Keeping me on my toes...

So today started my second week teaching the Sunship Earth program. It was nice to have a better idea of how some of the activities would go today, but this internship will definitely keep me on my toes for the entire 8 weeks (or 5 more really).

Last week was the first week we had students. The kids came from an all-girls school in Columbus. All the schools coming this year are private schools, so I am interested to see how they all handle the outdoorsy program we have. My group was pretty mellow with a range of personalities from the girl who made sure I knew how much she didn't like nature to the one who preferred to wander on her own than listen to the crew leader. I think the most important thing I learned is to be ready for anything. Just about every concern the kids had one I hadn't even considered. The kids were concerned about getting hand sanitizer as soon as they finished digging around in the soil, about not sharing hats because of the chance of getting lice, about drinking well water. I also learned that cats are incredibly distracting for 10 year olds, especially that one kid in your group who inevitably loves cats more than life itself. And you should never let your kids hold the chickens early in the week because they will ask you all week when they can go back.

The cool thing about this program is that we do have our own crews but on Wednesday and Thursday we get to work with other crews all morning. It's really nice to have a different group of kids but it definitely tests your ability to adapt. After getting used to my crew on Monday and Tuesday last week, the group on Wednesday was incredibly sharp and speedy at completing the tasks and the group on Thursday was much more high-energy. It's amazing how quickly you start to think up new activities for the kids who are crazy energetic and get done drawing/writing out their example before everyone else. On Friday, the day where you wrap everything up, all the absent kids were in my group and we only had 3 people. It made the whole day kind of difficult because we finished everything early and were very quiet in the only activities all week that require the kids to get pumped up. Oh well, overall I think it went great.

This week I am still learning, tomorrow I teach a new set of activities that I didn't get to teach last week. Also, this is the first week we have a co-ed group so that adds a new dynamic. Today the boys and girls seemed to mesh pretty well. My group seems like its going to be fun, although fairly hyper. I'll let you know how things go and also tell you a little more about Sunship Earth later.