First days of work at the American School of Guatemala

Things are going very well.  We had a short meeting on Friday to "get to know each other" and learn some basics.  We all got out cell phones and a check for part of our relocation allowance.  We took a tour of the school.  

2nd-5th grade has 20 homerooms, 5 per grade.  I meet my Spanish teaching counter part.  She is super sweet and I'm actually looking forward to sharing my classroom with her.  There are 22 new foreign teachers and about 8 local/Spanish teachers.  They have a staff of about 150 teachers, each grade level also has an aid that they share.  There are over 1,400 students from kindergarten - 12th grade.

Friday night we all went to the middle school principal's house and had pizza, beer, and wine.  It was Amy's birthday so we celebrated that as well. 

On Saturday, we all went to Antigua and were broken up into teams of 5 and had a scavenger hunt.  We had 5 clues we had to solve. We had a great lunch and still had some time for shopping as well!

 Monday was our first full day of preplanning.  So far, I have loved the sessions.  They are short, and to the point, and give you what you need right now, not 6 weeks from now!  I was able to get into my classroom and look around a bit.  It is huge.  My class size should be about 20 to start the year.

We also got our schedules.  It is the most unusual thing I have ever seen but apparently, it is typical of international schools.  It is broken into 45 minute blocks.  So, we have 8 language arts blocks through out the week but they are not all at the same time of day and some days I only have one block while other days, I have 2.  The students have 6 activity periods per week as well, including swimming!  I am looking forward to adjusting my brain around it.

Overall, I could not be happier.  The staff here and fellow teachers are amazing and super helpful.  Lets just hope it continues :)