First Week at IBES

We are midway through our first week in the schools! All of the teachers in our group are placed either at Isla Bonita Elementary School or San Pedro High School. I am enjoying my time at IBES in the Standard II classroom, which is more or less the equivalent of fourth grade in the US. My students range in age from 8 to 10 years old.

Daily Schedule for Standard II

In the morning I pull four students out of Standard II for extra help with phonics, as they have trouble reading. The rest of the day I spend in the classroom with 12 students and Teacher Hector, the teacher for that form, or grade level. Hector has been teaching for over 20 years, and he is the brother of the principal, husband of another teacher, and has several kids that attend IBES. It's all about family! Although I've been mostly observing so far, I had the opportunity to teach a math lesson today on angles! 

To me, the greatest challenge thus far in teaching in Belize has been the decrease in material resources from what I had available in Wilmington! For example, when teaching back home, I would utilize technology a lot in the classroom. We don't have computers in the classrooms here, or document cameras, or projectors. It's good, though, because it's forcing me to be more creative in my lesson planning, as I can't rely on technology to get me through a lesson and keep my students' attention.

I am working to resolve this challange! Today during my lesson on angles we used our arms to demonstrate what obtuse, acute, right, and straight angles look like. My teacher also made the recommendation of using plastic drinking straws, which we did. He helped me to think outside the box and utilize materials that we did have available, that I might not ordinarily think to use!

To my students at Eaton, is there anything you want to know more about when it comes to education and schools here in Belize? I miss you guys!

I'll include some fun pictures from the past few days below:

Pet iguana from the animal hospital next door

Wild iguana outside the pool

We enjoyed a beach BBQ the day before we started in the schools