A Little Bit About My Job Here.

So my mom brought to my attention that I have sort of been leaving out all of the teaching stuff on my blogs/photos, and have really only been sharing the playing & vacation stuff :) So I've decided to give you a little run down on how my days usually go here in Lithuania:

9:15AM - Wake up and throw on something really warm. This usually consists of jeans, oxfords, a T-shirt, knitted cardigan and a marshmallow jacket, and then throw my hair up into something presentable. Our apartment is extremely freezing and we don't get any heating in here. We have a radiator in each room but I need to figure out how to use them! The minute I get out of my blankets, I feel like I am going to freeze to death.

9:30AM - Head down to the Kindergarten for breakfast. The Kindergarten is where we eat all 3 meals on Monday-Friday. Breakfast is usually some kind of porridge, bread with butter and meat or cheese, and tea!

I actually love the food from the Kindergarten. Some of the other girls think I'm crazy because they don't like it, but the way I see it is it's always prepared for us, it's generally healthy, and there is always plenty (well except for dinner, but I'll get to that.)

10AM to 1PM - Go back to the apartment and do Yoga or work on some kind of project. Right now I've been updating all of our student's profiles. We have about 70-80 students so trying to organize and create profiles for all of them has been quite the task. So I'll work on those, or I will clean up my room or write in my planner. If we have any meetings scheduled, we will do them in between here. If I need want any treats, I'll go down to the Maxima grocery store and purchase some iced tea & chocolate, or some kind of snack to take to the school with me! If I need something more than just a treat, I'll go to the Akropolis mall and go to the Hyper Maxima (which is similar to a Wal-Mart) and get what I need. Usually while I'm there I'll grab a coffee or a Gelato :) And if I don't have any tasks needing to be done, I will take a nap!

1PM - Lunch time at the Kindergarten. Lunch usually consists of Soup, potatoes or rice, some form of meat (usually meatballs or meat patties), vegetables, bread & Compote (Lukewarm fruit juice.)

The red soup is a warm Beet soup. It is delicious! I could eat oodles and oodles of it. I also really like the Compote. It's usually strawberry or some kind of berry juice. And the meatballs are always good, too! The only bread I like that they give us is regular white bread. Sometimes we get bread that is filled with Dill seasoning and I dislike that :( 

The ladies in the kitchen at the Kindergarten are really sweet! There are 3 main cook ladies. I have been working on getting their names, but I only have one so far. Her name is Stacia (Staw-sYAH)

1:30PM to 3PM - Come home. Either shower or get ready for school. If it's Wednesday, we have Russian lessons at 1:30PM. Russian is difficult because we are learning from a native speaker who doesn't know much English. She is one of our student's parents. She's really really great and nice, but it is so difficult to learn! Especially because she writes in Russian cursive and I already know the regular Russian alphabet so it's like I'm having to learn it all over again and in cursive the characters look so completely different. 

3PM - Head over to the school. The school is directly across the street from our apartment. It is really convenient having it that way. We teach inside of an Elementary school. We have 2 rooms rented out as our specific ILP classrooms and then we borrow 4 other classrooms from the school. It's difficult because we have to make sure those 4 classrooms look spotless and perfect (like we never even used them) each day. Whereas the 2 classrooms of our own aren't as strict. In one of our classrooms we have our supply room and in the other one we have our opening room. I'll explain that in a moment. When I arrive around 3, I'll usually print off any documents my teachers may need for their lessons, like our Basic Reading worksheets, or I will update our white board calendar or continue working on student profiles. 

Our opening room! We have our calendar, days of the week, our weather photos and Student of the Week! Each week, we choose a student from all 5 different levels (beginning, elementary, etc.) and they get spotlighted with their cute little certificate on the wall! At the end of the week the also receive their favourite candy :) 

The rules! (Which you can see are always falling down.)

Our hand print tree! We make the leaves according to the seasons.

