Always so much to share

I went to see a show last night! I saw "Exit the King." The comedy play stars Geoffrey Rush. He was Captain Barbosa in the Pirates movies. Susan Sarandon was also in the play. I always think of her as the mom in "Little Women" or the nun in "Dead Man Walking." movies. Some broadway plays and musicals have tickets for college students that are only $26. It makes it affordable to go to see a show. Before the show, I had a small pizza at an Italian restaurant, while I sat at a table out on the sidewalk in Manhattan.

The week's big events were that I finished the Spring Semester at Pace Univ and I went on an overnight with the students in my 7th grade.

Pace classes are done for a few weeks. It feels wonderful to have some space and time in my head to not be doing my own homework in addition to grading my students' work and planning my students' lessons. Whew... nice.

The trip we took was to Princeton-Blairstown Center. It was in NJ, about a 2 hour bus ride on a school bus. When we were there, we did teambuilding activities and games. One of the favorites that my team did was to create a circle, toss a ball in a specific pattern and to repeat the pattern with multiple balls going at the same time. We never quite got it perfect, but they really wanted to try over and over.

Several students who have focus issues were focussed on the bugs. They were not able to ignore the bugs around them. I had one student who tucked his pant legs into his socks, tucked his sweatshirt into his jeans and cinched his belt (too tight) and then pulled the strings on his hoody sweatshirt so that he was completely covered. Of course he couldn't participate in the activities like that. So instead, he would undo his hoody and then slap and swat at the bugs without paying attention to the activity. He slapped his glasses off of his face several times because he was just wild with his arms due to the bugs.

Then there was the student who thought we were going to sleep outside. There was a nightwalk and then a campfire and then we were going to be sleeping in our cabins. So as he headed to the night walk, he carried his sleeping bag. One of the teachers noticed and told him to leave his bag at her cabin and pick it up on the way back after the night's activities. He didn't realize he didn't need his sleeping bag. So we go and do all of the activities. Then, when he arrived in his cabin, he told his cabin leader that he didn't have any bedding for his cot. That means he completely didn't put together that he had left his bag before the activities. Very curious how a student can forget something like this. It's part of the adventure.

The most difficult parts were the lack of sleep (girls were up late, using restrooms in the middle of the night and then up early to shower) and not helping the students solve problems the camp facilitator gave them to do.

Mr. DeWolf and I did a blindfold walk helping each other walk thru a maze of things with one being sighted and the other blindfolded. It was really hard for me to take my glasses off, don a blindfold and trust him in this wooded, uneven ground, lake nearby area. We did a great job. He lead me and I was able to completely trust and listen to his directions. We were a good team.

Enjoy the week!