Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Calea curcubeului (The Way of the Rainbow)

Since all of my reviews with my classes last year was Jeopardy themed, this year i decided to switch it up. This is basically Candyland on steroids! 

As you can see below, the chalkboard is the game board. The game markers are on the left (the toothbrush and toothpaste, soap, and grapes). It starts at the upper left black box and zig-zags it's way to the Trick-orTreat bag at the end on the bottom right.

The students were divided into 3 groups (hence the 3 game markers). When it was a group's turn, i threw the ball to someone in the group. They came up and took a card from the face down cards (to the right of the candy bowl). Just like in Candyland, the cards were marked with 1 of 5 colors, which corresponded to the colored cards with the pictures on them. The cards with the pictures represented 1 of 5 topics we've covered so far (black = review of topics from last year, purple = handwashing, orange = immune system (it's a white blood cell on it), brown = tuberculosis (i know, it looks like something else, but that's what TB looks like under a microscope), and yellow = dental hygiene). So if the student picked a card with a yellow box on it, they would pick a question from the dental hygiene cards (questions were written on the other sides). If they answered correctly, they moved their game piece forward to the nearest box that matched their chosen color. If they answered incorrectly, they had to move backwards to the closest box that matched. If they landed on a spot that was already occupied, it sent the team that was already there all the way back to the beginning. Also, just like in Candyland, there were 2 shortcuts, that went both forwards and backwards.

Here are the game pieces:

Out of the 5 colors, 1 of each color had candy on it, so they would get a piece of candy from the candy bowl when they landed on them.


I also drew 5 Halloween related pictures. If they drew one of the matching pictures from the face down pile, they could choose any color of question they wanted, and then would land on the matching picture...even if it was behind.





Here are some of the face down card examples. Some of the cards had 2 boxes (and if you've played Candyland, you know what that means) which meant that they would get to go 2 places forward instead of just 1.

Here's the trick-or-treat sack at the end. Whichever team got there first won candy for the whole team.

The kids LOVED this game! (So did i ;o]). As you can see, this is the Halloween version. For other reviews i'll make versions related to whatever upcoming holidays there are.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Halloween lecture!

I taught about Halloween to all my classes this week, fulfilling Goal 2 of PC: "To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served". 

Here's my set-up:

My health message (we're required to have a "health message" for every class):
It says:
"When witches are riding their brooms,
And black cats are seen roaming,
And jack-o-lanterns are shining,
The moon is laughing and howling,
It's Halloween!"

I started the lesson by having the kids find a spider i hid in the classroom. The first one to find it got a felt jack-o-lantern sticker as a prize (stickers are a rare find here).

Then i described the monster i drew below and the student who i thought drew their's the closest to mine got candy. They were very confused by the idea of it having 2 heads and tentacles for ears. ;op

Then i uncovered my poster and my partner and i briefly explained the history and American traditions of Halloween.

For the last activity i had them make Halloween masks. I made the ones below for examples if they wanted to use them (which most of them did).

It was a lot of fun and the kids really loved it! YAY! SUCCES! :oD

Monday, October 26, 2015

My hair's growing back!

My mom asked to see how my hair looks, so poftim! Here i was about 2 weeks ago.


Pumpkin Season!! :-D

Mama-G knows i LOVE pumpkin, so she cooked some up for me to eat plain or with whatever. :oD She even let me help prepare it...it's so easy! You just cut a pumpkin, skin it, cut it in chunks, and put it in just a little boiling water, and that's it! 


I ate it everyday with my porridge! 

Making Adgecă Again

This is my 2nd time making adgecă! It's a type of salsa...soooooo yummy! 


Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm...garlic... ;o]


Here's me this year looking very Moldovan with my "house dress" (aka "robe" in America) on:

Here's me last year wearing the same pajama bottoms :op:

Here's the grinder that took a chunk out of my finger. As i was grinding, i thought to myself, "I wonder if my right hand will stop grinding if my left hand gets caught...it should right? Since they're both attached to the same brain?" Well, not necessarily...my right hand did stop, but only after a chunk was taken from my left finger.

