C2017: Día 4

Great, great day! We took the entire camp to The National Acquarium. 108 students, 25 teen leaders, and 8 teachers. My expectations were pretty low as far as acquariums go as we come from a city with one of the best acquariums in the world and I think I'm an Acquarium snob. But I was pleasantly surprised as there was lots to see. And the best part, as always, is seeing how excited all the campers are just to go on a field trip, any field trip. I think they had as much fun eating their lunch in the park next to the aquarium and playing in the playground as they did seeing the sea life. One thing to remember for next year: Leave earlier! We forget that it takes at least 30 minutes to load (and then get an accurate account of) so many campers into 5 buses. And It took 30 minutes to get into the museum once we arrived. I don't think they're used to such big groups. Nor are we, come to think of it.

C2017: Día 3

Good day at camp today. I thought that we wouldn't be as tired as in the past since we're not teaching all day but that doesn't seem to be the case what with us running around looking for this, settling that dispute, and supporting the teen leaders in their teaching. Won't bore you wth the details even though I guess I already did a bit. Of greater import and interest is what the leaders did in the talleres today.

Science: They continued there work in chemistry by "exploding" plastic canisters using alka seltzer. Then they transitioned to the material sciences and made slime.

And in art the started a two day activity making a work of art in the style of Eric Carle. So today they painted a design on tissue paper. And you'll have to wait to hear about the second part until they do it. As a hint I can tell you that it has something to do with scissors.

Meanwhile oscar and some of the teen leaders continued work in the playground:

The big adventure of the day though happened later. After la comida we took all the teen leaders, gringos and locals, into la capital to go roller skating. The kids were super excited. Then, after a very loud hour bus ride (I am now officially burnt out on "despacito") we arrived at Rollers to find out that there was a skating lesson taking place and it was closed to the public until 5. Well, as my loyal followers should know by now, one must always have a plan B here. Which we fortunately did. We got back on the bus and went to a mall not to far away for pizza and a movie. But not just a regular movie. We saw the new Transformers movie in 4D! This meant that while we were wearing our 3D glasses the seats moved with the action and they sprayed us with air or water as the plot indicated. In general I find all that more distracting than entertaining (I can barely handle 2D after all) but the kids had a blast. And, since the movie was really bad ( if they're going to make a summer blockbuster technology filled movie the least they could do is have the plot make sense and write some good dialogue. Is that too much to ask?) all the 4D antics provided much needed distractions.

On a side note, at Rollers the students in the class were all decked out in traditional figure skating outfits complete with flesh colored tights that went over their skates even though the didn't really match the actual color of their flesh. And they were practicing axles, flips and toe loops(that's right I know some figure skating terminology. What of it?) The question I have is what exactly they were training for?

C2017: Día 2

Wow! What a day. It seems like what we've been working towards is really coming to fruition. Case in point, as I was writing this last sentence Eric sat down next to me and said, "I really liked the work we did this afternoon." He was referring to the last few hours we spent working on the playground (more on that later) And what I assume he meant in his succinct way was, "It's a great feeling when you can see the immediate results of your hard, physical labor. Especially when you are doing it for a common good."

I think the same could be said for the entire day. We changed the schedule this year because we thought the teen leaders, both American and Dominican, were ready to take over the camp's main activities. And that's exactly what they showed us today. They led all the learning activities while Tanya, Luli and I worked mainly on logistics and transitions. Furthermore, three of the six home rooms were led by Dominican teen leaders Nicole, Thania, and Cailyn with Evan and Luc. Here's a photo journal of what went down: I hope you like it.

Science Workshop:

Charlie and Camila led one of the science classrooms in experiments on buoyancy while Kelli led the other class in some Ph work.

Sports and Games:

Eric and Frandy designed the obstacle course that one group did while the other played some card and board games. 

Art Workshop:

Luc, Eric, and Evan had the students use drawings and playdough to reflect their learning in the science workshop:

Oh. And by the way 20 or so new campers showed up today so we're at 116.  Told you so. Here is one final picture of transition time:

Then, in the afternoon all the teen leaders went to work in the playground with Oscar. As Eric described, they all worked hard and had a great time doing it. It also turned out to be a great bonding experience for all of them. It's funny what has transpired with these Dominican and American teenagers over the last three years. In the first year that we brought teenagers with us they really bonded when we went to the beach. So last year we said, "wasn't that great what happened last year. Let's go to the beach earlier this year."  So we did. And the two groups barely spoke to each other. So, this year we decided not to partake in any social engineering and just let things develop as they would or wouldn't. And then today they all totally bonded while doing this hard work at the park. There was laughing and dancing and sharing of Spanishu slang, and singing. "Despacito" seems to be popular here as well. All while painting, building, digging, and cleaning. Here is what it looked like:

I have lots of videos as well but I can't figure out how to get them in the blog. Guess I'll post them on Facebook. By the way, here's my latest idea. We make a music video of all the kids working and then taking a break to drink a Coke or Gatorade or something. Then we'll send it to them for their new commercial and donate the proceeds to the foundation. What do you think?

