THURSDAY FEBRUARY 8th

Hi. Woke up and had breakfast. Looked at the paper.
Went into Stenerton my practicum site. Ida biked by me on my way.
I love being there. Today there was this one girl who kept trying to pick me up and also kept stealing my hat and mittens and running off with them. I read an eye spy/early reader book with a boy in the class. One group is putting on a show of Hansel and Gretyl. The pedagogues had one group of children painting cardboard copper to be a jail and cutting out red orange and yellow paper to be a stove. The kids had already done a candy house and the woods. The teachers did not have the materials ready ahead of time but the kids were very patient and waited for the teachers to set up. Very different from the US where everything tends to be overly pre-planned and set up. The kids were very involved and using fine motor skills in a real like context. There was a ton of interaction between the children and it was definitely a group project as compared to US art classes where everyone is working on his or her own product.
We had lunch. It was bean soup and rye bread which had been made in a kitchen at the school. Interesting lack of milk being provided. Pretty healthy otherwise though! After lunch We were outside for 2 hours! It got a bit cold. The children loved it. They were digging and make believe activities. The girls I was with wouldn't let me leave them. We went hunting for horse chestnuts (castagne) and then counted how many we had. Many of the children kept asking me what my mothers name was. I guess (after talking to my host family) that is a common small talk question here.
After being outside they come back inside and play for little while and then have a snack that they bring from home. This is usually fruit or sandwiches. Today one group had baked rolls so those were given out with butter.
I went to DIS to do Danish listening HW on the computer. After that I had a DIS choir group. There are about 10 of us many full year students. We are singing two songs in Danish "kvinde min" my woman and "ud under aben himmel" under the open skies. It was really fun and we made quite a bit of progress. We only learned the tune not the danish words at all.
I had soup and bread for dinner. Jens is out with his son Jakob who did amazingly well on his thesis defense today apparently. Karen is sick with a bad cold. Too bad especially because she is going on a ski trip. She missed classes today. Karen asked if I had a ghetto blaster to listen to music on. I didn't laugh but it was funny to hear a pop culture slang word used in that context.