Beautiful Friday at School

WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY AT THE  CREATIVA

After more than 2 weeks of almost non-stop rain here in Monteverde we finally got a sunny day again on Friday.  I had spent all afternoon Thursday making plans for something to do with the 5th and 6th grade classes for inside recess and inside PE class with very limited space, and we get up the hill and this is what we see!  The mountains of Costa Rica (from here we´re almost a mile high) straight to the the Gulf of Nicoya and the Nicoya Peninsula.  (If you look at a map of CR it´s the big peninsula on the Northwestern part).  It was a beautiful day and a pleasure to get to see our view once again.  So I went inside and started to get ready for the first part of the day... SCHOOL SING!  

School Sing is a tradition at the Cloud Forest School (yes, we call it the Cloud Forest School, but the Creativa in Spanish.  The name´s don´t translate, but it´s fun that way.  The legal names do translate and include both names, so don´t worry it´s not too confusing once you´re down here).  Every Friday morning the classes from Kinder ( 3, 4 and 5 year olds) all the way up to 6th grade get together to sing a few songs.  Usually we sing the school song and one class leads us in that and about 5 other songs.  This week was the 5th grade´s turn.  So that meant that my crazy kids who struggle with English more than some of the younger classes, who are all very stage shy got to sing the school song, The Littlest Worm, a song from the World Cup, Primavera (by Carlos Santana, which they signed the chorus to!) and The Duck Song (from youtube, thanks to my friend AnnA Monkey)  They were amazing and adorable.  I was very thrilled with their performance because we´ve come such a long way as far as behaviour and because I was the first of the new teachers to go.

Oh yeah, and we enlisted our friends in kinder to be the ducks in our duck song performance.  The lil ducklings are right here... 

So after school sing, I was thinking, we haven´t seen the sun in ages, the kids haven´t played outside in almost a week, let´s go on a hike!  What a muddy hike, since it had rained for weeks, but hey, we´re in Costa Rica, we practically live in the mud.  So the kids lead me (because I had never been there before) past the spring, up to the Monkey Palace.  We didn´t see any monkeys this time, but that didn´t stop us from acting like monkeys the entire trip!

The monkey palace is one of the students´ favourites places because it´s very difficult to climb up the side as you can (possibly) see below

Coming down is another story, it´s not just difficult it´s almost impossible.  The students have done it several times and failed to maintain control all the way down.  I on the other hand just sat in my urban surfing pose and slid down like you´re inching down a ski slope in your skis, but faster.  After this we went to snack, PE which was a fun game of 5th vs 6th grade kickball!  GO 5TH GRADE, WIN 5-4, (although I was hoping for a tie or a 6th grade win because my kids tend to be good about defeat).  Then the kids ran off to their Spanish class and we cleaned up, they went home for the weekend and I went to my staff meeting.

The weekend started off well with a beautiful morning for the feria, and then we went to play frisbee in the mud at the Friends (Quaker) school up the road.  As much fun as it was, I should have taken the day off because it set off a 102´F fever that made me stay home on Monday.  I went the the Dr who said I had a bad sinus infection, gave me meds and I got a shot at the pharmacy, my temp dropped below 93´F and somehow Tuesday it was more stable so I went to school, still not feeling great but went because today, Thursday was round 1 of the parent-teacher conferences (my first ever).  Part 2 is tomorrow and the first quarter will be done!  Then off to Nicaragua on Saturday for a week journey!