Field Trip!

So today 3 of the auxiliares (including myself) got to go on the field trip with the 5th graders. It was the same trip the 3rd and 4th graders did yesterday- a walking tour of Alcala de Henares (the city we're in) to learn about the history of Castellano (the Spanish language). It was a bit crazy walking around the streets with so many kids, something you definitely wouldn't see in the US, but it turned out alright. We went to 6 different locations around the city (all within a 10min walk) and at each location the kids were told a little about the history of the language and got to do an activity (such as coloring letters, creating definitions for new words, acting out a scene from Don Quixote). My favorite stop was where we got to listen to old Spanish. We heard a poem, 2 songs, and a rap! Apparently raps were popular back then. It was funny because I read the rap and it definitely flowed easily into a rap, and had a good rhythm. The guy in the class who was selected to act out the rap did a fantastic job so that was really entertaining. All of the guides/leaders were also dressed up in costume so that was a different twist. The trip also gave me a chance to get to know some of the students better. One of the boys is named Carlos and therefor in English class he sometimes goes by Charlie, so he thought it was cool that my name, Carleigh, is similar to Charlie (sounds familiar from when I was in elementary school...). He later gave me a note that said "Good luck! Charlie from Charlie" it was really cute! I also got to know 2 of the girls really well, they kept asking me questions (in both Spanish & English) and we talked between almost every stop. By the end the one girl was using me as a protection barrier to hide behind/save her when one of the boys was chasing her. Also some of the other students weren't in our group but would yell "hi Carleigh" as our groups went past each other which was also cool. There were also some guys named Alexandro and every time the teacher would say their name the rest of the class would burst into the Lady Gaga song "ale ale-xandro ale ale-xandro". One of the other auxiliares told me that while his group was going from one place to another all of a sudden one of the kids took off running & the others just followed, so he had to go chase them down! Luckily that didn't happen in my group! Other than that it was pretty uneventful, but it was nice to spend time outside!

Also today we were going through worksheets and came across one practicing "used to.... now..." and the sentence was "In the US marijuana and heroin used to be legal, but now they are not." haha wow, that worksheet definitely wouldn't make it into a US classroom...