Camp Day

Today was a very very long day for me, but an amazing day.  At my school, all the year 9 students go to camp for 4 days.  Each year 9 house in the school goes to a different camp and the Snell house, the house that I am part of, went to Motu Moana Scout camp.  It was a gorgeous place to be at and today was a hot and sunny day.  My day started off leaving the house at 7:20 and not getting home until 10:30 and I have to teach in the morning!  But the day was well worth it and much better than sitting in the classroom.  The camp is about getting the students to bond with each other through team building activities.  The students must work together in order to complete the tasks.

The day started out with the students going on a run, I had just missed the run by the time I arrived at the camp.  Then the six groups of students go to different stations for an hour and a half.  The day is broken up by morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, and dinner.  There is a lot of eating, but it is extremely healthy eating.  I love how we get a morning and afternoon break for a snack.  It is even like this in the schools!  The night ended up giving out rewards to individual students and to the teams who won at all the activities.  Then, each group put on a skit.  It was so fun to watch the students work together and bond. 

I love morning and afternoon tea!

                                                                                             

 One of the activities was shooting!

The rock wall

So one of the activities was called Hobo stoves.  Using big cans, the students had to build a fire in the can and make pancakes on top! The competition was to see what group could make the most pancakes.  Also for this station, each group had to make a flag to represent their team.

 

When the students misbehave they must do tire runs

 

 

Another activity was the Amazing race.  They had to complete different obstacles.

 

Some water slide fun.  I couldn't get the whole slide in the picture because it was huge.  It went down two hills.

 

 

 

I just love this picture from today.  It was such a perfect and fun time! 

 

 

Beach Trip!

The beach is so close to school, so why not pack a bag and head to the beach after a long day of teaching? It was 80 degrees here today, so perfect for a beach trip.  There was a nice breeze which made it relaxing to lay out.  I already am working on a tan and I was only at the beach for not even an hour! 

Walking down to the beach!

A little rocky sand, but its the beach so I didn't mind!

 

These pictures are for if you forgot what a blue sky looks like

The water was a little cold today, so didn't go in too far

Student teaching class

Okay so I did not get to post yesterday because I got home so late and was exhausted from my night class.  In the US, I had to take a night class every Tuesday while student teaching.  It is required during student teaching to go over what we are doing while teaching and how things are going.  It was 2 hours long and we had a lot of assignments that we needed to complete.

So here, the equivalent is a little different.  We start with a very informal meeting with the 5 other girls I am here with.  The two ladies who are in charge of placing us run the meetings and bring tons of snacks!  After our meeting they take us out for pizza and drinking!!  It may be my favorite class I've ever taken.  I now think wine should be a requirement for night classes!!  We had so much fun and 3 girls that are also here from different parts of the US came and joined us.  Here are some pictures from out dinner:

The restaurant we went to. Mino's

Pretty sure they bought all of us a bottle of wine

Cheers before dinner!

The class!

I had pizza for diner, but my favorite part was the ice cream sundae. Amazing!





First Day of School

You know it's going to be a great school when you get there and they explain that it is like Hogwarts!!!! The school is sorted into houses and everyone has accents, so I can say I now go to Hogwarts, right?  My school is Macleans College, they call high school college and college is university.  Google the school and check it out! It's one of the top colleges in NZ.  It was raining today, so I did not get to take many pictures outside or walk down to the beach after school. 

The house that I will be working in is called Snell house and it is compared to the Slytherin house, which is a little upsetting because I always wanted to be in Gryffindor house.  The color of the Snell house is black and it is represented my the black panther.  Each house at the school is named after a NZ Olympian, which is cool.  The houses compete with each other in different events throughout the year and earn points.  The students are sorted into housing their year 9 and if they have a sibling at the school they are automatically put into the same house. 

The school day is very different then what I am used to.  The day starts at 8:30 and ends at 3:15.  The staff room is beautiful and has a great view of the ocean.  Another thing that is different is when you open the fridge in the staff room, guess what you will find?  WINE!!!!!  The teachers sometimes have a drink while they have their staff meetings at the end of the day.  You could never get away with that in our schools! 

Hopefully in the next couple of days I can get some pictures of the school, but here is a picture that I took walking to school today. 

 



This is a picture of Lainey.  She is four years old and the little girl I will be living with for 6 weeks.

From LA to Tahiti to New Zealand!

My long travel of 30 hours is over and I finally arrived in New Zealand around 1:30 NZ time.  So far no jet lag, but I guess I will find out tomorrow how tired I really am.  Here are the pictures from all my airplane traveling.  It is in the high 70s and very humid.  Tomorrow is my first day student teaching, so I will be putting pictures up of the school.  Have I mentioned my school is on the beach?  Guess where I'll be running everyday.  :)



Our colorful plane to Tahiti



All our goodies to use during the long flight.

My breakfast on the plane

The sunrise from the plane. Almost to Tahiti

The airport in Tahiti! Only there for an hour for a fuel stop

The airport was outside and very tropical

Breakfast on the flight to NZ

Had to take a picture of how we were served water!

Finally made it to NZ and the view was amazing from the plane

Traveling Day

Today starts my long traveling of 30 hours.  We started at Pittsburgh and are now in Dallas.  Our next stop is LA, then off to New Zealand! To start off our adventure, we celebrated with drinks!

                             Our drinks at Fridays.  Of course mine came with cotton candy in it. :)

 

Our arrival at Dallas airport!