week 6 blog 3

My final blog will discuss the last lacrosse game of my senior year. I played football for 3 years, not my freshman, and lacrosse for 4. Lacrosse meant just as much to me as football even though it was a much smaller commitment. I am a lot better at lacrosse than I am at football anyways, but still not that good. I was extremely disappointed not to get to play this year because of my back. I enjoy lacrosse a lot more because it is much less pressure, a lot more laid back, and there are more games. Even though I could not play I still made every effort to be at all of the practices and games, I missed 1 game for my wisdom teeth and a week for DECA, other than that I was there. Today was the last game of the year and I really hoped I could play even though I'm never supposed to play contact sports again with my back injury. The rapid healing process gave me hope, but the times just didn’t add up. This game was against the North Reading Hornets. Earlier in the season in one of our very first games we played them. At that point we were really bad and had little experience or confidence. The game was extremely close despite the horrendous rain and cold. We were hoping to come back and win because after the first few games we started to get some confidence. This was not the case and we ended up getting killed. This was really sad because we went into it with a hope of doing well. We even brought up a 7th grader to play on Varsity, we aren't that short handed he is simply just that good. It is insane to watch him and he is already committed to Governors Academy for high school even though he is only in 7th grade, and has a full ride his first year just to play lacrosse. The season ended with a crushing defeat and it really wasn’t the way to end my high school athletics career but it happened. 

Week 6 post 2

Today I had to begin the dreaded write up of the Wikipedia article. I have about 15 pages in a notebook filled with information that needs to be deciphered from my terrible handwriting and condensed. At the end a lot of the information is truly just trash and can be left out, the important things are really the start and end of each sport, the major coaches, and championships, stuff like that. It was so long ago that I got the interview information that it was relatively difficult to remember what was what. The yearbook information took the longest because I had to go through every single yearbook, it seems easy but it takes about 10 minutes per yearbook and there are ones dating back to 1957 and there are only 2 years missing. The yearbook information is truly not all that important accept to validate serious years such as major coach beginnings and ends and when the sport started and ended. It was a lot of work for a little reward but was necessary. I had to then start the work. I got about 7 write-ups in when it was nearing the end of school and it was time to tell Mr. Jewett that I would have it to him by the end of the afternoon since it was the end of score today. This was when I forgot that every time you walk away from a computer it goes to sleep, well big deal but mine is so old that when you walk away and it goes to sleep it closes all programs and deletes all unsaved work, I forgot this and went to school. When I came back to finish up before the lacrosse game so that I could turn it in by 5, get to the game, get home and finish the 12 page paper I realized that it had deleted the entire 6 hour day's work. At this point I just had to put it down go to my wisdom teeth checkup and go to the final lacrosse game of the year. Then I came home and finished the essay and have not a clue how long it is going to take to re write the 7 I did and finish the other bunch that I hadn't. I will start that next after these blog entries, late night ahead. 

Week 6 day 1

Today I went and surveyed the damage fully in that downstairs closet. My brace is finally off for most of the time and I am assuming that means that physical activity is moving forward, meaning that I could begin on the closet. There was stuff everywhere, empty boxes, old sweat suits, old gear, and new gear. I first began by clearing out all of the boxes. This took forever to break down all of them and actually overflowed the cart that I was carrying them on. I ended up having to put a huge weight on top just to hold it down. I brought all of the boxes out to the recycle and got rid of those. Next were all of the sweat suits. I bet you are thinking that there could not be that many; well you are wrong, it seems that just about every sport has an entire squad worth of suits that still have their tags on them and never got used. The sad part is they are all from the 1990s and look like an old track suit and would never be worn. Then there was the issue of trash, things like box inserts, helmet bags, and random broken things. Next I had to throw out old broken equipment such as helmets and other dated goods. Then I found a bunch of stuff that wasn't even opened yet but quite usable such as mouth guards and leg pads for football and put those where they could be used. Finally I had to actually organize it, this was temporary though because I am waiting for plastic see through bins for the permanent solution, but that is a matter of minutes in transferring. 

