catching on my tongue!!  We also got to skype with Beth Tuesday!!  :-)  

Wednesday (today) was crazy busy!!  We walked to school, but then I left right away to walk to the Basic School for my new "gig" there.  It's kind of a cross between an instructional coach and an ESL teacher at the elementary level.  My assignment is to collaborate with the teachers, use English language to teach parts of lessons in various subject areas for all grades, and assist the teachers as needed.  (At least as far as I understand it at this point!!)   :-)  So today I was teaching for three lessons - 1st grade math (twice) and 2nd grade science.  The teachers are really sweet and helpful, and the students are absolutely adorable!!  I think eventually I'll be with most every content area and teacher.

At our H.S. building, we've mentioned that the students are basically unsupervised in their classrooms during all the breaks and before school.  Well, it's the same deal at the elementary!!!  So, when the teacher and I walked into 1st hour class, every first grader was sitting at his/her desk, with their books out and ready to go.  Can you imagine what it would be like in the U.S. with a classroom of first graders and NO adult???  

After my three classes there at the Basic School, I walked to the House of Culture, in the town center area, for a rehearsal with the choir in preparation for a performance at Friday's school ball.  Tim had already walked there with the rest of the group, so I met them there.  The regular choir teacher was ill, so I had some fun helping with vocal warm-ups.  :-)  The kids thought I was a little crazy I think!!  We went through our song a couple of times with the instrumentalists on the stage.  Unfortunately there was a communication glitch with the tech people at the venue, and they didn't know we were coming, so we didn't have mics or amplification for the instruments.  No biggie though!  Tim and I are only singing on one song, so they practiced ours first, then we walked back to school in time to teach some classes.  (We both had subs for one period.)  Later in the afternoon, Tim sat in on a testing process for a student that had failed 1st semester English Conversation, to see if he could pass the class.  It was interesting to see how situations like that are handled here.  After school I joined in the Drama Club rehearsal - it will be a really cute play!  We stayed pretty late to try to get organized for tomorrow, so hopefully we'll be able to get caught up when we have our normal planning times.  

After we got home today, we both got busy doing chores, and the evening flew by.  I baked a couple more loaves of banana bread with the rest of the over-ripe "clearance" bananas, while Tim defrosted the freezer and caught up on emails. (He also did dishes twice after my baking and after supper!!)  I also scrubbed the kitchen floor, washed 2 loads of laundry, did some needed sewing/mending, and did general "de-cluttering" around the flat - HA!!  Tomorrow after school and evening will be filled with English students, so today was the day for housework!  It has been nice having fresh snow every day this week, so everything looks so pretty outside.  The snow falls straight down, so every tree limb, branch, and twig is coated in white.  And it's much nicer to walk in snow than in the slush a while back!  :-)