AGE: Skiing and the Elementary School

Every school day at AGE we have fitness. It is usually the very first thing we do when we wake and it can consist of many different activities including running, ultimate frisbee, and yoga. Earlier in the week we found out that we were going to get some snow Wednesday night, so we decided to alter our schedule yesterday to have skiing be our fitness. Classes normally proceed through the morning and into the middle of the afternoon (like most schools), but yesterday we had classes from 8-9:15, then departed to Mount Ashland to ski from 10-2pm. Afterwards we went back to the house to finish the school day. Our last class was from 7-8:15, but the students didn't seem to mind since we got to take the field trip.

Today we went to the Bellview elementary school in Ashland and spent an hour with Ms. Laura Rogers' second grade class. We introduced ourselves and told them about our trip to Japan.

The kids are going to write letters to us while we are abroad so that we can write back to them about our experiences. It has been a number of years since I really interacted with students of this age, and I forgot how curious and excited second graders can be. After we introduced ourselves, we answered questions from the students. Actually, we really listened to them make statements while we asked them questions to try to dull the awkwardness. Here's one exchange:

Student: "I have a question for GKO."
GKO: "Yes?"
Student: "I was born in New England."
GKO: "Okayyyy....Do you know what state you were born in?"
Student: "New York."

After questions, our AGE students all broke up into groups and played with the kids. Here's Tom, a senior, playing math games:

The second graders were really excited to have us there, but I think our students may have enjoyed the experience a little more.