Beatle Tour and Albert Docks

My group decided to stay in Liverpool this weekend, since we leave for London tomorrow! So on Saturday we decided to take a 3 hour Beatle's tour! It was wonderful. Our driver was great and even took our picture( on everyone's camera too) at pretty much every location we went too. Below are some my favorite places on the tour:

This is the church where John Lennon was a choir boy when he was younger. He was kicked out though because he stole from the offering. John grew up in Woolton village. The same place I go to teach my year 2 students. :) 

In the St. Peter's Hall where John Lennon and Paul McCartney met for the first time!

Strawberry Field!!

In front of the Penny Lane Barber shop. Based on the song and where Paul use to get his hair cut since he lived down the street from here.

The taxi we were in for the tour. I got to drive!! Just kidding, but our guide was nice enough to let me sit in the car! 

In front of the place where John and his first wife Cynthia got married! Notice it's 64, which inspired the song, "When I'm 64".

The place where the Beatles first played!

Today (Sunday) we spent the day at Albert Docks to go to the celebration of the 70th Anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic! It was cool because there were navy ships from all over the world and sailors too! It was crazy busy, but we had beautiful weather so it was perfectly fine! After the docks we headed back to campus to get ready for our long week holiday! We are spending Monday and Tuesday in London, then heading off Tuesday night for Barcelona, Spain! I am so excited to visit these two beautiful cities! I will try to blog from there as I have wifi and will post pictures next weekend! Cheers until next time!

Albert Docks. We had such beautiful weather!

Thursday and Friday: Much Woolton and ASDA

Hey all! I am sorry I have not posted much, but I will have three new blog posts for you this weekend! One today, then two tomorrow about the Beatles tour and Albert Docks! Here is what I did on Thursday and Friday!

Thursday:
On Thursday we got to go back to Much Woolton Primary School. I love my Year 2 kids so much! They are wonderful and so smart. They are rowdy at times, but I think that is to be expected from 6-7 year olds. In the morning, the students had assembly again and learned about loving one another. After assembly, the students had P-Time (P.E.). The only problem was that it was raining, so we had to bring all the Year 2 students into the cafeteria and they learned a dance to a dance video. Some students were working on testing during this time, but we still had about 40-45 year 2 students in the cafeteria, so it was a little crazy. After P.E. it was playtime (recess) and since it was still raining, the students watched a movie in the cafeteria. After playtime, it was back to the classroom and the students just had some silent reading time. It was then time for lunch! It still amazes me that the students get 75 minutes for lunch. They definitely use it to their advantage by eating lunch, then going outside to play. After lunch, we went back to the classroom and worked on science. The students are currently working on solids, liquids, and gasses so my co-teacher, and I helped them with their worksheets. The students then had more time to read, and I got to read "Horrid Henry" to some of the students in my class. I really think they enjoyed me reading to them. After that it was playtime again, then the students got to finishing watching the rest of their movie. The group I travel with, decided to walk home and we even stopped at the bakery on the way back to campus. It was so good! I had the best shortbread cookie of my life.

The schools here are very different, but it is a great experience in many ways! I cannot wait to go back after our week break for a day, then spend the last three weeks (minus the one we have to travel) in the school everyday.

On Friday we had lecture (we normally don't, but since we do not have class next week we needed to meet Friday) til about 11:30, but then we realized that we did not have the room for the whole time, so Dr. P was kind enough to let us out early. My group ate lunch at the Student Union where we had  pizza and caesar salad. After lunch we headed to ASDA ( England's Walmart) to pick up some things for our trip next week and some food to cook this weekend. ASDA is huge! It's not like a Walmart in America, it's more like a Costco or IKEA. They have everything and even have a little cafeteria inside. After ASDA, we headed back to campus for a nap, then went out to dinner with some Liverpool Hope students we have made friends with over the last two weeks. It was very good!!

It was definitely a good Thursday and Friday! Please look back tomorrow for two new blog posts. :)

Liverpool Hope University

Hey all!! There's not much new here in Liverpool! The last couple of days have been filled with seminars and just plain relaxing. Seminars are great and Dr. P is honestly one of the best professors I have had. He knows what he is talking about, and I have learned so much for him in such a short time. Dr. P is also very kind, caring and funny. He is always there if you need him.