Coviello Blog 15

As I was saying in my last blog, I did some fun activities for my three classes.  For my junior class, Senora Magana showed me an online program called puzzlemaker.com that allows someone to go on and create word puzzles with very little work.  I took the vocab the class learned for the story they are reading and created definitions in Spanish to use as clues.  Then, I followed the instructions of the site, typing in the words and clues, and finally created a crossword puzzle.  I was at an AP exam when the class did it, but I hope it was a good review for them and was more fun than simply going over the words.  Anyway, I am pretty sad that it is my last day of SCORE.  I have had an awesome year TAing with Senora Magana for one freshman class, and even more fun with the three classes I took on in the past six weeks for SCORE.  I got to know a lot of the kids really well, and I will definitely miss them.  I will also miss Senora Magana, and I can’t thank her enough for all she did for me this year.  Being able to have such an active role in all three classes was so lucky for me and beyond anything I had expected.  It was a really good experience, especially considering I want to study Spanish education at NYU next year.  My experiences this year have helped me secure that idea, and I hope that I enjoy it as much as I have this year in the future.

Coviello Blog 14

So, last week and this week Senora Magana gave me some good projects to do for all three of my classes: my two freshman classes and my junior class.  For the freshman classes, I created two PowerPoints with sentences and pictures that would be done in class.  One was to cover the grammar concept of superlative sentences (Crocodiles are the most dangerous animals in the river, parrots are the smartest animals in the jungle, etc.).  In these slides, I put three elements of a superlative sentence: the subject, the noun, and the group the subject is being compared to, as well as a photo that pertained to the sentence’s subject matter.  Then, the students had to look at the parts of the sentence I gave them and formulate sentences using what they already had.  The main challenge was to put together the sentence in the correct order, but a smaller detail that turned out to give some kids trouble was agreement between the noun and the adjective.  Almost every sentence included a vocab word from the section of the chapter we were learning.  I was able to give this activity to the class in my last week of SCORE.  I also made a similar type of PowerPoint in which I used the vocabulary and the subjunctive tense to create sentences in English that the students will have to translate into Spanish correctly using the subjunctive, a tense that they have learned but has given them trouble.  Unfortunately, they aren’t there yet, so Senora Magana will be giving that to them next week.

Coviello Blog 13

So, in the junior class we have continued reading the story, “La Clave Literaria.”  Senora Magana told me she chose it because it is a murder mystery, and she hoped it would be more interesting for the students that may not be too apt to be intrigued by a story they are required to read for Spanish class.  It is slightly longer than a lot of stories they are used to reading, but having an interesting story line definitely helps ease the difficulty or dread of reading something in school.  I can relate to that, that’s for sure.  Anyway, the way we have been getting through it is really good.  Instead of having the students read sections of the story at home to discuss it in class, we read the story all together and answer discussion questions for homework.  I like this method because reading in a different language can definitely be complicated and it is not uncommon for students to encounter difficulties and hard parts while reading.  By doing it in class, Senora Magana can pause after certain sections and explain or ask questions about what has just happened.  This forces the students to pay attention to the story and stay involved in the class, even while they are not the ones reading aloud.  Also, a good component of this method is the actual reading of the story.  The students take turns reading the narration or take on the roles of the different characters within the story.  This helps the students work on pronunciation of the words they are reading as well as pay attention to what they are reading.

Coviello Blog 12

Last week, the junior Spanish IV class I TA for began reading their first short story since I started SCORE.  It is called “La Clave Literaria,” “The Literary Clue,” and is a murder mystery.  We started the story by learning the various important vocab words scattered throughout the story that Senora Magana picked out.  She created a list of about 50 to 60 different words, and the list was made up of nouns, verbs, and adjectives.  The vocabulary list was full of words that the students might not necessarily learn in a normal vocabulary list in a book or regular lesson, so it was good to have them learn new words that will give them a more in-depth knowledge of the language and make them even more well-rounded.  Also, having all the words that would be unfamiliar to them as they read the story written out and translated on one piece of paper is very helpful for their understanding of the story.  Before beginning reading the story, Senora Magana had them create their own sentences for each word, as she typically does for vocabulary lessons, so they can formulate their own meanings for the new words.  By being creative and original, the students will be able to better remember the meanings of the words through their own thoughts and ideas.  After learning the vocabulary prior to reading, the actual process of reading and comprehending the story becomes easier because they don’t have to stop and look up the definitions or translations of unfamiliar words.

