Under Construction - Preparing for JumpStart 2015 Camps!

We are thrilled to have more than 35 camp sites confirmed for January 2015! Please bear with us as we finish preparing a section for each camp on the blog so you can follow your favorite community, teachers and students. In the meantime, please follow us on Facebook for all the latest JumpStart news, or visit our main page, www.jumpstartcostarica.org, for more about the program.

The Final Thursday

Today was a day packed with review games, 'bubbleology' science experiment, and finally painting the student's desks! What a day! 

We began with reviewing direction, numbers, and body parts with the kids three favorite activities...all outside and really active. Part I of the day consisted of Janet's activity called Bubble-ology. The kids were given a variety of soaps and different types of instruments to create bubbles: straws, cups, spatulas, serving spoons, wires, etc. We measured the bubbles and found the biggest bubbles can be made by poking a straw in a plastic bubble and blowing through the straw. We were so impressed with the kids creativity!

Next, with our donated paints and paintbrushes, the students finally got to design and paint their desks. We had some amazing creations: lots of JumpStart desks, hearts, flowers, a few Rastafarian themed desks and even a little mouse! They were given the themes of English, science, or nature and had to paint within those boundaries... 

Tomorrow is the big day! I think more than the certificates, the kids are most excited about their peer voted superlatives...hopefully all will go well with the cake and pizza surprise for the last day!!

Final update tomorrow...

- Taylor Westfall

Home Stretch for JumpStart La Cruz!

After I had to miss three days of camp last week to attend a conference in San Jose, it was so refreshing to come back to the last week of camp. The students seemed refreshed after a weekend off and our room was even more decorated after they continued to learn about days of the week, months of the year, and using adverbs of frequency. In addition to the normal curriculum for the last week of camp, we are lucky to have lots of visitors and additions to our camp this week!

Monday: Marta, the Director of CRML. Alvaro, President of Tourism for Guancaste. Janet, who works for PAUTA Science Organization in Mexico is here the whole week

Tuesday-Wednesday: Janet will work with the kids for half the time. Yesterday, she did an activity about critical thinking using blocks. Today, we did a set of 6 stations and learned to be 'scientists' while observing, creating questions and analysis of mini-science projects. My favorite was hearing them explain why condensation happens when you put ice in a metal can...

Thursday: Kevin Brown, Peace Corps Program Manager. Max Arias, MEP Regional Pedagogical Advisor and another high school director will come to visit.

Friday: we are lucky to have another volunteer from Guanacaste, Chris Starr, to help us with graduation!

Although it has been a little crazy with so many visitors, it is an incredible chance for the students to be exposed to new ideas and new people! The students I think surprised themselves with how much fun "science" could be. Their original ideas of science were words like hard, boring, for smart people, astronauts, and work in universities. I think it was a revelation to see that by engaging in critical thinking, asking questions, making predictions, and being curious about your surroundings are also integral parts of being a scientist!

I will be sure to update later this week! Only a few days until our graduation party!

- Taylor Westfall

Week 3: Over the halfway mark...

As we began Monday today, one of the students said, “Teacher, we only have two more weeks!”. Two more weeks, we are exactly halfway through JumpStart. It is truly incredible to think how much these students have learned and how many things we have done as a class over two weeks, but how neat we have this entire span of time again.

Today, we learned how to tell time in English using different teaching devices. We drew clocks on our handmade dry-erase boards, we called out times and typed it in our cell phones, and we practiced passing around a giant clock and telling time with each other. After that, we began with daily routines. While my students still struggle sometimes with the different verbs in first and third person, overall today was great! We finished out the day with step 1 of our art project: sanding the desks! Each of the students might have a sore arm tomorrow....

 

Sadly, I am leaving tomorrow afternoon to go to an English conference in the capital for the rest of the week. I am so lucky that Yilena will be able to take over the rest of the week as the kids learn about the calendar, adverbs, and parts of the house.

 

This will be our last “normal” week of classes. Next week, we are blessed to have several visitors AND we have to finish painting our JumpStart desks. Monday thru Wednesday, we will have teacher-training experts from PAUTA come and teach about integrating Science and English together. Thursday, the English Assessor for Costa Rica public schools in Guanacaste, my Program Manager for Peace Corps, a school director, and another volunteer will come visit! Lots going on! More updates to come later in the week from Yilena...

- Taylor Westfall

"Nunca Había una Actividad como Ésta"

Esta semana nos lleva a la región de Guanacaste, donde dos campamentos de JumpStart Costa Rica 2013 han estado en camino desde el lunes pasado. Mientras en La Cruz, un pueblo a 45 minutos de Liberia casi pegado con la frontera con Nicaragua, logramos captar una breve entrevista con Yilena, docente del inglés que está co-facilitando el campamento allí. Vea el video de abajo para conocer esta dedicada profesora y saber cómo ha sido su experiencia con JumpStart.