Sorry for the lack of posts lately. The problem is, once I get into the swing of things at school, I rarely do anything interesting enough to post about.
We're in our final Term, which is the CXC Term. I'm pretty sure I've written about CXC before - basically, it's a series of subject tests (English, Maths, Sciences) that Form 5 students take. The scores are used to get into college or apply for jobs - simply graduating from high school doesn't have as much weight here as is does in the U.S. Emmanuel High School is a CXC testing school, which means that our students don't have to go to a testing site to take their exams; they do them right at the school. This is good in many ways - I'm sure it's more relaxing for the students to write their exams in a familiar setting and no one has to travel far for testing. It also has negative aspects. The school is overcrowded already, so on heavy testing days, students are asked to stay home by Form. Today is Form 1 stay home day; since I work primarily with Form 1 students, this has also become Shelby stay home day (hence the midafternoon blog post and the clothes-line full of freshly washed laundry). I'm really not a fan of Forms stay home days - it's pretty disruptive for students and teachers, especially because the "stay home" schedule isn't set very far in advance. Case in point, we found out yesterday that today was Form 1 stay home day. I also don't think that such a significant portion of the school should miss out on entire days of learning just so we can be a CXC testing school. But I guess there will always be disruptions.
I'm still working on basically the same things I was in Term 2, although I am no longer teaching the Form 1 Integrated Science class, which was a good turn of events for everyone involved. This freed up a lot of time for me, so now I am reading more often with my Form 1 class and am able to take a few Form 2 reading groups as well. Plus, the class gets a qualified science teacher. I'm still teaching the Grade 5 music class, which is going much more smoothly the second time around. I'm really just re-teaching everything we went over in Term 2, the main difference being that during Term 2, I still had no idea what I was doing and now the kids are actually learning something. Cooking class is still going strong, but lately I've been scraping for inspiration. Yesterday, we made carrot bread, which turned out DELICIOUS! I got the idea from
http://www.allrecipes.com/, but I had to make several substitutions based on what I had in my kitchen. Here's the final recipe...
Carrot BreadIngredients:
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup jam (we used papaya)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup shredded carrots
1/2 cup chopped toasted pecans
Directions:
1. Grease a loaf pan and coat with flour. Set aside. In a bowl, combine dry ingredients.
2. In another bowl, combine jam, eggs and vanilla. Stir into dry ingredients. Fold in carrots and pecans.
3. Pour into loaf pan and bake at 350 degrees F for 50 - 55 minutes.
4. Enjoy!
I've been compiling all the recipes we've used and I hope to make a Cooking Class cookbook in the future. My mom gave me the idea and I think it would be really neat for the kids to have their own cookbooks, especially since they will have cooked everything in the book.
In other news, it's really hot here. We're just starting our 6-month hot season, which is a depressing thought since it's only getting hotter. August is usually the peak month - I'm just trying not to think about it.
[Aack! I just looked at the weather icon on my blog, and while it's only 86 degrees, it FEELS like 98 degrees...in May.]
