Week 5

            This has been an exciting week! I was back at Starke and the Bonner Summer Leadership Camp began. So far the camp has been great. There are five high school students here for two weeks. In the morning they take a class with Dr. Croce and then in the afternoon they go to our different service sites. It has been a lot of fun to have them here and do service with them. Next week they will be at Starke for two days working on some projects that the school needs to get done before the school year starts in August.

            At Starke this week the students have grown so much! A few of our ESOL students began talking to us (sometimes it is in English and sometimes it is in Spanish- but at least they are talking!). We have also seen so much progress from where the students were in the beginning. They now can identify many letters, they know letter sounds, they can count, and they can make patterns. They still have a long way to go, but I am so excited about how far they have come!

              Working with the students is fantastic but so is working with the teachers. These teachers have become our mentors. We have learned so much from them. They are always giving us tips for our classrooms and different activities to do with the students, we have seen their classroom management techniques, and we have seen how much they care for the students. One of our students has not been coming to school. His mom is very young (younger than I am) so she really is just a kid herself. One of the teachers has been in contact with the student’s grandmother and has even tried to go to his house to talk to his mom about how important it is for him to come to school. This student has so much potential and would learn so much if he would just come to school. I have also been able to work with the teacher who I will be student teaching with in the fall. She comes into the classroom for a few hours each day so that the regular teachers can have a break. I love working with her and am so excited for the fall.