JumpStart Santa Cruz

Well JumpStart Santa Cruz is officially more than half over and I can honestly say it’s flying by.  We have a lot going on here in Santa Cruz.  First of all, we have two camps with roughly 20 students in each camp.  We have a MEP English teacher in each camp and while I am co-teaching one camp, we are lucky enough to have 2 volunteers from Oregon come to help with the second camp.  Also on our staff list are two fantastic science teachers who come and teach a mixed science / English lesson on Thursday afternoons.  So with plenty of teachers around, it can certainly be chaotic but there’s also a heck of a lot of English learning going on!

We have students participating from 4 different schools in the Santa Cruz region; El Cacao, Estocolmo, Lajas, and San Juan.  And while I assumed most kids lived at least generally near those schools, I was sadly mistaken on day #3 when we taught “Where do you live?”  With the plethora of answers to the question, I realized that many students were staying with relatives for the month in order to participate in this camp and I’ve truly been astounded at their dedication for giving up not only 4 weeks of their summer vacation, but for all giving up being with family during that time.

Unfortunately I lost most of week one’s photos when my phone broke a few days ago (always remember to back things up!), but week one’s science lesson was for sure a hit.  In groups, the kids made bubbles out of 4 different kinds of soap and using the scientific method, tested their hypothesis of switch soap would create the most bubbles.  It was great to see the kids so engaged and they all enjoyed calling out “shampoo!” as the test’s winner.

Getting all the bubble ready

The science teachers making wands

The kids working on the experiment

This week’s lessons moved on to slightly more difficult topics such as physical characteristics, personality traits, and body parts.  The science lesson for the week involved animals and a discussion of their physical characteristics before a discussion in Spanish regarding slightly more in depth topics regarding animals such as different habitats and endangered species.  It was quite amazing to teach vocabulary such as “whiskers,” “horns,” and “fin” and have the kids actually remember which animals posses those characteristics (in English) during a game shortly after the lesson.  Even more impressive was during the review activities we did today, they even incorporated some of their animal vocabulary into their drawings of monsters.  It’s great to see them learning in a fun and engaging way.

Unscrambling sentences

On the bus ride home today with some of my kids, one of them asked if we could do JumpStart for a whole month more.  While I would love to do it, they’ll just have to settle for showing off their new English skills when they head off to high school in a few short weeks!