Swan Visit

Lancelot and Elaine came from ISU for a visit. It was a long swim across the sea so figured they would be hungry. I fed them some bread and when I ran out they just left me. It didn't seem like much of a visit. It was a little disappointing! 

For those of you who don't know, there are two swans at Iowa State University. They swim on Lake Laverne and are very popular among the University's faculty, staff, and students. Seeing these two swans swimming on the fjord in front of our cabin was like having a part of Iowa in our backyard! 

:)

Saturday Pastries!

Saturday, November 2nd Hannah and I took a stroll throw the Rosendal to get our first Norwegian Pastry. I have no idea what this is but it was delicious. It was similar to a cinnamon roll but with custard on top. It was amazing! On the 9th we returned with two additional girls where I got one covered in coconut. My life is now complete! We plan on going every Saturday morning and I plan to get something different each time!

Fun Times at School

To encourage my third grade students to answer questions in English we played a little game. For every question they answered in English (right or wrong) they received one minute of recess time with me! I'm not sure if this game is what motivated them to speak English but I ended up spending an entire half an hour at recess this last week!

I played many games with the third graders including hide and seek where I literally put a bucket on my head and sat next to some fifth graders and the girl didn't find me! The kids loved it! But the funniest thing was when I slipped playing "Chicken" a game similar to Freeze Tag. I was running in my rain boots, stepped in a pile of mud, and slid to the ground.

The students were so concerned and were checking to make sure I was okay. I thanked them and told them I was fine. I started laughing, the kids started laughing, and then realized my pants were covered in mud. When we got inside one of the boys drew this picture of me....

He's a funny kid! He's always making me laugh!

This week Jennifer and I were asked to decorate the teachers' lounge for Halloween. We took on the challenge and practiced our craft and fine motor skills! Here are some pictures of our decorated room.

Jennifer did a sweet job making the pumpkins and Happy Halloween sign. Her jack-'o-lanterns are pretty adorable!

I made the monster at the entryway! He wasn't supposed to have crazy eyes....but I messed up so he had crazy eyes!

Ahhh!!! A monster!!!

I don't have any pictures of the rest of the room but will steal one from Jennifer's blog!.....

Tusen takk, Jennifer!

Well that's all for last week! I will send more your way later regarding my awesome day today! I went to a church service (all in Norwegian) as well as sailing on the third largest fjord in the world! But it's late here...and I need to shower....and go to school in the morning. So, it's time for me to end my blogging! 

As always, tusen takk! And don't forget to subscribe, follow, or bookmark! It just makes all of our lives a little bit easier! 

:)

Kindergarten

I was trying to figure out how I wanted to work with the 2-5 year-olds. At the moment I am only with them one day a week and it sounds like I will be rotating from classroom to classroom every two weeks. 

The first day I visited the students wanted to see where I was from on the huge map on their wall. I showed them and explained how I got from my home to their school. One of the teachers helped translate! Then the kids started pointing to the hundreds of pictures on their map (representing different states, countries, landmarks  and such). They wanted to know what the English words were for each picture. I think we went through 40-50 pictures before we had to transition. 

I decided to use this eagerness and interest and use it to my advantage. With the limited supplies I had in Norway I created these animal flash cards:

On Monday, October 28th I was sitting at the table with a group of 4-5 year olds. I couldn't understand everything they were talking about but I did hear one child make a monkey sound. I asked the teacher, “Monkey?” She confirmed they were talking about monkeys. I decided this would be a great opportunity to introduce the animal cards. I already had the animal flashcards in my pocket. I pulled them out and found the monkey card. The minute I took them out of my pocket the kids were so intrigued. They weren't quite sure what I was doing but loved the animal drawings. 

I showed the monkey to the kid and said, “Monkey.” He laughed and said monkey in Norwegian. 

He then wanted to look at all the pictures, as did the rest of the table. I started showing the animal cards around the table and had them repeat the animal name. They loved it so much they had me do it over and over again.

Awhile later during free choice I showed the cards to a few students who decided to work on the words again. They helped me try to say the Norwegian words. I think my confidence but my inability to say the words gave one of the five-year-olds the courage to try to say the English words. He sat with me and said both Norwegian and English words for each of the animals. I’m curious to see if this will continue at a later date. 

