Day 5- Beijing Vs. Ice

Today was the first day of a pilot for a day camp version of STEM camp held at Roborobo learning center. It was 16 8-10 year olds making ice cream. I felt a little pressure to make sure not to suck because it is a good idea and it would benefit future teachers that take part in this program.

The day started with breakfast at the hotel. Then I went and found a bike and headed off to Roborobo. I had pinned it last night went Daniel and Amy. I had a little work of organizing the classroom and getting out what we needed. We started about on time. We started out with the name game. I had their English names down by the end. One of the kids that was naughty, as they say, was Kevin. He was pushing finding how far he could take it. We had a few tussles but by the end he was fine. We had to stop class a few times for them to get quit and calmed down. It confirms that I am better with older kids. We made rice crispy treats after a while. Rice crispies or anything like it is very hard to find here. We did have frosted flake treats. They seem to really enjoy them and were good while making them. We then read them a story and my boss Qing was there helping. Thank goodness she was because they were squirrely during that. Emma, my TA, who is a sophomore at Highlands Ranch was chewing their butts. We had a teacher from Roborobo with us as well and they were busy as well. We then had lunch in a quiet place.

We started the afternoon attempting to make ice cream base. To my dismay, we did not have any ice. The temperature in Beijing yesterday was well into the 90s and culturally, the Chinese don't drink cold beverages. When you order a beer, you have to specify cold in your order or it will come warm. The poor Roborobo people were going to KFC and emptying their ice machine from the kitchen. I can only image their conversations when doing that. So we were unable to get our bases to freeze in the end. We will try again but use dry ice, which won't come until the afternoon. I also had them make duct tape wallets. That was an experience as well. No one cried so I think it was a success. We ended building paper towers with chart paper. That was a good lesson. a lot of the boys learned about building a bigger base at the bottom.

My evening consisted of updating yesterdays blog. That took a while and I was happy cooling off in my room. I then ventured down to the mall and walked through it. I then rode down to a Walmart to try and find rice crispies. No luck. I am going to try another store this morning. There is a french one a couple miles away. I was out after dark and was amazed at home people were out doing whatever. The park across from my hotel was hopping with people. The men were on different street corners playing cards, dice or some other game I have no clue about. Everyone seemed happy with the evening. The bike app said I rode 8 miles yesterday. It didn't seem that far but was fun.