These are the token bags. A little about how these work:

Each student has a token bag and each teacher has a token bag. The teacher chooses one specific phrase that they want the children to say during that lesson. For instance "I want" or "I need" or "I can do it." Things like that. And the teacher will teach their lesson and along the way will prompt the students to repeat phrases (the students are supposed to be speaking every 10 seconds.) But it's only when the student repeats or says spontaneously THIS specific phrase that they will receive a token to put in their token bag. At the end of the day, they count their tokens and get to purchase a prize with their tokens. The teachers have bags sorted out with different prices like "10 tokens," "20 tokens," etc. and depending on how many tokens they have they get to buy something from that specific bag. They have prizes like slinkies, bouncy balls, lollipops, toy cars, things like that. It's hard because a lot of kids don't really care about prizes so they don't try to earn tokens and that creates a very frustrating situation, which we are currently dealing with :/ But, we do what we can! 

Also my mom created some really adorable token aprons that we could use instead of the token bags (That would solve a lot of problems because the teacher would have complete control over the tokens so students couldn't steal each other's or hit each other with their token bags.) But my teachers didn't really show much interest in them, unfortunately :( So I will be trying them out in the other school that I go to in January. 

3:30PM to 5:30PM - First block of classes!! We start with Opening at 3:30. The 2 Elementary teachers do their own opening in a separate classroom with their older students, and the 4 Beginning/Basic Reading teachers + me do our little opening. We each have our assigned day of the week to do opening, mine being on Mondays. Whoever is in charge that day will stand up at the front and lead, while the other 4 teachers act as enforcers. It's quite difficult because our kids are beyond crazy. We start with a few songs that they get to pick out of a popsicle stick cup (their favourite being Princess Pat.) Then I'll choose a student that is being quiet and folding their arms to come up and help me with the day of the week, the date and the month! Then I'll choose another student to help me with the weather for that day. We have little photos of clouds, a sun, snow, etc. painted onto our wall so they get to look out the window and choose which photo matches the weather. And we have the whole group repeat "Today is sunny & windy or cloudy or whatever it is!" Then we go over our rules. We have a set of 6 rules including things like "No yelling", "Keep your hands to yourself" and of course "ENGLISH ONLY!" After that, we sing some more songs and will maybe talk about how they are feeling that day with our emotions poster, and then we dismiss them into classes! They'll grab a token bag and follow their teacher to their class.

Miss Annie leading opening!

During this time, since I am not a teacher, I will migrate from class to class and either assist with their lessons or just observe. I have specific days each week that I evaluate each teacher. I have a nice little form in my phone where I can do their evaluations and submit them right to ILP. The forms have comments on them like: "No 10 second periods of silence," or "every student prompted to speak, not just the student the teacher is talking to," or "proper usage of tokens." Things like that. And I will either mark Well done or Needs work and then I ultimately give them a score of 0-5 at the end. Most of my teachers get consistent 3s and 4s which is awesome, really! I say anything above a 3 is fantastic! I've had a couple teachers get 5s here and there and that has been just awesome! There is a section at the bottom where I can add my own notes for them, and then when I submit it, that teacher gets a copy of the form so they can review it! It's really nice and I think it works out well. 

I will also use this time to, again, work on student profiles, modify the class lists if needed, or speak with Dima about stuff. Dima only comes to school once or twice a week so when he comes it is great and we talk for a long time about everything I need to talk to him about! We also have Alma at the school, who is Dima's assistant. She helps with the classes, students, and basically the well being of us and the program. She doesn't speak much English at all so it's a little difficult to communicate with her, but we usually just call Dima and have him translate if we need to.

Miss Madi & Miss Saffron teaching Pre-Language. These kiddos are tough because they come to us with absolutely zero English abilities (they can hardly even speak their own language yet.) So the teachers sing lots of songs with them using plenty of actions, and do crafts with them while just speaking the whole time. The whole idea of Pre-Language is just to expose the kids to the English language, and eventually they begin to pick up words here and there. After being in Pre-Language for a year, they will move on to beginning where they will actually be prompted to speak. 

Miss Annie & Miss McCall playing Cowboys & Indians tag with their kids!

Red Rover!

5:35 to 7:35 - Second block of classes comes and we repeat the exact same process, only with a new group of kids! 

7:35 - help Alma clean up the classrooms, bundle up and head home! Annie, Madi and McCall usually go to the Kindergarten to pick up the dinner and bring it home. Dinner is usually pretty small. We will get pancakes or pasta or these dumplings with curd inside. I usually pair it with some hot pomegranate tea and I usually feel pretty content. Sometimes it's not a lot, so we will make pasta or get pizza express or something from Maxima. 

