Volcanoes

The first "subject" I started teaching is called The World Around Us.  This is a combination of Geography, History, and Science and Technology.  This is completely different from the US, where all of those areas are taught as separate subjects!  Let me tell you, it was a bit confusing at first!!

For my first lessons I taught the students about volcanoes.  There was so much that I didn't know about volcanoes that I had to learn!  I had to learn about the different types of volcanoes and the different types of eruptions.  I also learned about where volcanoes are in the world, how they form, and about some of the most active ones.  One of my students asked me if I was a scientist, and after learning all of this information about volcanoes, I almost feel like one!

I think I have mentioned that over here, the students don't go to specials, but rather the teacher teaches all of them.  This means that the classroom teacher teaches music, art, P.E., and library!  It is a lot of work for the teacher, but one thing I really like about it is that all of the lessons, even the specials, can relate to each other!  In the class I am in, while I was teaching the students about volcanoes, they were creating pictures of them for art and writing poems about them for literacy!  I think it's really nice to have everything connected like that!

We decorated the door to our classroom

The pictures of and poems about volcanoes that my students made!

My favorite lesson was when we went outside and made a volcano erupt!  We also exploded a Coke bottle with some Mentos, and made the top pop off a little container and have it fly into the air with some water and dissolving Vitamin C tablets!  It was so much fun!  I will try to get some of the pictures that the students took on the school iPads.  I think they also have some pretty funny video of it!  

I am now teaching the class about earthquakes, and we had an earthquake drill the other day!  I'll try to get some pictures of that as well!

Stay tuned!