Day 4

Today we were given free time in between breakfast and lunch. I decided to go down to the main dock with my tube and relax in the sun for a while. While I was relaxing in my tube, the other group, that was being led by the intern Tom, was coming down to the main dock to canoe. Most of these kids have never experienced canoeing before so I was actually glad I was able to observe the lesson. Watching them get into the boats reminded me how important it is to reach out to our students and help them succeed in the many tasks that they may not have the confidence to do.

After lunch, we spent a few hours with Rob working on team building skills. I enjoyed the games we played in the field because they can easily be brought into your classroom. The last three activities are easily my favorite because they really showed me how important it is to rely on other people in a time of need. The first activity we had to be blind folded. I was already skeptical of this activity once he told us we had to be blind folded because being in the dark scares me. However, not only were we blind folded, but we had to arrange ourselves in order of our birthdays. Of course, I am the last person in line with my November 15th birthday. Luckily, I had Matt in front of me who I greatly appreciated because he very calmly talked me through everything that I needed to know and be aware of. That activity was such an amazing activity and I had tons of fun doing it because it showed me how much I needed to slow down and appreciate my other senses beside my vision.

The second activity we did was the spider activity. Looking back, I have to agree that we did a fabulous job with communication and listening to one another. We all allowed each other to have their say in the situation and we valued each others' opinions. That is one of the most important things when completing that activity. They last activity was also a lot of fun because it was a lot of problem solving incorporated with physical strength. Creating a solution to get all ten people passed all three "islands" took a lot of time and effort in our part. Just like the other activities, we listened to one another and showed that we all truly cared about completing the task that was given to us. Reflecting on our team building time, I am extremely proud of how well we worked with one another and trusted one each others' opinions. I think it is important to have those characteristics when entering a teaching job in a school because it is beneficial to the students for the teachers to be communicating and working together. Taking some of the things we learned today and incorporating them into the classroom will help build a strong bond and "family" in the classroom, and giving the students a sense of family and community is always helpful.