I think the children find it very interesting. I just feel like only visiting them once a week isn't going to give them the practice they need to really learn the words before I leave. Maybe instead of worrying about them learning English words I should focus more on them just speaking English when we do these activities. For most of these students it could be the first English they've been exposed to. Some are only two-years-old! 

For now I am going to continue what I am doing and change it with the interests of the children. If they get bored then I'm going to try another activity with animals or maybe to transportation cards instead! I get to spend time with them tomorrow morning, maybe this will help me decide!

Well, this is another long post. It's time to quit typing!

Once again, tusen takk!

Sunde skule!

Well October 21st marked my first day at Sunde skule. Here is a picture of the entrance side of the school...



It's a cute little school with 1st-7th grade students. One class per grade ranging from around 10-23 students. Across the playground is the Kindergarten building (ages 2ish-5). There are younger children downstairs...possibly 18 months maybe? I don't remember! However, there are three classrooms upstairs all with a mix of 2-5 year-olds. There is one class downstairs for young toddlers.

I spend time with Kindergarten-3rd grade. On Mondays I work with preschool aged students, help teach 2nd grade English, and have fun with the 1st graders during the last period. On Tuesdays I teach 1st grade English, work with 1st grade Math small groups, teach 3rd grade English, and something else that I can't remember off the top of my head. On Wednesdays I do more 1st grade Math and spend a lot of time with 3rd grade. On Thursdays I spend all day with third grade and even get to teach 3rd grade Music! How exciting! I also get to help with Special Education on Thursdays! On Fridays I help the 2nd graders with Norwegian and participate in 2nd and 3rd Music/Dance class. To me this class is like a music expression class. The children learn how to express the different styles of music by dance. I absolutely love it...mostly because the children do! At the end of the day I get to teach stuff about the U.S.A. The kids love it and it's so much fun for me to share about our countries differences and similarities! It leads to great discussions with my third graders!

I love teaching and learning at Sunde skule! It's full of awesome staff and students!!

At times the language barrier does provide a challenge, especially in classroom management. This was always one of my strongest areas as a practicum student and during my last student teaching placement. However, now that I am working with students who have little to no English, my classroom management isn't as effective. This experience is great for me though. Now I am learning just how important VISUAL cues are for classroom management! I'm not sure what I would do without them. Although sometimes I do have to resort to sternly saying, "stop"....which is not a favorite of mine...but it is one of the very few words that translates from English to Norwegian, and is surprisingly effective with some of the first graders who like to challenge me! I love it though. It keeps me thinking and on my toes! That's why I took this opportunity...to be challenged and to learn! I will say there are times that I question why I didn't learn Norwegian before I came here! :)

I still have much to learn from Sunde skule, but I can say one thing for sure, I have already learned a ton. I feel like I am already much more prepared for working with language barriers in my future classroom. Being unable to communicate with students has given me the opportunity to experiment and practice over and over and over again.

I'm starting to pick up on parts of the Norwegian language which really helps! But I've also learned how to show and rephrase what I am saying. The students have even learned the same! It's been amazing to see the students try different ways of communicating with me. Many times they ask me questions in Norwegian. If I don't understand, they use visuals or English words to help me understand. I really feel this form of communication is helping me build a trusting relationship with the students and earning their respect. I'm not trying to force them to speak English nor am I'm only talking to them in English. I'm sharing my language with them while also using their language when I can. And even though many are afraid to speak English they're speaking it more frequently. Could it be because I'm trying to speak more Norwegian? Maybe seeing me confident but failing to speak their language has given them the confidence to speak English? Hmm...I don't know. But it is definitely something to ponder.

No matter the reason I am pleased and excited with my students progress this week. The first week few third graders spoke a word of English to me. At the end of the second week I learned that two of them could speak fluent English and understood everything I said, and one of them is even an amazing translator! I believe he will be a great resource these next five weeks!

Oh and before I forget. The first week during Norwegian class many of the third graders were not to excited for me to show up when they had their hand raised. They knew it would be difficult for them to ask the question and for me to explain the answer. However, this second week I noticed many of the students actually smiling when I came over. Some of them asked me their question in English, some with a combination of two languages, some just in Norwegian, while others used visuals while speaking Norwegian. It makes me so proud and so excited to see where they will be in five weeks! So many wonderful things to look forward to!

