Down on the Ranch

Every once in a while I need to get outside the city of Managua and get a whiff of good country air. Spending a weekend in a small town and out on the ranch was the perfect solution, I felt like I had gone home. A former student's family owns a ranch and invited a bunch of teachers to spend the weekend. They were incredible hosts and served us some amazing meals. We also got to do all the fun stuff that comes with being out in the country. It included...

...a bonfire. Yeah! Hotdogs and smores. Something not done all that often in Nicaragua because we certainly don't need the heat of the fire to keep us warm. Although on this particular evening I was quite chilly and did huddle near the fire to get warm.

...riding in the back of the truck. See I told you it gets cold in Nicaragua. We all brought our hoodies and they happened to be matching! That's Rachel in the middle and Kate on the side; my roomies. Joy is probably in the cab of the truck and can't be seen, but she is featured in the video below.

...hanging out in hammocks and relaxing.

...horseback riding. Remember the previous blog about not really liking to ride horses. Well, I was back in the saddle this weekend and it actually went fairly well. Should I mention that the horse was old? It did have a bit of spirit though and I ended up going for about an hour long ride with him.

...going to the Rodeo. That was a very 'Nica' experience. It involved horse dancing, reciting poetry, lots of introductions, speeches, bull riding, and traditional folk dancing. Did I mention that this was a Rodeo?

...being just plain silly. I'll take credit for taking the video. This is my first video on the blog; just wanted to see how it works. The announcer is Joy my other roomie.

This was a much needed weekend to get re energized for the final stretch before the end of the school year.

Who has a Monopoly?

We just finished a unit in Social Studies called In the Market. We had some interesting discussions about money and spending money. This lent itself perfectly to playing the game Monopoly in class. I never realized how many versions of the game Monopoly there were. We had Star Wars, Las Vegas, Corvette, and Special Edition Monopoly games. I found out soon enough that it would be a waste for me to try and explain the rules to them. They seemed to know the game better than I did.
I found out that my students have an incredible love for money. I heard plenty of evil, little giggles coming from people who earned alot of money. Others bought up property early on in the game and ended up with little money in the end. All these details and more helped to reinforce some economic strategies we had talked about in class.
We are getting down to the last couple weeks of school. It is hard to believe that it has gone this fast. My students have already come to realize the closeness to the end of the year. On Friday they mentioned their fears about fifth grade. We have one more BIG event to look forward to. My students have been praying about it everyday since I mentioned it; mostly praying that their parents would let them go. It is an overnight field trip with the 5th and 6th grade classes. Kids in Nicaragua don't often travel away from their parents very much and so this is a big deal. We held a parent meeting to inform the parents about our minute to minute plan for the two days. Check out the posts after May 16 to see how it went.