"Name some of the 12 Apostles."

"Deuteronomy?"
"That's in the OT, and that's a book, not a person."
Hello?!?!?! I have weird kids.

We sang the fishers of men song. Ivan the Terrible loved it. He wanted to "sing it at home." Haha. I love corrupting children with my vast repertoire of children's songs.

We were doing a spelling pretest and one of the words is "complain." As soon as I said it, the Duchess Whines-Too-Much looked up at me and smiled and apparently several kids turned around and looked at Janine. They're all guilty. Hahaa.

I'm really tired and I have much to accomplish. Tomorrow is hieroglyphics day.

And it's on to the 4th week!

It's hard to believe that I've taught something like 28 lessons already. Hahaha. (That includes the little spelling and grammar lessons too...) That's more than I've ever written for school.

Today was a pretty good day. I decided the kids were a little too self-centered in their prayers and made them pray for something other than themselves and their family. They had a REALLY hard time with that. Captain Obvious wanted to pray for the poor people in the world, and Ivan the Terrible wasn't paying attention and decided to pray that Captain Obvious would have enough money to feed the poor. After prayer time was over, Captain Obvious said, "I don't HAVE any money to feed the poor! I wasn't feeding the poor!" Oh dear... I also found a prayer calendar on the VOM Kids of Courage website so we can pray about modern day Egypt. We prayed for the rulers of Egypt today. I was just waiting for someone to accidentally pray for a Pharaoh.

Oh yeah, I feel like you've all been deprived with the lack of Ivan tales. Well, yesterday he marched in and announced, "I did ALL my homework!" I turned to him and said very enthusiastically, "GREAT!" He got a shocked look on his face and he said, "You scared me!" I said, "Why?" "Because you said 'GREAT' so loud!" I said, "Well you did a good job and I wanted to praise you." He said, "I'm not your God. You can't praise me." So then I had to reword things and tell him that I was glad he did all his work. I think Ivan doesn't get much attention at home and tends to think that the only way to gain attention is to act out and be bad. He can't believe anyone would ever pay attention to him for doing something good. Poor guy. I feel really sorry for him. However, he has been a bit trying lately. He wasn't reading the directions on his spelling paper and he was supposed to put the correct word in a group of 3 words (the word came from the spelling list) and the first one was "easy, easier, _____". The word, obviously, was 'easiest' and it was on his spelling list. He kept saying, "I don't get it!" I told him that easy, easier, easiest is part of a group. He got a smart-aleck look on his face and said "Ahh yes.. hmm.. you do have a good point." He kept doing that until I wanted to smack him.

For social studies today we went into the computer lab and watched a very informative video on the Nile River. I found it on Youtube. It was about 6 and a half minutes long and it contained really good information. (A 6th grade teacher made it apparently.) They were really into it and loved it. Then they all looked up two websites about the Nile River and took notes as they read. They wrote down quite a lot of things. I was really surprised! They were really into it! I mean come on... who is interested in a river? Apparently it's interesting to 3rd graders. Haha. They were writing so much that I decided to write up a response sheet right while they were still reading. After getting back to the room, they used their notes to help them come up with at least 3 sentences about something they found interesting about the Nile and then 3 more sentences about why the Nile was so important. Dearest Ivan wasn't paying attention to the video (he claimed that he looked at the pictures and didn't listen to the voice) and he turned in a terrible response sheet. Oh, and the video opened with a quotation from an Egyptian song and it talks about how the "sun god" made the Nile. I asked the class who really made the Nile and they said, "God." Well Ivan couldn't come up with 3 things that were important about the Nile and he said that the sun god made it. I could have clobbered him.

Speaking of clobbering children, most of them totally bombed the Bible review sheet today. I started the lesson by asking them what two events prepared Jesus for the ministry. (Baptism and the temptation.) At the end of the lesson, they did a review sheet. They had no clue! They were writing things like "Mercy and Holy God." I mean.. come on! Their memory verse (that most of them failed last week anyway) was "And Jesus grew in wisdom, and stature, and in favor with God and men." The review sheet had them fill in the words. It said "And Jesus grew in w____, s____ and in favor with G____ and m___. Well a few of them put "Savior" or "salvation" for the s. Ivan put "Miriam" for the m and when we told him that was totally wrong he put "me." Wow. Fail.

Every week, one student is picked to be the star of the week. On Monday, they get to bring in something to share about themselves and then on Friday they can bring something else in. Also, the star of the week gets sent out of the room while everyone writes a little note to the star on a star shaped piece of paper. They're supposed to tell the star something they appreciate about him/her. Well, Ivan's seatmate was the star of the week. Our dear knight wrote her a beautiful note and included 2 hearts. Then he asked if he could write her another letter. Hahahaha. So apparently, the knight has a soft spot for a fair maiden.

