Classroom Highlights

I really am so lucky to have been placed at CEIP Felipe II with amazing teachers and amazing students. Here are a couple of highlights from the classroom:

• Saray, one of my students, brought me a slice of her grandpa's homemade cake (picture above). Backstory: Saray is one of the best English speakers in the 6th grade class, partially because she has an aunt in the Florida and she lived there for awhile. I can have normal conversations with Saray without having to worry about her not understanding. At the bus stop one day, she and her mom were taking the same bus to Madrid. I asked her why and she told me she was meeting her dad for dinner because he works as a chef at a restaurant and he was going to cook them food. I teasingly asked if her dad could make me some food too and if she could bring it back for me. She laughed and I told her I was kidding, that I always jokingly ask students to bring me food if they talk about yummy meals in front of me. Even though she knew I was joking, two days later she still brought me that cake from her grandpa! Just the sweetest thing.

• Another one of my students named Svetla told me she had a dream I was pregnant during our two-on-one conversation. I felt kind of awkward afterwards, but had a good laugh with my teacher Ana about it.

• Adrianna, in Carlo's class, told me she was heading an investigation into my missing/stolen iPhone. It'd been over a month since my phone was stolen and I'd already gotten a replacement, yet she was still trying to figure out who stole my phone. It melted my heart that she still cared so much to look for me.

• I had a student named Hugo, in front of his whole class, call me "the most beautiful girl in the world" (well, first he called me "the most handsome girl in the world" but his teacher told him that girls are beautiful, not handsome). Now that's a compliment.

• Then I had another student, in the same class as Hugo, named Marcos ask me if I had a boyfriend. Svetla interrupts before I can answer and goes "Marcos WANTS you!" That was very uncomfortable, but also got a lot of laughs in the classroom.

• I got to make luminaries with all of 6th grade as a Winter Holiday project! I loved explaining how Luminaries are used to bring light to a home on the darkest day of the year. It was important for me to do a project that wasn't Christmas based in order to make sure no children were excluded if they didn't celebrate Christmas (because even though Spain is a Catholic country and despite being told everyone celebrates Christmas, I know for a fact some of my students do not). It was really amazing to be able to share this experience from my childhood with them, especially since a lot of people don't usually make luminaries in their school careers.

• My students have really loved the Secret Pen Pal activity I came up with for them. At the beginning of every week they turn in their letters, and a lot of them immediately ask afterwards, "When will we receive our letters?" I have to explain to them every time that not everyone turns in their letters on time, so I have to wait for all the letters to come in first. But the excitement they get from receiving letters is so adorable!

• On the bus ride to work one day, my coworker Sarah said that according to the school gossip, my teachers Ana and Carlo really like me! I ADORE and hugely respect Ana and Carlos, and hearing they like me was a really nice way to start my morning!