Summer Session, Awesome 9th Graders

I taught 9th grade at a scholarship over summer. It was a pleasure to work with students from the Siem Reap based Jay Pritzker Academy. Creative bunch that I miss a lot.

With me, they had their first introduction to social studies so we dove into history of the Middle Ages.

We had a first easy day with introductions and arts: rose windows of cathedrals. Our class became a little cathedral, with students knowledeable about the purpose of art back in the day where books were too expensive for most people, and books were printed with gold.

Today in Cambodia, it is common to have some gold worn as a daily accessory.

Aren’t they gorgeous?

We had each other tell stories of their rose windows, because back in the day pictures told stories and principles and many people couldn’t read.

We also created some coat of arms and students learned some French family mottos.

At JPA, there was a field day and one of the MOST popular games was a water balloon toss.

Students in pairs held on to create a makeshift catapult and they pass along a water balloon without moving their feet. First row of scarf-wielding kids to get their lone water balloon in the white box wins!

At the end of summer, kids were practicing for their play, performed for the whole school.

There was Cleo.

There was the Inquisition.

There was Joan of Arc.

There was a time machine!!!

About a few times during summer session, we had exciting science classes hosted by 2 high school students in America who fundraised for telescopes for these very kids to use and explore different microscopic things of all sorts. Even tomatoes was checked out. We also had the opportunity to watch a soda can crunch itself up!!!