Anyway, this is another very long post. I had promised some people I would keep my posts short! However, I start typing and I can't stop. There is so much to say and Blogger doesn't limit the amount of words in a post! :)

I hope you enjoy the read! There is still more to come. But they might have to wait until later this week!

Once again, tusen takk!

Random Walk

I took this photo last Saturday, October 26th. If I remember correctly we were headed to the town center area of Rosendal. We stopped in quite a few shops to gather trinket and gift ideas! So many things I want to buy!! 

This is just walking up the driveway from the cabins. The middle school is next to the white building on the left. Pretty impressive scenery! 

Professional Development Day

While the other girls had the day off Jennifer and I headed to school for Professional Development. And boy am I glad we did!! Even though there was a language barrier I learned so much. It was a great opportunity to see how another school in a different country works through a meeting. However, the most surprising part of this experience was learning that Sunde skule uses PBIS (Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports). I had observed PBIS back in the states but had no clue it was in international use. It sounded like the school had recently begun using positive reinforcement (or putting more emphasis on it anyway).  

They do have a school wide positive reinforcement system that I still don't fully understand yet. I know that when students are behaving or following the directions the teacher gives the individual a special green card. They collect them and place them in their baskets.  I still haven't figured out what they do with the green cards once they have them. I've asked but I think it's getting lost in translation. I will try again this week! 

While they were discussing PBIS they were also working on their school rules. The school broke into teams and they each had to decide on rules to add, edit, or remove. Then each team had to share their rules and role play one in front of the class. They were actually role playing how you would teach the rule. If I remember correctly the teacher is supposed to teach the correct behavior, show the wrong behavior, and teach the correct behavior again. So anyway each group demonstrated how they would teach the skill/desired behavior. It was great to see their strategies as well as their personalities come to play during the role playing!

Oh, I almost forgot! Before the role playing we had some delicious cake....image to follow....

I think this might have been Marzipan...but honestly not sure. However, it was delicious! If I understood correctly the cake was in celebration of someones acceptance into some type of educational union. 

After some cake tasting Jennifer and I went to the different small groups I mentioned earlier. One of the stops was in the kitchen....to keep this blog post from running too long I will simply say, we made hot chocolate for everyone. Unfortunately even when I was being very careful I managed to boil the milk over...I should not have filled my pot so high. However, everything was fine..besides having to clean the mess! Before we served it we decided to test it ourselves....

It was delicious!! So we began serving the hot chocolate and marshmallows. Some were a bit confused with adding marshmallows to the hot chocolate. Oh, let me add these teachers drink a lot of coffee....a lot of dark dark black coffee! I think the idea of drinking sweet hot chocolate with added marshmallows was a bit silly! But they seemed to love it. I enjoyed watching some of them poke the marshmallow! Ah, the little things that make you smile!

Anyway, Jennifer and I ended the school day reviewing our first week with the faculty and staff. It was a great opportunity to share how thankful we are to be at Sunde skule! Seriously, this school has been so welcoming! I couldn't imagine being at any other school. I love the staff and students and am so happy I have been given this opportunity! I am blessed to be a part of this program and am excited for the next five weeks! 

It was also great to hear how they felt about having us at the school. The headmaster (principal) said every morning he thinks about how much of a blessing we are to them. I may have almost cried...but I kept strong! It is evident that the school is excited that we are here. At this point I'm not sure who is more excited and thankful! 

I can't say enough how blessed I am to be given this opportunity, especially here and Sunde skule! I don't want to even think about saying goodbye in five weeks. We're just going to pretend that day isn't coming!

Well, I really need to wrap up this post. I am so behind on my posts that I need to start the next one. But I will leave you with the last picture I have from professional development day....

This is the view form our bus stop in Huesnes. Jennifer and I are dropped off here after school each day. Some times we get to shop around before catching the bus. This is just the view straight across from the stop. There is sooooo much more to the North and South ... (well right and left). I will try to take a better picture! But can you imagine....mountains behind your town shopping center? I know I can't...I live in Iowa!

Anyway, it's time to put this post to a close!

I hope you've enjoyed this very long read!

Stay tuned for the next post....that I think will be about the school and/or my first lesson!

Tusen Takk!