Since the last time I have written, my group has figured out where we are going for the rest of our weekend trips! Here they are below:

-London and Barcelona, Spain

-Berlin, Germany

-Paris, France

-Dublin,Ireland

-Rome and Venice, Italy

I am so excited for these wonderful adventures that are ahead of me! 

The plans for the rest of the week include seminar Wednesday and Friday, going to Much Woolton on Thursday, then this weekend we are exploring Liverpool! We plan on doing the Beetles tour and go down to Albert Dock where there are some free museums.  We also plan on doing some shopping to get ready for the our trip to London and Barcelona next week. :)

Cheers until next time!

Scotland

Scotland is absolutely one of the prettiest places I have ever been! I cannot wait to tell you all about my wonderful experience in Edinburgh!


We left Liverpool at 6:50am and headed on our way to Edinburgh! We arrived in Edinburgh about 10:30am and headed on our way to see what we could find. The first place we stopped was The Elephant House Coffee shop. This is the place where JK Rowling first came up with and wrote Harry Potter. We had a wonderful brunch, then headed back out to explore the city.

                                         
             



Harry Potter birthplace!









The Elephant House

My wonderful brunch of ham and cheese quiche and a side salad with a creamy dressing. It was very good!

My elephant shaped cookie for dessert!







After we had brunch, we went to this cemetery behind the cafe where JK Rowling found names for her Harry Potter books. We walked around for 30 minutes and had no luck finding them. I am not going to lie I was very disappointed. As we were leaving the cemetery though, we were stopped by an older gentleman. I believe his name was Wallace and he was a retired historian and a Desert Storm vet. Wallace was wonderful and proceded to walk us around the cemetery for over an hour and told us the history of various parts of the cemetery and we even got to the "Harry Potter" tombstones. Wallace told us there were more tombstones that she had based her characters on, but people have come into the cemetery late at night and knocked them over. He told us that in a few years, JK Rowling plans on paying and having those tombstones replaced.

The names that inspired Professor McGonagall.
















The name that inspired Tom Riddle (Lord Voldemort).





In the cemetery, there were also people buried in the walls of the church. Wallace told us that this was the highest honor anyone could received and that's why they were buried there. He also said this is what started flowers for weddings, ceremonies, etc. in the church because the smell would become so bad. The church was also painted gold which has some history behind it as well. The color gold symbolized rebellion against the King. This also started the idea of freedom of choice. This is also the time that slaves were being taken to various parts of the world including the US. That freedom of choice is also in our Constitution and ties back to this church. I thought that was super cool!

After our tour of the cemetery, we checked into our hostel and headed out to explore Liverpool. While we were in Edinburgh, there was a ship that was being retired so there were all these sailors from all over the world. The sailors in the picture below are from Australia and were kind enough to pose for a picture with my travel group!

Edinburgh Castle!

We walked up the Royal Mile, which is the main street in Edinburgh and leads up to the Castle. While we did not get to go into the Castle, we still walked around the outside and it was absolutely beautiful. We honestly could not have asked for better weather. The view was beautiful everywhere we went. After the we walked around the castle, we explored some more, then found a little pub to have fish and chips at, then went on a City of the Dead tour!

Fish and chips for dinner! 

After dinner we decided to go on a City of the Dead Tour which was an underground tour of Scotland! On this tour we went into the undergrounds of Scotland into chambers where they kept prisoners during the 1800's. I am not going to lie, it was a little creepy. It was pitch black and there were stalagmites forming on the top of the ceilings and would scare the heck out of you when one would fall on you. At the very end though, someone jumped out and scared us and I literally fell to the ground I was so scared. Haha. Thankfully I have great friends who helped me up and laughed at me. After the tour we went to a pub, then went to bed to get ready for another great day in Scotland.


We woke up Saturday morning originally planning to go to Glasgow, but we decided we were very tired and decided to stay in Edinburgh for another day. The weather was not as nice as it was on Friday and it basically poured the whole day. We decided then to go to the National Museum of Scotland, which was great because it was free! This is the museum that has the cloned sheep Dolly, which was very cool to see! After the muesuem, we had lunch, then made our way back to the train station to head back to Liverpool! I could not have asked for a better weekend in Scotland! My group had a wonderful adventure, and I cannot wait to see what we do in the upcoming weeks. Cheers until next time!

The views were absolutely breathtaking.

Much Woolton Primary School

Today was my first day at Much Woolton Primary Catholic School, and I absolutely loved it! I was placed in Mrs. Pace's Year 2 classroom. The children are so sweet and caring, and I absolutely cannot wait to work with them over the next eight weeks.

