The fuse is lit

It's friday again and another week has past. It was a very tiring, but exciting week this week. We completed our second full week of activities at Villa Maria and focused on changing fonts, sizes, inserting pictures and general formating in Word. It generally took us about 45 minutes to complete a work sheet that took us about 5 minutes to create last weekend (we spend more time planning the sessions, I promise) During the classes, it is incredible to observe the range of abilities, learning styles and how the kids interact with one another. We are teaching about 25 kids in each class and have 9 classes of Primaria... and then 2 more advanced classes of Secundaria. That is around 350 kids. There are some kids where it takes 5 repetitions of click-anti click-arrastrar sin soltar for them to understand copy/paste or the selecting objects that you want to change. On the other end of the spectrum, you can teach kids how to insert a text box and change colors/fonts and they can come up with a mock internet homepage in 20 minutes. As one of the people teaching, it is very exciting to see those connections being made at whatever level. In some classes, we provide the kids the chance to improvise on colors and style to express their personality... that is exciting. We have also been trying to get some kids to do the teaching to improve their confidence. Slowly, we are seeing changes in the kids. My challenge (besides trying to teach in Spanish) is to incorporate EMC-style methods in with a very rigid school system and a very sedetary activity. Poco a poco I am getting there. I don't like that I can't know every kid´s name, but I have learned about 50 so far. As Matt said a few weeks ago, the fuse is lit. It's tiring work, we are waking up at 6am so we can be out the door by 6:30 and at the school by 8. We go straight through until 1pm.... grab some lunch and then we are back doing afternoon and night classses with some other groups. But the reward makes it worth it, I am even at the point of enjoying my cold showers.
When we're not teaching we plan or are on the internet (like right now) We found this quiet residential road that is surrounded by beautiful fruit trees on all sides and tucked into the mountains. I go walking on that when I need an escape, it is really gorgeous. I was able to stream the England-USA game last weekend... Matt thinks I am ridiculous. Life here is starting to feel normal and very rewarding. I really have no idea how I am going to get myself back to Montreal to write my Thesis and take seminars that I don't really need to take... especially after 3 monthes here. Matt just pointed out to me... 5 weeks down, 8 to go. Time flies when you're running out the door at 6am everyday!

More later,
Katie