Netball

I have decided to introduce you all to my new favorite sport, netball. Chrissy (from my home stay family) has been nice enough to let me play with her team on a weekly basis. The closet sport we have to netball is basketball but there are a lot of differences. Some of the rules for (indoor) netball:

1) You can not step once of have the ball (only pivot)
2) You can only hold onto the ball for 3 seconds before getting the whistle blown at you
3) You can only shoot if you are attack or center
4) Your feet have to be at least 2-3 ft away when defending the shooter (you can put your arms up to defend as close as you want as long as you are not touching the other person.)
5) The positions are: 2 on Goal attack, 2 on defense (can not cross half court) and 2 Centers(an exhausting position b/c you run up and down the court a million times!)
6) No jewelry or long nails allowed while playing (if your nails are too long they make you wear gloves, and yes they do check)

I absolutely love this game and will be sad when I leave and can no longer play but I have loved playing with the Chrissy's team. We have only won one game but we still have a lot of fun. Except when the umpire constantly blows the whistle on me (half the time I don't even know what they are saying or what I did wrong). I just look at my team mates and they just tell me what to do with the ball. :)

 

                                            

 * Goal















*This is not my team but this is what the courts look like we play on.







In other news, Friday was the last day of term 3 so we now have a two week break! (Yah!) In a couple of days myself, Heather and Cynthia are going on a road trip farther north to check out some beaches. I am really excited to see other parts of New Zealand. Hopefully, I will make it to the south island eventually.

Teaching

As the weeks pass I am taking on more and more in the classroom, and I love the challenge! So far I am teaching a math and reading group everyday. I am doing the morning and afternoon "wrap-up stuff" and coming up with lessons for science. I was observed this week by a professor from the local college and she thinks I have "mastered" guided reading (yah!) she also said I have a good "authoritative" teacher voice. This was all a relief to hear!

Teaching math (or maths as they say) has been the most challenging for me. (Probably because math is and has always been my worst subject!) Their curriculum is very different but I think after a couple of weeks I have finally become accustomed to it. We just wrapped up fractions, decimals and percentages in my group and I could not be happier, I think teaching fractions is the worst! But I have done no permanent damage to the kids and I think they might have actually walked away understanding fractions a little better ;)

Last weekend I went with Dave, daisy and Eden to a local aquarium to check out all the cute (and creepy) underwater creatures! We saw penguins, squid and huge manta rays!



The Amazing Race....

Last weekend was another great weekend! I was able to see another part of Auckland because of the "amazing race." Every year the teachers from Gladstone that want to participate get sent out into the city dressed as crazy people to be the first ones to the final destination. What is the prize that all of the teachers crave? Drum roll please....the honor of planning it for the following year!) So only the teams that are oober competitive actually try and win because honestly who wants to plan the thing. (Too much work) Well my team had the best intentions of coming in second but we were just too talented and came in first. At least I don't have to worry about planning next year ;) On Sunday Dave, myself and the girls all went to M.O.T.A.T (museum of technology and transportation) it was really cool. I learned a lot of New Zealand history, went on an old school trolley and rode to Saturn (via motion simulator). We ended the day with a delicious dinner made by Dave's stepmom and dad and sadly watched on as the lady ferns were defeated by Australia (netball).

I started teaching math this week and it went so much better than expected. The kids are working on fractions and that is not the easiest thing to teach. So I was thrilled that by the end of my lesson the kids were asking for extra problems! That was a confidence booster!
There is one kid in my class that is continuously cracking me up. The class was just about to finish writing when he asked me to read over his paper. While reading I noticed he was mixing up “to” and “too” I pointed this out to him and his response, “O, well I just can’t be bothered with that it’s just too confusing.” I tried my best to stay “professional” but I couldn’t hold back. I died laughing and told him that he would just have to be “bothered” and learn the difference before he could publish.

I will end this post with new kiwi words and phrases: (Without thinking I now use most of these words, if not the kids at school laugh at me :)

Sweet ‘as’ or funny ‘as'
Crikey, just like the crocodile hunter use to say it!
Mate/ friend
Plaster/ band-aid
Biscuit/ cookie
Chips/ fries or regular “chips”
Torch/ flashlight
Runners/ tennis shoes
Jandals/ flip flops (in my first post I accidently said jangal)
Full stop/ period at the end of a sentence
Jumper/ jacket or sweater
rubbish/ trash

Rebekah

p.s. keep Christchurch (south island) and the surrounding towns in your prayers they were hit with a 7.1 earthquake last Saturday, thankfully no deaths but a lot of damage was done!