Pancake Tuesday

  Greetings everyone!! I feel like I have a lot to catch up on since last Tuesday.  Last week my school had a mid term holiday break consisting of Thursday and Friday.  Also my mother was in town last Sunday and stayed with me a week.  We decided to make the most of her visit as well as my time off from school and venture to Rome, Italy!  It was absolutely amazing!  We had quite the adventure and were able to see the Vatican, Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's square and church, Colosseum, Trevi fountain, Spanish Steps, Pantheon, and several piazzas containing wonderful architecture and character!  I was able to take over 500 pictures and will try to post some of them for all to see.  Like I said it was so incredible and overwhelming to look at all of these famous works of art and history in person!!  I couldn't believe it!  It was also so great to see my mom and catch up.  I had an amazing weekend adventure but was happy to get back to my usual routine come Monday.

  This week has started out wonderfully.  I did a lot of teaching yesterday and was very excited to try some subjects that I have not yet taught here before.  Since tomorrow is Ash Wednesday I was instructed to talk with the girls about lent and about prayer for religion.  It went fairly well and the girls enjoyed telling me what they were going to give up for lent.  I taught a maths class about telling time, specifically half past.  This was interesting and it gave me a chance to work on the phrases I use for directions and explanations.  Telling time is a difficult concept to grasp and I had many children struggling with the exercises we were trying as a class.  I made sure to go over many examples giving the girls who understood time to work ahead.  I thought the lesson went fairly well and I am hoping to teach more maths lessons later this week.  I also taught a geography lesson out of one of the workbooks.  This lesson was interesting and in my mind did not have much to do with geography, but was fun to try with the girls.  It was all about the perceptions of objects from different angles such as from the ground verses the sky.  It went fairly well and the girls caught on quickly.  I also taught English working out of their "sounds ok" book and the magic "e", spellings list, and a poem.  Most of what I covered was review, but non the less the girls were quite attentive and eager to burst out what they had learned about the subject.  Overall I was very happy with how the girls reacted to my teaching.  I now have increased confidence and will only hope to improve the clarity and flow of my lessons.

   I have received very good feedback from the teachers.  I think I may ask for a bit more critical analysis so that I can really focus on my weaknesses.  I would like to say that I am feeling more confident in the discipline portion of my teaching.  I have carefully observed the tactics and methods that work for teachers at this school and tried to adapt them to fit my personality and teaching style as well as mix with what girls are used to and react to.  I think that I am really getting a lot out of my time at Convent Primary and am looking forward to taking on more lessons each day.  I hope everyone at home is doing well and I will write again soon!  Slan!

P.S. I almost forgot... the reason my blog is titled "Pancake Tuesday" is because all throughout the country of Ireland people make pancakes the day before Ash Wednesday which happens to be today.  It is something that has been going on for years and can also be called "Shrove Tuesday".  I found a definition that might help everyone understand this tradition further.  Pancakes and doughnuts are associated with the day before Lent because they were a way to use up rich foods such as eggs, milk, and sugar before the fasting season of the 40 days of Lent.