Cardboard Challenge!

Caine's Arcade, the story of a 9-year-old boy named Caine, who played in his father's car part's shop one summer gathering cardboard boxes and turning them into a mini arcade.He never had a single customer until one day, filmmaker, Nirvan Mullick, took interest and broadcasted this documentary which sparked international phenomenon with the Imagination Foundation and Global Cardboard Challenge.(cainesarcade.com)

Last year I had the chance to join the movement through my Early Childhood Education courses at GCC's 2nd Annual Cardboard Challenge. I led two separate teams in creating and building a caterpillar to encourage story time and an ice cream shop for pretend play. Both of these themes motivated the five areas of child development: physical, social and emotional, approaches to learning, thinking, and communication and language. 

Read more at http://www.bestbeginningsalaska.org/activities-resources/child-development-areas

I would like to extend an invitation to this public event happening this October 5,6 and 8.  

Selected schools all over the island will bring their projects to the Multipurpose Auditorium (MPA) at Guam Community College (GCC) to showcase their creations.  I am anxious to see the imagination of how children manipulate and play with cardboard this time around.

Stay tuned for future postings...

Find the Flora!

In Environmental Biology Lab, Professor Jocson created for his class a Campus Scavenger Hunt. Professor Jocson, gave our team of five, Franklin, Dillon, Jerry, Zenilda and myself, Anita a set of six coordinates and one Etrex 20 Handheld Global Positioning System(GPS) unit.

With this assignment, it allowed our fellow classmates to come together to work, have fun and learn about Guam's rich diverse flora. We had to anticipate and be wary of the weather which was windy and rainy and the terrain of the field as it was muddy and slippery. 

We were the first team to complete and we also helped other teams to locate their plants as we had ample time. Although we didn’t use the campus map to maneuver it helped with our comments when we had to name the buildings where we located the plants.  We were able to incorporate technology and our natural human ability to navigate throughout the campus. 

Overall, this exercise was not only fun and adventurous, it took us out from the comfort of the classroom.  It also gave us great incite on the foliage found on our campus and were amazed of the many different types. It also made each of us form a close knit friendship as we are all diverse in age and culture.  

Weather or not!

Fall Festival was supposed to happen, but due to inclement weather, it was postponed to October 27th.

So here I am 7 a.m. preparing all the food that we are to sell at our Education Student Organization booth later this afternoon. I had the one whole case of chicken thighs, deboned and cut into quarter pieces for the Karaage Chicken, with the carrots and cabbages chopped to a specific size for the Yakisoba and crab meat shredded, ready to mix for the Sushi Bake. At 9 a.m. I get a text from one of the club officers saying that the event will be canceled. I was disheartened, really more frustrated, not because I did the hard work of prepping, it was because all the students that donated and more so of the food that would be wasted. But lo and behold, I get a callback. I was excited because I could still prepare the dishes and sell at our EDUCATION STUDENT ORGANIZATION (ESO) mini food sale. So I hurried and cooked all the food and brought it all down to school in a record four hours which included the drive from DEDEDO to MANGILAO.

The officers greeted me at the selling site and there was already a line of hungry patrons.

I was happy even though some of the comments on the food wasn't nice, like the chicken was hard or the crab to rice ratio wasn't even or the noodles was missing a particular ingredient.

Overall, the majority said they enjoyed the food and were impressed with my cooking. I always try to remain positive in all aspects, and that's one of the traits that I must have when I become a future educator, is to always buckle down and drive on.
It won't be easy but it will be all worth it.

Scratch the Surface

Ok, so a bunch of us woke up zero dark thirty, to head to Chalan Pago Bay to assist with the island wide coastal cleanup. Some of us did it for a plethora of reasons such as extra credit for environmental biology or to get the prestigious t-shirt, but I also did it to help community awareness of our island's coastline.
Back in the 90's, my first visit to Pago Bay, I remember the water was so clean and greenish with light brown sand. There were a couple of concrete pavilions that visitors could use to set up a picnic and celebrate the island life with barbecue and brews. Now with the erosion of land being battered by the tropical storms in the late 90's the water decimated the pavilions and limited the area to being used by squatters and local fishermen.
I came to Pago Bay to help with the clean up last year, it was low tide so we were able to clean the left side of the bay. We accumulated about 10 bags of debris. This time it was high tide and some were brave to cross over a huge pile of bamboo to pick up trash. I didn't want to get injured so I stuck to the right and just that patch of land measuring a tenth of mile, our group of four, we alone harvested five bags of plastics, glass and cans.
We didn't scratch the surface, there were hundreds of cigarette butts crusting the top soil and like last year, I left feeling disgusted and weary that I couldn't make a significant difference in my physical efforts. I do hope with this broadcast that I would ignite my fellow classmates to do their part of keeping GUAM CLEAN and GREEN.
Learn more about Pago Bay... http://www.guampedia.com/pago/

Class Dismissed

I really hate to miss class, but today was an exception.  I knew from this morning, it wasn't going to be a open toe, sandal day but I really didn't anticipate the change of weather.  Class was supposed to be released at 1:30 p.m. to give me ample time to scoot over to University of Guam (UOG) but the teacher didn't stop talking until 1:38 p.m.  Right as I stepped out the door, the rain was coming down in buckets, by the time I reached my vehicle, my shoes felt like I was wearing rainboots inside out.

In general, when I miss class, I lose a lot of information.  Although I can connect with some of my other classmates through phone chats and such, I don't like to ask them as it is quite bothersome when they are also trying to study or manage their time, plus the information is not complete as I would have when the Professor lectures.

This is a rule or best practice that I want to extend to my future students, that when class is missed, the teacher has to repeat the lesson and it will hinder the time of others that are ahead or on track.

Please feel free to share with me your ideas on what I could have done to prevent missing class.

UOG Newbie

Being a newbie at University of GUAM (UOG) a lot of networking has to be done on my part. Although I am not timid or shy, I have to work on my approach in order to connect with my peers, advisors, and mentors, so I will be able to receive and return information in an appropriate manner.  A manner that UOG has set in place.
Last Spring I enrolled to UOG and found through one of the Professors that every Wednesday, staff and faculty, dress in green clothing or accessories to show campus spirit.  So from that moment on I try to emulate that tradition.
Here I am, photo courtesy of my classmate in ED271 - Technology in the Classroom, Ms. Cassandra Santos, in front of School of Education (SOE) with my brightest smile showing off my Campus Green.

Just to help out my fellow education course mates, here are some of helpful links to understand the importance and joy of having school spirit.
http://blog.cengagebrain.com/blog/2012/08/back-to-school-spirit-top-10-reasons-to-get-involved-on-campus/
https://www.campuspride.org/about/mission/