The Tutor Life (4/30)

When I was trying to figure out what to do with my life this fall, I was thinking about heavily trying to recruit kids to tutor. I ended up getting my other job, and I'd still like to tutor but since I don't have a set schedule, I haven't really pursued it.

I am tutoring for one kid of one of my teammates though. He's in fifth grade and just started taking Spanish, so he doesn't know that much and he doesn't have tests or anything. But she wants me to get him excited about it, I guess. Much, much different from tutoring college kids! I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what kinds of games we can play to work on his vocab. He knows a couple groups of words right now: colors, food, animals, sports, numbers.

Here's some things we've done:
1. Hangman
2. Pictionary
3. Memory
4. Go Fish--asking for numbers in Spanish. We even learned how to say "do you have" and "go fish!" and also jack-queen-king-ace. (sota-reina-rey-as)

Pictionary goes over the best, I think. I want to do something with colors next week. One week I said colors and made him find stuff in the room that were in that color, and another week I had a word search and he had to circle the word for each color in the color it said. Maybe we could do a paint by numbers or something similar to that?

I also made him make flashcards this week for the animals.

I'm having fun coming up with ideas, but sometimes I wish I had a little more direction--or at least more words to study!

Any other ideas for easy games that encourage vocab?

Kids, kids, kids?

I don't really believe in signs like they're from a higher power or the universe is trying to tell me something, because something isn't a sign unless you choose to see it as one. You bring the meaning, not the universe.

Almost all of my work experience up until now has been with kids. Several teachers I really admire have commented on my natural knack with them, but I've been actively passive about committing to kids as a career path. I knew I was good with them, but I never felt like that talent was something I really wanted to use. I didn't necessarily feel passionate about kids or teaching, it was just something I did.

A young girl came into the shop today for goalie skates...I didn't really do that much besides put them on her feet, but I kept up a conversation with her and her mom for the couple minutes we were together, and honestly? It left me wanting more. I spent all last year and all summer surrounded by kids in a school setting and I was looking forward to getting a break from them. Well, I've had a whopping six weeks away and I miss them so much already. I never expected that I would feel this way. Could be the low pressure situation, but that makes it more poignant--I can't walk away from kids. Even when they aren't my choice, there they are.

I don't think it's insignificant that she was 7, and 6-7 year olds (or around first-second grade) are the ones I keep working with the most--usually through no fault of my own! But I click with them. They're old enough to be able to answer questions and get jokes, but not old enough to give you attitude or be self-conscious. And they're young enough to be easily entertained and not be shy about thinking you're the coolest thing.

So it's not so much a sign, but a moment that shows me something I didn't know about myself, makes me realize something I was ignoring. I mean, if I weren't already a kid person, that kid could've come in my shop, I would've helped her, she would've left, and I'd move on with my day, no biggie. But because somewhere I'm wondering about my future working with kids, the moment meant more.

Maybe that's really all a sign is, though, a moment that makes you stop and rethink or proves to you something that you were on the fence about. I guess I just want to make clear that "the universe" or "god" didn't provide that girl with all this meaning, I brought a certain meaning to the situation myself.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with this sign...