first week of school

Once again another week has gone by and I have barely had time to breathe! This past Monday the entire staff, veteran and new teachers, came together to prepare for the school year. There are so many teachers at Lincoln, I am not sure I will ever meet them all! With the school being PreK-12 grade, it is a large group! However, I did get to meet most of the elementary staff and have already found some people I really enjoy spending time with! It was a relief after my weekend in Manuel Antonio with the other new teachers! I was happy to find some people I can relate to a little better!

Monday-Wednesday were filled with meetings... we barely had any time to work in our classrooms which was pretty stressful! However, the kids came Thursday I a jumped right into teacher mode and had a great day! These kids (so far) are pretty great! They are very sweet, respectful and bright. Coming from a class that was 75% below grade-level in reading, this group seems to be very on top of things! When I ask them to do something, say, writer's work shop, they all cheered and started writing almost immediately! It was nice. I know I will need to work on a few things, because culturally they talk a lot... but we will get there :)

As for my social life, meeting the entire staff has been wonderful, but kept me busy! My roommate, Elle, is great! She knows the ropes around here and is very helpful! Every night this week I was invited to join people for dinners, birthdays, beach trips... and I just can't say no so I kept busy! I had a great week though! Like I said, I have found some nice people in the veteran group and I wanted to make the effort to get to know them! Yesterday, I headed off to the beach  for the day with a few people from school. It was beautiful!! We went to a beach outside of Jaco and it was empty and wonderful! The sun was shining, the water was warm and the company was great!

Crocodiles on the way to the beach!

 Playa Esterillos- all to ourselves!

It was a busy, but wonderful week! I am looking forward to a quiet Sunday to catch up on work and relax a little before work tomorrow. Thanks for reading!