C2017: Día 1

Today went pretty much how I expected it to go: A bit of confusion but ultimately it all worked out. As it always seems to do. We arrived at about 8:45 to get the rooms set up and there were a few campers milling about. A good sign as I always have this nagging fear that no one will show up. And slowly but surely more and more campers began to wander in. Still by about 9:15 we had about half the campers we were expecting. Getting a little nervous as I shouldn't have because in the next 15 minutes a whole crowd showed up so buy 9:30 we had 90 campers with us. Still missing about 25 campers but I figure we will probably see them tomorrow as word gets out that we've started.

Most of the morning was spent talking with the campers about the history of the camp and the new schedule this year and getting to know the campers better. Then in the last hour or so we did a practice run through of the rotating talleres/workshop schedule. And it actually worked. It was slightly problematic that not all of the teachers understood the plan well enough to communicate it to the campers(that one's on me. I just don't quite have the Spanish vocabulary and syntax to explain the plan with enough precision.)  On a side note sometimes my students just stare at me when I'm trying to explain something in Spanish and I have no idea if they actually get what I'm trying to say. But they're smiling a lot so it must be all good.

In any event once we cleared up the confusion the campers were able to figure out where they were supposed to go and we were off and running. Remind me to post a picture of Eric banging on his drum to signify the time to move to a new taller. (Eric saw the drum at La Sirena yesterday and wanted to get it which we did because we couldn't find a bell or a whistle or any other signaling device)

While we were doing all this Samuel and Oscar were hard at work getting the playground project going. I haven't heard all of the details yet about their morning adventures but here's what I do know:

1. For the first hour of the camp the teen leaders helped Oscar clean up the playground and get rid of anything that was broken beyond repair.

2. All the mini palm trees were pruned and now look great.

3. At noon as the camp ended a pickup truck arrived with lots of wood and other supplies and a dump truck arrived with a giant load of small stones. 

Looks like we're off and running with that project as well.  And now we're off to the beach for a bit of relaxation after a hard days work.

C:2017 - Día 0

Lots of preparations today. Turns out 114 campers signed up this year!!! OM freakin G. What are we going to do with all these kids? Not to worry. We added a couple of classrooms and recruited Evan and Nicole to be the teachers. Evan doesn't know this yet but I'm sure he won't freak out at all. And this year the focus will be in the talleres so the teacher will be more like a cruise director, greeting the students, sending them off to their talleres, and then finishing the day with them as they complete their journal entries. (Much like Julie McCoy for you Love Boat fans out there.) 

So today we went to La Sirena for some last minute supplies, organized all the supplies we brought with us or left here last year, formed the six classrooms, assigned the teen leaders to their talleres, etc. things like that. On a personal note I discovered why I had the track all to myself when I went running at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. 

I'll let you know how the first day goes tomorrow ...

Llegamos

About an hour late but we've arrived at Santo Domingo international airport. Frandy, who's like 8 feet tall now, took the kids upstairs to "tomar un jugo" while Tanya and I wait for Luli to arrive. Then we're off to Madre Vieja.  Remind me to tell you the story sometime of how Evan left his carry on in his bedroom and our plan for getting it here by tomorrow.

Getting Ready to Go

OK. I know you have all been eagerly awaiting the results of the poll to choose the name of this year's campamento. Wait no more because the overwhelming choice was ... C2017. Well, that is the choice I wanted anyways and since no one else voted I'm going with it...

C2017 starts in four days and we're all heading down the day after tomorrow. Here's a pic of my state of readiness:

Not too bad. Just a trip to CVS and the bank and I'm ready to go. Not sure I can say the same for the kids. Anyways, we have some changes planned out for the camp this year. We really wanted to get the teen leaders more involved and to get the students more invested in the talleres(workshops). So I had this idea that we should change the structure from classroom based to taller based. We could do this by having a short "home room" at the beginning of the day and then have three periods of talleres instead of just one. Kelli, Tanya, and I worked out a schedule in which we would divide the campers into six groups that would rotate between art, science, and board games/deportes with the teen leaders in charge. Here is what the schedule looks like:

It all makes sense in my super organized, gringo teacher mind. I'm just worried that it doesn't mesh with the "take things how they come and improvise" Dominican pedagogy. I'll keep you posted.