Side note: The school has a strict photography policy, so I will sneak pictures of the room and the school as I can. Unfortunately I was not able to sneak any today since it was the first day, but I will be working on that.

I will now break down the day! We arrived to the school around 8:40am and were able to meet the head teacher and the assistant. These are like the principal and assistant principal in a school back home. After we met with them and they went over the guidelines of the school, we headed off to our classrooms! The first thing my students did today was go to assembly. 2-3 times a week, each year has assembly and they learn about a certain topic. The topic this morning was on internet safety and they showed them a creepy cartoon about how you think you could be talking to another child your age, but it could really be a 30 year old man. I absolutely love the teachers here at the school, but they are very blunt with the students and it almost looks rude, but I will get more to the similarities and differences of US vs UK schools later.

After assembly we went back to our classroom and got ready for something they refer to as P-TIME. Now when they said P time I was thinking it was a bathroom break,  but boy was I wrong! P-Time is known as PE or physical education in the US. The students also all change in the classroom together. There were shirts and pants flying off everywhere. The girls also did not care at all to change in front of the boys and vis versa. For PE we went outside and played with tennis rackets and  tennis balls. The students had to hit the ball to the partner and the other person had to catch it. After P-Time it was "playtime" which is recess for 15 minutes, then the students went in for testing.

Since my co-teacher and I were not allowed to be in the room during testing, we thought it would be good to head down to reception (which is like preschool in the US, but is formal) to see what it was all about. Let me tell you it was a mad house. We walked in and there was paint flying everywhere, students were standing on tables, and there were toys everywhere. It was literally like that scene out of Toy Story 3 where Woody and the toys go to the new day care and the children run in screaming and are throwing toys everywhere. I have literally never seen something so crazy in my life. It was fun, but a little too crazy for me.

After reception it was lunch time! What was nice about lunch is we had 75 minutes to eat! Normally in the US it is 20-30 minutes. In that time the students are allowed to eat, then go outside for the remaining  time. The students here truly love to be outside. So I ate a brown bag lunch from Liverpool Hope with the other BSU students, then when the time was up we went back to our room!

The rest of the afternoon went by quickly! The students finished up their testing, then we went outside and planted bulbs as a class, then had another playtime for 15 minutes. Once we went back inside my class had art, then the students were to read quietly or come listen to me or my co-teacher read. It was so much fun getting to read to the students! I read from a series called Horrid Henry, which is really popular in the UK. I was amazed at the students comprehension level for such a young age! As I was reading they would raise there hand and tell me a story that related to their lives like Henry from the novel (this is also known as text to self, which I am currently learning about here in my classes at Liverpool!).

After school, my little group decided we would make the 40- minute walk back to campus so we could save money. We then had a nice dinner of fried chicken and potato wedges. We then walked to the ATM so a couple of people could get money, then we headed back to campus to pack! Tomorrow we head off to Scotland for two days, and I am so excited! I will try to post a blog tomorrow, but we will see how the wifi is. I will also post pictures by Sunday night, so look for those! :)

Now on to the US vs. UK schools. I thought they would be similar, but they are pretty different. The first thing I noticed is there is really no classroom management plan. The teachers just teach if they want and the students learn if they want. Fortunately  my teacher had a good classroom management plan and the students were very well behaved, but most classes were not the same. Another difference is the teachers are allowed to dress down (sweats, yoga pants, etc.). This was strange to me because it really was not formal. I know dressing up not only makes me feel better and confident, but I also think it helps my students respect me more. The last thing I noticed was the teachers are very blunt and sarcastic with the students and they do the same thing back. In the US I feel this is seen as a sign of disrespect to each other. While these differences seem bad, the obviously are not for this school since it seems to be running well! I am so excited to go back next week, and hopefully I will have some funny stories to tell!

Until next time, Cheers!

British Curriculum

Today was a great day! We mostly stayed on campus for class, but we definitely learned a lot. In our morning session, we met with one of the Liverpool Hope education teachers and he was wonderful! His name was Colin Wong and he taught us all about the British curriculum and how their  school day works. What I found most fascinating is the students do not start til around 9am, then they have a 15 minute break at some point in the morning where they can play games, read or go outside. Then the come back for more class. They then have an 75 minutes for lunch! This was very interesting to me because back home we usually only have 20-30 minutes to eat. It will definitely take some getting use to, but it will be nice to have sometime to just relax and enjoy our meal.

