Full Day Four and Five Year Olds=Exhausting

Ok, so today is the end of my first week of semi-teaching (observation and assistance week). For those of you who may have read this post before I edited it, I apologize for the laziness in my writing last night. I am fixing it now. Camp overall wasnt bad this week. There were 3 classes of 4 and 5 year olds: 2 half day morning classes with 10 kids a piece and one full day class with 6 kids, one of who is only 3!! Little legs and long hikes dont go together... As with all classes, we had a variety of campers from adorable and well behaved to bratty and spoiled, to crybabies, and even a temper-tantrum throwing punch-you-till-you-bruise kid. Full day camp was the most exhausting, and the worst kids.... Half day wasn't bad. The kids were generally well behaved and in the afternoons we cut out lots and lots of crafts, practiced animal demos, trained on the screech owl, Van Gogh, watched movies, and walked around the zoo collecting facts(just for this week. It wont normally be such glorious afternoon assignments). The plus side of full day camp is that we got to see and do more things. After a slight rain delay (rain plus little kids = disaster btw) we got to watch the Bird Show... HILLARIOUS!!! We then rode the Merry-Go-Round. We went on the train too! We saw the Cat Show today which was pretty cool because the RA of the intern house and one of the other girls in the house were 2/3 people running it, which was cool.. plus they got the cheetah running SUPER FAST! Today we had a special guest visit our full day camp. Caroline the Prehensile Porcupine came to visit after nap time. She is my absolute favorite animal in all of animal holding... Im pretty sure i was more excited about her than any of my campers... oh well... LOL........ It was just the boost i needed to finish the day, cuz i was dragging.... After work some of the other interns in the house and I went back to the zoo for members night (a night where members get in after hours and get lots of free and discounted things and extra special animal shows... We went to the elephant enclosure to watch Shatzi and Mai Tai (probably spelled wrong) eat whole watermelon (Brea, one of the interns, is interning with the elephants and got to help feed them). It was amazing to see them pop open those watermelon.. until Val the keeper told us thats what heads sound like when they pop open, and that elephants were used for head-popping executions in old-time India. Brea got us in behind the scenes in the elephant house and Val let us come out into the enclosure with the elephants... the enclosure as in, in-front-of-all-the-guests enclosure!! and we got out pictures taken and got to touch the elephant... Pretty much the most AMAZING THING EVER!!! It felt kind of funny... I dont know how to describe it... but it was cool... So tomorrow (Saturday) I start my Gift Shop job.... woohoo.... idk what to think, but i figure i shall give it a fair chance... so far i'm not sure that they (or at least from what I've seen) are organized or nice... but i guess i shall figure that out! Next week I begin real teaching, or was supposed to.... unfortunately, they either didnt have enough classes, or didnt trust me with my own class yet, so i am co-teaching yet again... Not that I dislike John at all, its just that i have my own teaching style and ideas and am not a big fan of people watching and analyzing my every move..... i want to be out on my own..... yet they seem to have decided that the baby of the group needs to be babysat... I am more qualified to teach on my own than some of these girls. I have experience in camp and in animals!! I know what I am doing... why wont they simply let me do it..... well again, must wait and see what happens next....

Until Next Time
~Elena