Coviello Blog 11

This week, Senora Magana was doing an in-depth review lesson of the preterit and imperfect tenses.  We started by going over how to conjugate both tenses.  We reviewed all the irregular verbs and their conjugations with the class.  This part was fairly easy because they have already learned these things and (hopefully) have been using them correctly all year.  The harder part turned out to be reviewing the differences between the preterit tense and the imperfect tense.  It is a fairly difficult concept to grasp, considering they first learned the preterit and got used to using only that tense.  However, using the words SCAP (Single Completed Action in the Past) for the preterit tense and TARDE (Time, age, date, Action in progress, Repeated, Description, Emotion) for the imperfect tense seem to help the students remember the variety of uses for each tense.  We did a huge amount of practices with choosing between preterit and imperfect, most of which were computer activities.  Senora Magana has two really useful websites that include a variety of grammar concepts and interesting vocabulary.  We used these in class and for some homework assignments throughout the week to keep the students practicing more and more.  We also used the PowerPoint activity that I put together that included sentences and pictures, and the students had to take the given verbs and figure out whether or not they should be preterit or imperfect and then conjugate them correctly.  It was a lot of work to spend on one concept, but it is vital to use correct past-tense grammar in order to be more fluent in Spanish.

Blog 15

On Friday, Will, Taylor, and I went to Castle Hill to help out Ramona once again with her field trip. It was another middle school field trip and we were supposed to be doing the same thing as last time. It was another beautiful day so it made it very pleasant to be outside in the salt marsh. This time the group of kids were a lot more interactive with the three of us so it made it more fun than last time. I think the kids were kind of shy last time to talk to us but that was not the case this time. Again, Ramona split the kids into three groups so they could learn about the different parts of the salt marsh. The three of us were in charge of taking pictures of the kids learning and manning one of the stations. The station we were at was the most exciting because it was learning about the animals that live at the salt marsh. We had a bucket filled with small fish and crabs that the kids could look at. This other helper at our station, Holly, would give the kids little booklets with the different species of fish and crabs for the salt marsh so the children could pick which ones were in the bucket. After the salt marsh scene, we all had lunch again on the lawn then proceeded to go to the roof of the mansion. These two field trip days have made great score days because they have been really interactive and have taught us a lot. 

Blog 14

On Tuesday, Taylor, Will, and I were in for a special treat for score. Ramona was leading a field trip for the Ipswich middle school at Castle Hill so we were able to tag along and help her out with the expedition. It was a really nice change of pace to go and visit a different reservation besides Ravenswood and Coolidge. The agenda was to meet at Castle Hill with all the school kids then walk down a path to go explore the salt marshes around the area. When we got to the salt marsh, the kids spit up into three groups where a Trustees employee was leading each group. I was with Ramona’s group for a little of the time and while I was with her, she was teaching the kids about salt-water marshes. She explained how there are three parts to a salt marsh; lower, middle, and upper. The lower region has the most water, the middle is drier than the lower region, and the upper part is the driest of them all. Ramona truly knows a lot about the salt marshes and she continuously surprises me with her endless knowledge of nature. After exploring the marshes for a couple hours, we walked back up and all ate lunch on a nice lawn at Castle Hill. The best part was saved for the end, and that was when Ramona took all of us to the roof of the mansion at the property. The view was amazing from the top and this was the cherry on top for another great day at the Trustees. 

Blog 13

On Monday, Taylor and I went to work at Ravenswood Reservation. Ramona was not going to be there but she had left us some work to do. She wanted us to do some trail maintenance on some trails that we have not been on yet during score. She also wanted us to fill out some brochures for her that she would use to hand out to visitors. The brochure part was really easy and the trail maintenance was pretty fun. Although it was fairly cool, it was still sunny so the weather was almost perfect for being on the trails. There were some sticks and small logs that were on parts of the trail so we just moved them off to the side and made sure there were no other obstacles on the trails. This is some of my favorite work that we do with the Trustees simply because we are outside on the trails and it is cool to see the different aspects of nature. I have learned a lot more about different plants and animals just from being around Ramona and being on the trials. I have also learned a lot of manual work techniques from Dan and Alex that will be very helpful for when I grow up and have to work around the house myself. So far, I have been very pleased with my score internship and am excited to see where it goes from here. Ramona has some fun plans for us in the future that even could include taking a boat out to Missouri Island and exploring a little bit.

week 5 blog 3

Yesterday I made the 1 hour drive up to Salem New Hampshire to meet with the beneficiary of my eagle project. I had to talk to him about the final details and set a date for the project. We had to see when our schedules worked and I am really disappointed to say that it will not happen until June 11th and 12th which is over the summer and deep after lacrosse season. Hopefully I can still get all of the people that I need to make this happen. I also need to make a flyer of the clinic which will have to be done soon. He also mentioned that I need to make an outline of the clinic to be submitted to him. I also need to nag the coaches of my team to write a one paragraph biography of their lacrosse experience. I must send that as well as find the proof of CORI for our coaches which will be easy enough to do. We then needed to make the outline of the things that we will be doing for the clinic. We had to design drills and choose which ones we wanted to do as well as which areas to focus on. I must now make my own permanent outline that will be the final plan for the camp over the two days and will cover two hours per clinic over a two day period. The players that we are helping are young and new to the sport of lacrosse. 

