Super Camp Weekend: Teaching about the Regions of America

The last few weeks have been really busy for me, I went to my friend (and wonderful peer advisor) Sasha's town to help her out at her weekend camp two weeks ago. Her camp was called "Super Camp" and the theme was Regions of America. She had about 6 other Peace Corps Volunteers travel to her town and help her teach lessons to students from 5th to 11th form over two days (Saturday and Sunday) at her school. Overall, I was very impressed with how active and excited her students were about coming to school for extra lessons on a weekend! Sasha did a great job of coordinating everything from the schedule to tea breaks with the M&M candy icebreaker and even having dodgeball for a little lesson in physical education. It was an action packed weekend and a great experience, I hope to run my own weekend camp at my school in the fall!

All of the PCVs with one of Sasha's English teachers during the lunch break.

Me and Sasha with one of her English teachers.

Jillian taught lessons about the West coast, which included her home state of Washington. She brought some cool props to teach the class with, including a calendar with scenic photos of Washington. During the lesson, she had the kids design their own state flags, which was a really creative idea :)

Margo taught about the Midwest and her home state of Nebraska. I was originally assigned to teach about the Midwest, but I was very thankful that Margo wanted to switch regions with me because I don't know very much about the Midwest, except that there are a lot of farms with corn haha.

We began the 2nd day (Sunday mornning) with teaching the students how to do the Cha-Cha slide. To do this, first we reviewed some verbs of motion like to jump, to stomp, to hop, and then we showed them how to cha-cha and how to do the Charlie Brown.

Samantha taught lessons about the northwest and New England, which included her home state of New York. Her lesson was really creative and she had all the names of the states written as leaves on a tree.

Erika taught lessons about the Mid-Atlantic, which is the states around Washington DC. She brought a few maps of the USA from her town to show the kids where her states were located.

I taught lessons about the South, which was great because we got to talk about the Atlanta 1996 Olympics, Coca-Cola, the Wright brothers, Florida oranges, Cajun food, and a strong tradition of high school and college/university football!

Teaching about traditional southern foods and some fun state facts with my flipcharts.

Ty taught about the Southwest, which included his home state of Texas. The kids had a lot of fun learning about how to use a lasso during his lesson, and then they got to give it a shot for themselves afterwards!

Ty teaching a student how to lasso some chairs.

At the end of the camp on Sunday afternoon, we handed out certificates to all of the students that attended the camp. They were all super excited to get certificates in English and sad to see us go.

Sasha announcing the names of students from the stage.

Ted, Jillian, Erika, Margo, Samantha, myself and Ty with two of Sasha's teachers.

After a full day of teaching lessons back-to-back at school on Saturday, we grilled shashlik (chunks of seasoned pork on long skewers with onions) outside in the evening. It was my first shashlik experience in Ukraine and it was absolutely delicious! Sasha had two bags of marshmellows that someone had mailed to her in a care package - they don't sell marshmellows here! We roasted marshmellows over the fire for dessert, which was messy but tons of fun :)

Relaxing with the girls before grilling out.

Starting the fire with pine needles!

Shashlik was juicy and delicious!

You can also check out an article with some more photos from the local town website here (but its in Ukrainian). The first photo is of me teaching the Hokey Pokey dance with Ty and Jillian on stage... you put your right foot in!