Learning How to Teach Primary Kids...

School has been in session for a month now, and I finally feel like I'm really starting to get the hang of things. All of the Niños kids attend a private Christian school called IBAAN (which is located on the Genesis House property) for kindergarten through junior high. The school uses a Christian home school curriculum, in which the students do a lot of independent work. They have daily goals to accomplish and work at their own pace to finish before the end of the school day. Their additional classes include: computers, biology, chemistry, physics, Spanish, math, history, and of course, English. After finishing junior high here at the private school, they move on to attend a nearby public high school.
One of my favorite parts about teaching at IBAAN is the Monday morning flag ceremony. All of the students line up around the basketball court while the "escota" (a group of 6 secondary students) march to present the Mexican flag. After the "escota" reaches the middle of the court, the students say the pledge and sing the national anthem. The flag ceremony concludes with a prayer time during which all of the students and teachers join hands. The students have the opportunity to share prayer requests - the kindergartners always have a lot to say and fight to get their hand in the air first. It is a great way to start the school week!
Two weeks ago, Erin and I finally had the time to decorate our classroom. (In typical last minute fashion, we found out which room was ours the day before school started.) Our classroom is the "English Library," as well as the storage room for all of the random school stuff no one knows what to do with. We've worked hard to make it look more like a real classroom and create a place where our students can come to learn, without being distracted:

My experience teaching here has been very different than any other classroom experience I've had. As most of you know, I received my teaching certificate in Secondary Education - aka, high school. Primary kids are way different than high school kids!!! Here are some things I've learned thus far ...
1. Everything is a big deal, like who gets to sit in one of the chairs with wheels (which thankfully have been removed from the classroom!) or who gets the yellow piece of construction paper.
2. They get distracted very easily; I've had to learn how to anticipate and eliminate possible distractions.
3. Students behave best when there are definite rewards for good behavior and consequences for bad behavior. Developing a system in which my students earn or lose points for the store at the end of the week has made my days much smoother!
4. Their problems are quite different and include things like child-like crushes, sibling rivalry, classmate competition, and 'accidentally' swallowing strange things. A few weeks ago, one of my students claimed to have swallowed her pencil lead and then put on quite a show for myself and her other classmates ...
5. All they want is attention, encouragement, and a hug.
So while I sometimes miss teaching literary classics like The Scarlet Letter and To Kill a Mockingbird and grading papers, I wouldn't trade teaching here for the world!