By: Nicole Zanetti
Here at Hawley, we are now in the third month of the education season and are really getting into the swing of things at our schools. We have gotten accustomed to teaching groups environmental education, and various other science subjects; as well as learning how to plan for lessons, and cater to the different learning styles of the many students that we interact with from day to day. The more comfortable that my teaching partner and I get with lesson planning, the more and more excited we are to be teaching our lessons.
In addition to giving lessons within our schools, Ben (my teaching partner) and I have also had the opportunity to explore afterschool programs with many of the students. Every Tuesday we assist with two of the many afterschool programs offered at Gabriel Abbott Memorial School. Ben assists with the archery program and I get to help the students design an interactive trail that will be created behind the school. At our second school, Pearl Rhodes Elementary School, Ben and I got to lead an afterschool program this week. We had great fun singing along to Disney tunes and making winter crafts with the students who joined us. We made and decorated popsicle snowflakes, paper snowflakes and clothespin snowmen. Some students decided to take their creativity even further and make their own special creations with the materials that were generously provided by the school and parents donations. These afterschool programs have been a great way for us to get to know students on an individual level while having fun and exploring our creativity and diverse ideas. It’s also very rewarding to see how eager the students are to be a part of the schools and to spend some more of their free time being active in the communities formed within their schools.