week 5 post 2

Today I spent the day working on my Eagle Scout project. I had the approval Tuesday night and spent much of the day preparing for it. I had to finish the long proposal page that was missing a few of the details and missing addresses and details for the information page on the front cover. I also had to design a cover for the book of my project. I am required to keep a binder of all of my resources which includes the 28 page outline of my project. I had to make the binder before I could go to my approval. At the approval meeting in Manchester I had to present my project and answer questions. The project easily got approved and now I have to go to the state approval which is on Tuesday of next week. This approval will be much harder but will be the last approval that I have to go through before I can start the project. The committee asks a bunch of unnecessary questions such as if I am going to bring sun screen and bug spray for an event that involves heavy padding and not much exposed skin to burn. They also scrutinize every little piece of the project for no good reason because they almost always approve it in the end. I must also fill out a tour plan which is a new feature this year and I need that because I am traveling outside of Manchester to complete my project. 

week 5 blog 1

Today I went to the JV and Varsity Lacrosse games. The JV game was first at 5 and I went and stood on the sidelines for that in case anyone needed help with anything and to help with some coaching if needed. The team that we were playing was North Andover and they are a much larger school than us which made the teams very unfair. The JV team here consists of mostly middle school students with a few freshman thrown in. They were playing a large school group of kids which would likely be mostly older kids. The Varsity game afterwards was much the same. We were predicted to get absolutely destroyed by the clearly superior by default team. At first we kept up decently well and stayed only a couple goals behind for most of the game. Later into the game the scare started to build up and we ended with 11-3. That was much better than expected because we lost to Masco by about 20 goals and Masco lost to North Andover by 20 goals. This was a huge accomplishment to stay in the game all the way until the end of the third quarter. We proved everyone wrong just by keeping up. During the away games I have to do the score book for the team which takes away from actually watching the game. During home games we have someone that does the books for me and I get to actually stand with the team and watch the game. 

Blog 12

On Thursday, I had the pleasure of going to score by myself for the first time since Taylor and Will had their AP English test. Usually we would be with Ramona on Thursday but she said that she was out and that she had told Dan some stuff we could do at Coolidge Reservation. When I arrived, I worked with Sam for a little while filling in some new soil for these decent sized bushes. The other week all three of us tore up a layer of grass so we could fill the surrounding areas with new soil. After a little while, Dan asked me to do a different job for him. I was to eradicate another type of invasive species that was starting to sprout up on some of the Coolidge property. This invasive species is called garlic mustard, and it has green chutes that bud little white flowers. In this one area, there was an abundance of garlic mustard so I could see that it would take a little while to de-route all of them since it was just me working. It was tedious work and the dull weather did not make it that much of an enjoyable time. I am used to always having company while doing this type of manual labor for the Trustees so the solitude was not to my liking. After a little more than an hour, I had cleared this one section of all the garlic mustard. I filled up three trash barrels with routes, which showed me that there was a lot more of this species there than I thought.

Blog 11

On Wednesday, Taylor, Will, and I were set up to work at Coolidge Reservation with Dan since Ramona had the day off. Usually when we are at Coolidge Reservation, we often have to do some hard work around the area. When we arrived, all three of us reported to Alex and Sam on what we were suppose to do for the day. They explained to us how around this time is when we really need to focus on cleaning up the surrounding areas so it can look nice for the rest of spring and summer. A lot of the cleaning up was just clearing out all the leaves that were on the ground and mixed in with the plants that are about to start growing. Before we arrived that day, Alex and Sam had raked a huge amount of leaves and put them in a line across the Great Lawn. Our work for that day was to haul all of the leaves from that line away from the Great Lawn. It seemed like a pretty useless task at first because all we were doing was moving piles of leaves. In the end, you could see the difference it made because the surrounding areas where the leaves were before looked a lot cleaner and nicer. If we had not moved these leaves, it could have damaged the new plants trying to grow or even keep them from growing at all. It was a day full of manual labor but it was labor that had to be done and benefits the reservation in several different ways.