jardim botanico

the botanical gardens
Prepare for photo overload.
(click on the pictures to make them bigger)

 

There were canals that ran all throughout the gardens. 

Some were larger like the one on the right, but most were tiny little channels like the one on the left.

 

 

Take note of the little old man in the background.

I was terribly excited to discover a bromeliad greenhouse. Ever since watching the rainforest episode of Magic School Bus when I was little, I've had an affinity for bromeliads. The little man was sweeping away in the back of the greenhouse and as we neared his corner of the world he gave us a grin and began speaking to us in Portuguese. We explained that we did not speak Portuguese, but this did not phase him in the slightest. He laughed and began gesturing animatedly at various exotic plants and blooms throughout the greenhouse that we had not previously noticed. He continued to chatter on in Portuguese excitedly, even though we could not understand him. After receiving our private tour, we thanked him profusely and left.

I just love happy people. This guy's profession, as far as I can tell, revolves around cleaning a greenhouse. I'll admit that doesn't sound like the best job in the world, but it just goes to show that any job can be the best job in the world if you see it that way. He takes the time to appreciate his greenhouse and share that appreciation with the silly Americans that come through and have no idea what they're looking it. It makes all the difference.

This aqueduct was clearly blocked off to indicate that people should not walk on top of it.

Well, I did it anyway. No regrets.

 

These birds looked like robins but with yellow bellies. I've always had a thing for yellow birds so I spent a great deal of time trying to catch them in a photograph. 

There were hundreds of different birds in the gardens. It took me until about half-way through the day to take a moment to stop and listen, but once I did I couldn't stop. Birds are severely under-appreciated.

Bamboo

 

So in a nutshell, I'm absolutely in love with these gardens. I don't know what it was but they had such an enchanted feel to them. That's the only word I can think to describe it. I felt like at any moment a fairy or gnome could pop out of the woods.

Okay, that was a little corny, but if you keep up with this blog you should be used to that by now.

lost and found

I was looking for something on my iPod the other day and I unearthed a handful of forgotten pictures.

Ipanema Hippie Fair

Hippie Fair's Bahian food booth

The McCafe at the closest McDonalds. It's like a real cafe. There are sandwiches and pieces of cake and espresso. I was alarmed by this.

Someone graffiti-ing.

I don't know the name of this place, but it's near downtown. It's a little square with lots of shady places to sit, a few monuments and a beautiful church as a backdrop.

These two strangers saw me taking a picture and asked if I wanted a picture of them. Of course I did.

The care package my parents sent me! Peanut butter is about US$15 for a container that size. Needless to say, I was pretty psyched.

It was so beautiful out yesterday Kelly and I couldn't bear to be inside. She read on our doorstep and I camped out on a towel in the middle of the ally. Totally worth it, the weather was perfect.

In five weeks I will be settling back into my home routine. I can't believe it. I prepared myself for this experience to fly by but not this quickly. I have to soak up every single minute here while I can. We've accomplished a lot this weekend so far, I'll have photo evidence soon.

lessons

Yesterday I taught a subtraction lesson based around the song "Five Little Speckled Frogs." I taught the kids the song and printed off these cute little frogs and a log to provide a visual as we sang.

(Frog and log props can be found here.)

When we go to the last line of the song that says "Now there are ____ speckled frogs" I would wait for the students to call out how many frogs were remaining. I would periodically stop the song to talk about how many frogs we took away and how many are left. They're just learning the subtraction basics right now, so there's no equations and they have not been introduced to the term "subtraction" yet. 

Following our song I put students in groups for learning centers. My mentor teacher worked with one group on language while I worked with another on math. I created this worksheet to go along with the lesson.

(Find it here.)

Students were asked to draw a picture of frogs on a log then draw arrows to indicate how many jumped into the pool. They then had to fill in the blanks to indicate how the song would go if it were about their picture.

I thought the lesson went really well. The kids were engaged and eager to participate in the song. They were creative with their drawings and demonstrated understanding of the topic by explaining the numbers they wrote and comparing these numbers to their drawings. My mentor teacher also loved the lesson; her and the assistant said it went very well.

The person observing my lesson had a long list of suggestions, which frustrated me at first. I normally take constructive criticism very well but I've been experiencing low self-esteem about my ability to teach. In reality, he was just trying to help me and he had a ton of great ideas. I just want to be perfect for my students and when I'm not I feel like a failure. I think what I need to try to understand is that I will never be perfect, but I should always strive for perfection.

Anyway, I still think the lesson went well. Later in the day I taught a vocabulary review lesson where we played a game "Students vs. Teacher." I found it on this website, which has a ton of great ideas for word review games. It's such a simple game, but very effective in keeping students under control. I showed the kids pictures of English vocabulary they have learned. If they raised their hands quietly, I called on one of them and they answered correctly they got a point. If they spoke out of turn or didn't raise their hands, I got a point. You wouldn't believe how silent the classroom became. Then they won and I let them do a little bit of cheering to celebrate :)