                                                   My travel group with Dr. Colin Wong!
                                         

After we met with Colin we had lunch and my group chose to stay in the education building and eat at the cafe there. I had a wonderful lunch of couscous with peppers and a banana. I also picked up a Cadbury bar that will hopefully make it home, but we will see if that happens. :) I also picked up some bottled water for our trip to Scotland this weekend. Bottled water is not as big over here as it is in America. They also do not have water fountains, so if you want a drink of water you have to get a water bottle or drink from the faucet.

After lunch we have our first seminar with Dr. P! The first thing we did was pick what classrooms we wanted to work with this summer. I decided I wanted to work with the younger grades because I am usually with grades 3-5 back at Ball State. A lot of my classmates wanted the younger grades, but I fought (not physically. haha) hard to get a younger grade, and I received it! I will be co-teaching with my friend Caitlin Agan, in a year 2 classroom! Year 2 would be children about 6-7, so it would be a 1st grade in America. I am so excited to get into the classroom and see the similarities between an American classroom compared to the English ones. Also during seminar we talked about what literacy means and the different aspects of phonics and so on.

After seminar, my traveling group got together and worked out our trip for our week long trip coming up. The third week we are here we have the whole week off because it is bank holiday in the UK and the schools are closed. We are going to spend that Monday and Tuesday with the rest of our classmates, but we are then going to leave Tuesday night for Barcelona, Spain! We are going to stay in Barcelona until that Saturday before we head back to campus. This is our first big trip, and I am so excited, but nervous at the same time. I have a great group though, and I am positive that we will make the most of our time there. After we made our reservations we went to dinner where they made us lasagna and a baked potato which was very good. After dinner we went down to ASDA (which is like Wal-Mart) then came back and went to the student union here on campus. At the student union we met some wonderful ladies from Liverpool and Ireland who study here at the university. We talked about various things and it was really an enjoyable time! They also have never had s'mores so we are going to make them some before they leave for summer holiday. They also promised to take us out and about Liverpool to show us all the "cool" places to go to.

                                          Brandon and I at the Student Union in our new
                                          Liverpool Hope sweatshirts!



Overall it was a wonderful day! I am very excited to go meet my Year 2 students tomorrow! I know I will make the most of it!

Warm Fuzzies/ City Centre/ Trivia Night

Today was another fun filled day! I woke up feeling a lot better than I did yesterday and definitely less jet-lagged. We started off the day with a wonderful English breakfast. I had eggs, bacon (which they refer to as fatty strips), tomatoes and half a croissant. It was very good! We then went into an introductory seminar with Dr. Popplewell. He basically told us all about how to take the trains, busses and how to get a taxi. We then a fun little thing about warm and fuzzies. Basically, warm fuzzies mean being nice to others and making sure you are being nice and not being hurtful. We then had lunch and headed off to City Center! City Center is the shopping district in Liverpool and it was wonderful! They basically had everything and anything you could ever want. My purchases today were two Roald Dahl books (he was British!), and some necessities( shampoo, conditioner, etc) that I need here at Liverpool Hope. After we explored City Centre for about 3.5 hours we went back to campus for dinner and had a wonderful meal of stew and rice. I then went to the town of Woolton with some friends and we stopped by a local pub called the Elephant for Trivia Night. We did horrible, but we still had a great time! Tomorrow we learn all about the British School system and have some down time in the afternoon! Cheers until tomorrow!

P.S. I promise my blog posts will get longer!

We Made It!

I am sitting in my Liverpool Hope University dorm room, after a very exhausting day of traveling yesterday. We had a bumpy ride from Dayton to Philly, then had a five hour layover before we headed off to Manchester. The flight to Manchester was actually quite quick and we got there an hour before we were suppose to, which made everyone happy. The jet lag did not really hit me until we were on the hour bus ride from Manchester to Liverpool. Dr. Popplewell did a great job of keeping us up though and we had orientation at the university all day, then had a great dinner of fish and chips. After dinner a group of us walked to a pub with Dr. P to finish off the night. It has been a great first 24 hours! Tomorrow we have lecture( class) in the morning and then we have the afternoon to go to downtown Liverpool to shop for things we might have forgotten and to experience the Liverpool culture. Until tomorrow, Cheers! 

This is the "Harry Potter" dorm on campus!