Cerveno

In the mountains. Separated from Gabrielle. 16 children, 2 tutors. Brand new camp. Oh boy.

I was really nervous to go to this camp - mostly because it was so small. The smallest camp I had been to had about 40 kids - quite a bit of a difference. Later found out that the ages ranged from 5-12 years. Yikes! Not good for teaching purposes.

Naomi (the other tutor and I had to basically start from scratch and organize the entire camp. After a summer of doing ACLE, this was fairly easy to do. The tricky part was modifying lessons to suit the students who are 3 levels about the rest of the class. I didn't want to bore the older kids, but I couldn't move on to more complicated material when half of the class didn't know body parts and present continuous. Tried my best, and handed out lost of stickers, silly bands, and sweets this week.

I absolutely loved the boys in my class. I really hit the jackpot with them. Fabio, Luca, Paolo, and Thomas were all best friends, and were some of the sweetest boys you could ever meet. After camp or during breaks, they would sweep and mop the floors for us. Naomi and I gave them so many stickers that you could no longer read the names on their name-tags.

For the final show, we combined our 2 classes and the kids chose Spongebob Meets Harry Potter. It was a bit of a challenge to come up with the storyline, but it all worked in the end. I also came up with a song to the tune "Under the Sea" from the Little Mermaid:

Under the Sea

Crabby Patties

Down Where It's Wetter

The Patties are Better

Take it from me!

Our secret sauces are the best

They put your taste buds to the test

They are delicious

Wholesome, nutritious

Crabby Patties!!

I have to say, I'm very proud of ourselves for creating a functional camp out of nothing.

My host family this week was very sweet. MY mom didn't speak any English, so we had a lot of fun making funny gestures and using onomatopoeic devices with each other. The food was very delicious - once they found out that I loved vegetables, there were veggies on the table every night. It was the first time I had seen broccoli during this whole trip, and it made me incredibly excited!

View from our back balcony

The Saturday before we left, Lorenzo and Oscar (camp director and assistant) took us to an island in Lake Iseo. We had to ferry our way over and back. We had a picnic in the grass and then went swimming in the fresh-water lake. It was absolutely gorgeous!

Finally finished with camps, and only a week left in Italy. Off to visit the relatives in the far South. Looking forward to a 12 hour bus ride.

Mermaids and Sailor (making fun of a camp game)

Naomi and I on the Ferry