It doesn't look that bad, but it was deep and very painful.

I didn't tell Mama-G and kept grinding vegetables, making sure to keep my injured finger away from the food...then a wasp stung my right finger! That hurt bad. It was like searing hot pain traveling up my nerves from my finger all the way up my arm. That one i couldn't hide from Mama-G cuz i immediately shot my hand back in pain. She asked me what happened and i told her and she told me to rub garlic on it (an old Moldovan remedy for stings)...so i did, but it didn't help. Then she saw my other injury and told me to stop grinding and take care of my finger. So i put a bandaid on it and went back to grinding ;op.

Meet Another New Friend...Pierra!

One day while Mama-G and i were preparing food for winter, her son came over and handed me a puppy he found on the road on his way over! She was soooooooooo scared, she pooped and peed and was shaking all over! 

Now, she's very happy and such a love bug! She loves to be held and cuddled! I named her Pierra cuz she pees every time she gets excited, which is all the time. ;op



Festivalul mărului (Apple Fest)!

I finally made it to the Apple Festival this year in Soroca! YAY! It was awesome! Villages from all over Moldova set up places and just offer free food and drinks to people! This is Vasilcău, my village. They won for the best looking place! 






My look says it all...i was very VERY excited to get to eat a chocolate covered apple (they don't know about caramel covered apples unfortunately)! There's also "American apple pie" on my plate, made from the USAid booth. It was a little disappointing though cuz it was more like apple cake than pie. Why the disappointment? Because it was made by Americans, presented to Moldovans as one of the most American things ever, and it wasn't even pie. But wutevz, it was still goodish. The chocolate & nut covered apple was super delicious, so it made up for the disappointment of the apple "pie".

Left to right: me, Kirsten, Chelsea. Kirsten and Chelsea came up for the festival. :o]

The festival was surrounding the fortress. There were a lot of different types of entertainment, including this band.

I love this. Performance Wear showcase used for apple festival goodness. It's funny cuz the Moldovans utilizing the showcase has no idea what it says or what it's original intent was. But, you can't go wrong with "reduce, reuse, recycle"! :o]

BINGO Sănătate! (Health BINGO)

I decided to start the year off with BINGO to review what they learned last year in health. It was a hit!

Here are the BINGO cards. I made 30 of them, all different of course...it took 3 days to complete!

Here are the health-related questions the students choose from the cup (notice "The American Film Festival" cup that i got from the film festival last year :o]). They are color-coded to match with the color-coded answers to make it easier for myself.

Here are the markers that cover the answers.

The great thing about BINGO is that i can just keep adding more topics so we can keep playing to review from both last year and this year! :oD

Another Scool Year Begins...

Awwww, the new school year. Here's the Behavior Ladder all ready. How it works: Each class has it's own clothespin. If the class is cooperative and participatory they can move up a step. Once they reach the top the next class is a "fun" class where i show a video or we go for a walk or we play a game. It works pretty well. :o]


My new name tag:


The Triangle of Health poster from last year. This year for homework i had them draw pictures representing either physical, mental, or social health and i posted them where they belong on The Triangle of Health.

New Friend :-)

Meet Ceai (tea). He's a cat that showed up one day with the loudest meow i've ever heard and a long tongue that sticks out! He loves to be loved! He came into my room and cuddled with me on my bed...don't tell Mama-G! ;op




Preparing for Masă

Here are a couple of the foods i helped Mama-G prepare for her birthday this year. The one below is a "salad" with this recipe: 
- line bowl with mayo and garlic
- add layer of shredded potatoes
- add layer of mayo
- add layer of shredded carrots
- add layer of may
- top with thick layer of shredded butter
- add pretty garnish 

...for realz.


Delicious clătite (crepes) with vișine (sour cherries)! Mama-G really knows how to make crepes! They're soooooooooo yummy!!