volunteering is hard

I volunteered at Scooter's school again today. This time, instead of an hour in her classroom, I was there for almost 3 hours in the cafeteria. It was amazing. I sat next to a woman who is in a women's singing quartet, and they went to the all black production of Oklahoma last night. I've heard great things about that show. *little pang of jealousy*

Anyway, the point of me being at school today was to help with the Passport Club. This is a PTC (parent teacher club)-run addition to the kids' curriculum. Each child has a passport, which is kept with their teacher. Each month, they are given a list of countries to find on a map. There are 5 levels (1st-5th grades). They may choose to study however many levels they want. Levels 1-4 are countries, and then level 5 is the capitals of the countries in level 1. For example, this month level 1 was the following countries: USA, Brazil, Australia, Thailand, and Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). So...in order to complete level 5, you also needed to know the capitals of those countries. Could you do it? I can, now, but I wouldn't have been able to a month ago. Studying with Scooter has helped my geography skills as well. Anyway, the theory goes if the kids to all 5 levels each month, by the end of the year, they should know where all the countries in the world are located. And the levels change each year, so in theory, if you remember all the capitals from each of the years before (and you do all 5 levels all 5 years), you'd end up knowing a boat load of capitals, too.

But in reality, there are some kids who study this stuff, and some kids who don't. You know the statistic that 20% of Americans can't find the US on a map? That didn't quite happen this morning, but it was close. I didn't test Scooter this morning. I waved and encouraged her, though, and guess what? She got to bang the drum for knowing all 5 levels. YAY!! I'm excited to see what next month's countries are.