It was a challenging book. I created a graphic organizer to help with vocabulary and questions about the text. The boys read sections by themselves, and I also read to them. One of the sections I copied and cut up onto poster paper. They took turns write questions and responding to their classmates questions. If I were to redo this lesson/unit, I would have practiced this strategy first in English. It was challenging in Spanish because they struggle with spelling. If I had a bigger class, the pages would be much fuller, I believe.
We left bright and early on Thursday morning. Rosa and Joy came to get me at 4:30am. We went with another family, the Salgado's. They are a missionary family here in Santiago. If you're interested in supporting them or learning more about them, visit their Facebook page. I was really excited to expand and interact with more students. Plus, they have two girls. It was nice to have some more estrogen around for the day. :)
We made the normally 4 hour drive in 2.5 hours. There was a positive for waking up at the crack of dawn. I organized the trip with Santi, the same guy we went on excursions with. After meeting up with the rest of the people that would travel in our group, we headed for the harbor.
The whale watching came first in the day. It was competitive, which really surprised me. There can only be three boats around a whale at once. Those boats can only be there for thirty minutes. We were around a momma whale and her baby. One time there was four boats around the whales, and the guides started yelling at each other that one boat had to leave. We didn't get to see them jumping or anything, which was a bit of a disappointment. But it was pretty incredibly to be so close to the big, majestic animals.
After the whale watching we went to Cayo Levantado, an island nearby. We swam in the ocean there for an hour. We explored the mangroves of Los Haitises and got to see birds and crabs in the water.
At lunch the kids did ziplining. We ate at the same place that we ate with my family back in December. This time, however, there was a buffet. The yummy pasta filled my stomach. The ziplining took too long, so we weren't able to go to both of the Taino caves, which is unfortunate.
We did get to go to the cave with all the drawings and paintings on the walls. I noticed way more than I did the first time I went. It was fun to see the same thing with new eyes this time.
The very end of the day was spent at Cafe del Mar swimming in the pool and resting. I was finally able to relax. I wanted the trip to go well, so I was a little stressed throughout the day. But it was a successful day; we got to see some new things and hang out with some new friends.
We spent the night at a hotel right in the town of Samana. I got to have a sleepover with the girls from the other family we went with, which was so awesome. The next morning we were going to go to Playa Rincon, which we learned about, but it started raining. So we got pan de coco and left. It was another tiring, but successful field trip. :)
Here are links to the boy's blog posts about the field trip.
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