Today was a big day, I was going to give my first lesson to the class. It was the lesson I prepared yesterday, about origami. The ride with the bus went well this time, I got out of the bus at TASIS. First the day started with SAT-10, as the children will get these tests all week. During these tests I had some time to ‘’fine-tune’’ my preparations, as the lesson that followed was social studies. The first part of the lesson they made some more progress on making their timeline, and after that the lessons started. The group was divided into 3 smaller groups that would go to different tables and get different kinds of activities. And at one of the tables they would get their lesson from me. They were not expecting to get a lesson from me, so immediately they got really excited. The lessons went really well. First I told them a little bit about the history and let them read bits of the text, after that I asked them some questions about the text and vocabulary. Then they got to do some origami themselves. It was really nice to hear a lot of positive reactions from the children. They were really enthusiastic and when they asked questions to me they said: ‘’Mister Tom…’’, which was also a lot of fun for me. Mr. Nijenhuis was also very pleased with the effort I put into the lesson and how it worked out. After that it was time for recess and lunch break. Today we got pizza for lunch break, the American style pizza with the thick crust. After that the students had Science lesson. During this lesson they watched a documentary about Madame Curie, which was also interesting for me. The last lesson they got was P.E. which was somewhere else (of course it was not inside the classroom). While they had P.E. I stayed in the classroom with Mr. Nijenhuis. And then the lessons for today were done, it was sooner than the other days (just like the Wednesdays in Holland). When I walked back to the bus stop, my uncle and aunt drove past the school. They stopped and asked me if I’d like to go with them to visit the house they were building near the Como lake (the one where George Clooney has a house as well). I went to see the house which was really nice, it was close to the lake and had great views of the surrounding area. Back in Lugano we went to a restaurant to eat… PIZZA! This pizza was a real Italian-style pizza (which I prefer). Then we went back to the hotel once again where I turned on my laptop and started writing my blog for today.
Ciao,
Tom