Dingle and Week 5!

I was so busy that I did not have a chance to blog last week, so I am a bit behind. But I am catching up. My mom, sister, Aunt Debbie, and cousin Michael visited me on Sunday, November 19. It was so nice to see them. I spent the day with them on Sunday, but then would only see them after school. They traveled during the day, but they stayed in Listowel so that they could see me during the night! The weather was not too great for them, but I think they enjoyed seeing the sights in Ireland that they did see!

On Saturday, November 18, the family that we are staying with, took Katie and I to Dingle Peninsula. The weather was so awful during the week, that we figured their would be rain. But for some reason the luck of the Irish has been with Katie and I since we have been here. The day was beautiful. It was sunny with some clouds, which apparently is perfect for this type of sightseeing.

Dingle is mostly seen by driving around the peninsula. There were several scary moments due to these narrow roads over here. There was a portion of the trip called Connor's Pass. It is was so narrow and the road winds around the mountains. The road is only about one car's width. If a car is coming in the opposite direction you have to pull over as far as you can, and then slowly inch past eachother. Fidelma, the lady we live with, was even freaking out and she is from Ireland. Not going to lie...was a bit scary!


Here is some of Dingle. I love the mountains. They really intrigued me! The views were absolutely breathtaking. I cannot believe that people are able to see this everyday of their life. There are houses scattered throughout this picture, might be hard to see with the naked eye. People acutally live in this valley! It is just so nuts.
A waterfall in the Dingle Peninsula. I love how there are random waterfalls all over Ireland!



This past week at school (November 20-24) was so busy! Neville visited us on Tuesday and Wednesday. He is our supervisor over here. He lives in England and is responsible for placing us in schools and homes, as well as helping us with any issues that we may have over here! I was really nervous about him observing me, but it went so well! He made me feel so calm and comfortable while I was teaching. He walked around the classroom and helped out students. It was great to see him interact with the kids as well. I really enjoyed talking with Neville afterwards and hearing about his stories with teaching, and listening to all of the wonderful advice that he gave me. He such a patient and encouraging man.

I was also busy with teaching my three classes about Thanksgiving this week. In each of the classes we made turkeys for our art projects.


Here are the Junior Infants turkeys. They loved the idea of using hands as the feathers and wings. They did such a great job decorating them and taking their time. I also read each of the 3 classes a book on Thanksgiving. I first explained to them briefly about Thanksgiving, coordinating my story with the age group, and then read them a book about what Americans do on Thanksgiving day. Some of the girls knew what Thanksgiving was about because they have family that lives in America. All of the girls were extremely jealous to hear that American children have 3 days off of school to celebrate Thanksgiving. I had every class get in a cirlce and hold hands and tell us one thing they were thankful for. It was great to see how appreciative they are of things in their life. Some of the things they shared were quite humerous, and the teacher and I had to laugh. The 4th class decorated their turkeys and wrote on the lines provided things that they were thankful for. On Friday, not one of the classes failed to ask how my Thanksgiving was. They are so thoughtful over here!

When Neville observed my 4th class, my lesson was an introduction to the solar system. One of the things that we talked about was the orbit of the Earth around the sun. I did an activity with the girls in which they were all given a different size balloon. The girl with the yellow balloon was the sun in the middle of the solar system. The girls that could tell me what planets came next in correct order away from the sun got to hold a balloon that represented that planet. So the girls that were holding the sun and the planets all stood in a line. I had them demonstrate the orbit for around the sun for a year, and a rotation for a day. The planets furthest from the sun take longer to orbit the sun, therefore their year is longer than Earth's year. It worked really well and the girls were able to physically see how the planets orbit the sun! They also created, with a partner, their own way to remember the order of the planets. My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas was the one that I gave to them. They had a great time coming up with their own little story. I was really glad that I had them do it. I was able to see a creative side of the girls. I was going to stop them from doing it because it seemed like they were struggling at first, but eventually they got the hang of it. I did an American lesson with them on Friday and they loved talking and hearing about America. I promised them that I would do another one the last week. Next week I will continue with the solar system for 4th class.

This week in 1st class we talked about healthy foods. We learned about serving sizes, the food pyramid, and how to eat healthy. The girls learned how to identify the foods in the different food groups, and where vegetables, fruits, and dairy products come from. One day I drew pictures of all of the things I ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner the day before (made up of course!), and told them that they needed to help me eat better. It was so funny because I think that they think that I really eat as awful as I pretended to. (I heard them whispering to eachother that Miss Burmesch will get really fat if she eats that all the time!) They loved thinking that they were helping me! I then gave them paper plates and they created their own dinners, healthy of course.

My Junior Infants are developing their fine motor skills. We have been working with writing letters in the small amount of space provided. They would use the entire page for one letter if it were up to them. I am doing a painting activity with them to help them develop these skills of drawing/writing in small spaces, as well as work on detail. They each brought in a favorite toy of theirs. I had to explain to them that it has to be something that they can leave overnight. They will be painting a picture of their favorite toy. We just started this week with using water colors to paint our background. This whole project should be interesting, because a majority of them struggled with simply painting back and forth. They wanted to go up and down and all over. I really stressed to them to go from side to side. Most of them were able to do it. This is only the first step, and I am eager to continue working on this with them!


Junior Infants playing in the sand! So cute!

Oh, I also taught my classes the 12 Days of Christmas!! If anyone knows me...they know I cannot sing. Either the girls didn't realize that I was out of tune, or they were just being extremely polite. God, I was so awful.