A Day in the Life

Post delayed due to my little friend, Influenza.

Monday, March 28th 2011

6:45 a.m. Alarm rings. Press “Aplazar” repeatedly.
7:00 a.m. Actually get up. Get ready ridiculously fast.
7:20 a.m. Walk down to school.
7:30 a.m. Prepare classroom. Open windows, put plants in their place, set out handwashing bucket.
7:40 a.m. Kids sit in the ellipse. Guide opening activities: cambio de fecha, read aloud, review words to be placed on word wall (pared de palabras). Kenia waters plants and works outside with various students.
8:00 a.m. Kids read silently. Read word cards with struggling readers.
8:20 a.m. Work time. Introduce new activities at each kid’s level, write activities in notebooks, supervise and maintain discipline.
9:30 a.m. Take kids to art class. Make a paper elephant.
10:10 a.m. Recess. Cut up watermelon for snack.
10:30 a.m. Take kids to English class. Have a tortilla con quesillo with Kenia in the caseta.
11:10 a.m. Write homework in notebooks while Kenia teaches a lesson on upper and lower case letters in the ellipse.
11:30 a.m. More work time.
12:00 p.m. Kenia teaches physical education. Close up classroom with two kids cleaning the bathrooms. Sweep, mop, wash mop, wring out with bare hands (repress gag reflex).
1:00 p.m. Dismissal. Report to tíos regarding homework and behavior. Half the class stays for after school tutoring.
1:45 p.m. Eat lunch (rice and soup) with other Montessori teachers and kids staying after.
2:30 p.m. Reforzamiento begins. Work with struggling readers, help students to write numbers through 100, reinforce ordinal numbers and directionality.
4:00 p.m. Head home to change shoes.
4:15 p.m. Clean kitchen in San Vicente (where you don’t live). Take out garbage and clean out orgánica (repress gag reflex).
4:45 p.m. Practice with modern dance group in talleres. Get assigned godson Hallan as partner. Do a little happy dance.
6:00 p.m. Go to hogar. Chat outside with Saravia and Tía Mirna.
6:30 p.m. Eat dinner (eggs and beans) with Pilares.
7:00 p.m. Help girls with English homework, listen to music, hang out, talk.
7:45 p.m. Evening prayer. Give hugs and kisses to all the girls. Get hug from the girl who hasn’t talked to you for three days for who knows what reason, but who now has a framed picture of the two of you on her bed. Think about how temperamental teenage girls are. Feel bad for your mom having to deal with you when you were that age.
8:00 p.m. Go home. Crawl in bed. Get called a granny by your roommate (no offense to any grannies reading this, including my own). Fall asleep because you have to do it all over again tomorrow.