I've just finished my first week of summer camp. One down, one to go. It's been a little rough haha. I was told before that we'd have no more than 15 kids, that quickly went up to around 20 (trust me those extra 5 make a big difference when it's too hot to go outside). More than the number, it's that a few of the kids we have are really challenging (think constantly hitting other kids, refusing to listen, fighting us on everything, etc.) Not to mention they combine ages in summer camp so we have a range of 2 years to 4, again not bueno.
It's not all bad though, some of the kids are great of course. I'm working with a wonderful assistant and they've brought in some great specialists (you've got to do something when it's over 100 degrees everyday with high humidity, we're only allowed to be outside when we're swimming and even that is done early in the morning!) My favorite specialist activity is Zumba! The instructor is a Brazilian lady and she's so great with the kids. She breaks down some basic steps then adds the music and also does fun activities like freeze dance to keep them interested. We were supposed to have hip hop dance but apparently the trial did not go so well...the head teacher told me the girl came in and was blasting the most inappropriate music imaginable, with no words bleeped out (one example was Rihanna's Rude Boy), these are lyrics you don't want to play for 3-4 year olds who literally repeat everything you say! So the hip hop dance teacher had to go, the head teacher tried to suggest we teach hip hop dance ourselves but I strongly objected to that. I said "Look, I can do a lot of things and teaching hip hop dance is definitely not one of them."
This weekend we're trying to just get a bunch of things done before I head home in 1 week! I made an appointment today to get the pups' teeth cleaned before I go bc their breath is kickin. Speaking of the vet, one of my friends took her pup the other day and was talking to the vet about the difficulties of walking dogs in this heat. You can really only walk them early in the morning or at night after the sun has gone down; during the days their paws will burn. The vet told her that the newest trend in Dubai is buying little walking shoes for dogs to prevent their paws from burning haha. Sure enough, I stopped by our neighborhood pet store, Pampered Pets "A luxury lifestyle boutique for the pampered pet", and on display were plenty of stylish little pup shoes. I think we'll pass on those for now...we're good with our early morning pack walks:)
It's not all bad though, some of the kids are great of course. I'm working with a wonderful assistant and they've brought in some great specialists (you've got to do something when it's over 100 degrees everyday with high humidity, we're only allowed to be outside when we're swimming and even that is done early in the morning!) My favorite specialist activity is Zumba! The instructor is a Brazilian lady and she's so great with the kids. She breaks down some basic steps then adds the music and also does fun activities like freeze dance to keep them interested. We were supposed to have hip hop dance but apparently the trial did not go so well...the head teacher told me the girl came in and was blasting the most inappropriate music imaginable, with no words bleeped out (one example was Rihanna's Rude Boy), these are lyrics you don't want to play for 3-4 year olds who literally repeat everything you say! So the hip hop dance teacher had to go, the head teacher tried to suggest we teach hip hop dance ourselves but I strongly objected to that. I said "Look, I can do a lot of things and teaching hip hop dance is definitely not one of them."
This weekend we're trying to just get a bunch of things done before I head home in 1 week! I made an appointment today to get the pups' teeth cleaned before I go bc their breath is kickin. Speaking of the vet, one of my friends took her pup the other day and was talking to the vet about the difficulties of walking dogs in this heat. You can really only walk them early in the morning or at night after the sun has gone down; during the days their paws will burn. The vet told her that the newest trend in Dubai is buying little walking shoes for dogs to prevent their paws from burning haha. Sure enough, I stopped by our neighborhood pet store, Pampered Pets "A luxury lifestyle boutique for the pampered pet", and on display were plenty of stylish little pup shoes. I think we'll pass on those for now...we're good with our early morning pack walks:)
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