At this time I'll usually do laundry, watch a movie, work on school stuff, or Skype Tim & friends. 

So that's a typical day for me here in Lithuania! I can't believe that I have 43 days left here. Almost all of the leaves have now fallen and I am waiting for snow to arrive. I'm excited for it, but don't know if am prepared enough, clothing wise! Yikes! 

All is well here. I haven't posted in a while because my computer has been broken and I have been on vacation from school. My computer is in the shop now --130 euros later :( but when it gets out, I will post all about my vacation and many other things :) 

Thanks for reading! 

Kiri & Mike.

This was one of the best weekends I have spent in Vilnius so far this semester. Want to know why? Because this..

My dearest childhood friend Kiri came to visit! Her and her husband Mike have been doing a work-away in Wroclaw, Poland. They live with a really great family and help home school their two Polish boys. They also work in a local school teaching English. They get a free place to stay and all of their meals given to them. But they do get paid extra to work in the school. It seems like a pretty sweet deal! Anyway, they get to travel on the weekends all around, so they decided to come to Vilnius this last weekend.
They arrived around 8AM and we went straight to their airB&B rental to let them settle in. Not much is open until about 10AM in the old town, so we waited around for a bit. They were staying in a cozy little flat right in the center of Old Town. Their hosts were away for the weekend so they got the place to themselves. We went to breakfast at "Cozy" which was really yummy. I got one of my favourites, Ham & cheese pancakes! They are always so good, everywhere you go. And then I had some rice porridge with berries. I love porridge. Who knew? After breakfast, Kiri really needed her Pumpkin spice latte. We saw a sign in the Coffee Inn window advertising that they had them. We go inside and they say "No sorry, we are out." So we go to the other Coffee Inn down the street, and they say "Sorry, it is over." ??! Okay. So tell me, why is there an advertisement in your window? So annoying. After our coffee fail, we went up to Gedimino tower and viewed the city. We sat up there for a while and reminisced. It was so so wonderful.

Vilnius is SO cold right now. In the mornings it gets down to 28 degrees Fahrenheit. It is nearly unbearable for me. I don't ever remember being this cold last semester I was here. And it's only October!!
I showed them around the Old Town, we went to the main park, inside St. Anne's cathedral, Uzupis and Cathedral Square.

Finally found the swing!

We had lunch at Boom Burger. We probably waited 30 minutes for our burgers to be done, but they were delicious if you ask me! And Kiri's onion rings were divine. After lunch, I took them over to my side of town. I showed them around my area and showed them my dingy little apartment. We had tea and Kiri and I recorded a song we wrote together years and years ago. It was very very nice. We went back into town and had dinner at Cili Pica. We got pizza, Pierogi and crepes! Then we went back to their flat and chatted and drank some more tea. I stayed until the last bus would leave, and then said goodnight. 

The next morning, we met up and went to breakfast at a cafe on the main street. It was like a little stone tavern with really interesting dishes. I got roasted pork with pears and Tzatziki sauce. It was exxquisite! Mike got vegetable pie and a lasagna pancake, and Kiri got pumpkin soup and pancakes :) 

Who would have guessed this combination would be so delicious!?

After breakfast, we hopped on a bus to Trakai. We didn't have much time because they had to catch their bus back to Wroclaw at 5:20PM. But we made a quick little trip out there and it was perfect. We rented a pedal boat and pedaled around the castle. 

I love them. Their relationship is so fun and silly. They just make me so happy!

I wanted to take them to this traditional Kibinai restaurant that my host family took me to years ago, but I could NOT find it :( We had to settle for a more modern place, though it still served Kibinai. It was fine. But they didn't serve any sauce with our fried bread and the atmosphere wasn't cozy or traditional. That's alright though. We were pretty pressed for time!

It was such a wonderful weekend! Our phones stayed put in our bags so we were able to fully soak up each other's company the entire weekend. That was one of the best parts. 

Hopefully we will be able to meet up in Budapest on Halloween. That is the plan as of now :) 

On another note, things are going pretty well. I have been quite sick the past couple of days with an awful sinus infection and sore throat. It is quite miserable. School has been crazy as usual. We leave on our week vacation next week to Frankfurt, Prague, Vienna & Budapest!! I am so excited! And in November, 4 of us are going to Dublin, Ireland & Barcelona, Spain!!! :) I can't believe it!