The pictures above are of reading buddies. 3rd grade goes to 2nd grade and reads with the 2nd graders.

Another summer day... has come and gone away...

Except it's not summer anymore.

Well today went ok. We had chapel this morning and we were singing a bunch of Sunday School songs (that I happened to be listening to while doing language arts lesson plans last night...) and the kids were singing heartily. We started with "Hallelu, hallelu, hallelu, halleluah! Praise ye the Lord!" and alternated standing up and sitting down... and lines -- first one side, then the other and later boys and girls. I love hearing a lot of kids sing.. in tune.. and I know all the words anyway because I know the songs. Hahahahaa. We sang "Father Abraham" which has no theological value and they made the teachers get up there and do right arm, left arm, right foot, left foot.. etc. Some of the teachers were quite into it. Hahahaha. Anyway, the whole singing thing made my day.

My language arts lesson was mostly a review but they flew through it and we had to kill time. Woops. It worked out fine though.

We're doing suffixes in spelling and how to spell words properly when you add -er, -est, -ing, etc. Because of our increasing difficulties with the Duchess Whines-Too-Much, I introduced spelling by writing "WHINE" up on the board and identified it as the base word. Then I asked them how to spell it if I wanted to add the suffix -ing. They spelled it and then I asked them if they knew what "whining" meant. Janine (we had planned this) raised her hand and said in a very whiny voice, "Why are we doing this??? This is dumb!!!" and the kids followed suit and demonstrated what whining is. Ha. Then I had them look up Philippians 2:14. The fair duchess had a guilty look on her face the whole time. She found the verse first and said, "It says no complaining!" Hahaha.. So we all read the verse together! Too bad I didn't teach them my Steve Green song...

Do everything without complaining!
Do everything without arguing!
So that you may become blameless and pure
Children of God!
Without complaining!
Without arguing!
Do, do, do, do everything!!!
Do everything without complaining!
Do everything without arguing!
So that you may become blameless and pure
Children of God!

We talked about our classroom rules and how whining breaks our rule about being respectful. They went to recess and I printed out an octagon with the word "WHINING" in the middle with a line through it. I put the no whining sign on the whiteboard so they could see it. Later I stuck the Philippians verse next to it. A couple times throughout the day the fair Duchess would start to whine and then look at me and smile and stop. I think she got convicted. Haha. Hopefully they'll remember!

http://www.sermons4kids.com/fishers_of_men_ehk_song.pdf

That's what we're going to teach the kids next week. I found this version online and decided it had a little more to it than the common version that just repeats "I will make you fishers of men if you follow Me, if you follow Me..." for the whole song. :)

Today was ok. One kid was frustrated and another kid whined all day. Tomorrow we're going to give the kids a demonstration of whining and then talk to them about why whining is not respectful and discuss their attitude issues.

And that's my interesting post for the day.

"Sometimes I talk a lot..."

Such a funny picture!

Costumes

Classic! Captain Obvious, Prince Ants-in-the-Pants, and Princess Talks-A-Lot
Captain Obvious is probably going to repeat a question someone just asked, the dear prince is probably formulating another question in his mind, and Princess Talks-A-Lot already knows the answer.

Checking out the shaduf

The shaduf up close

My Nile River that looks more like a chicken foot

Flooding the Nile from the melted snow in Ethiopia

Those words were uttered by Princess Talks-A-Lot. I thought I would lose it laughing. She also has a habit of raising her hand before the question ends and thinks of the answer on the spot. Today she did it and she started talking and then stuck her tongue out and made a funny noise and said, "Oh. I forgot what I was going to say." HAHAHA. I laughed at her... couldn't help it. Good thing she's so easy-going. In fact, she really is a sweet child. Today one of the boys accidentally smashed into her arm with his chair when he was going somewhere and she started crying quietly. I saw her sniffling and I asked her and she told me it was an accident. She never said anything to the kid who did it and just sniffled quietly to herself. She's really the most selfless child in the class.

The kids were crazy today. The fair Duchess Whines-Too-Much was whining at every opportunity today. I was so annoyed. She complained about everything. She even started the day complaining. She complained all through language arts too. In fact, her whole group was off-task during language arts. She didn't pay attention to math and kept asking us to repeat the directions. She's very insecure about herself... she's used to getting A's on everything and she's paranoid if she thinks she just might get something wrong. Therefore, she doesn't try. They were doing rounding today and Janine has a really cool rounding chart. It has numbers on hills with multiples of 5 at the top of each hill. She illustrates it by saying that there's a gas station at the 0, 10, 20, 30, 40, etc. If you run out of gas at the 8, it's easier to roll down the hill forwards to the 10. If you run out of gas at the 3, it's easier to roll backwards to the gas station at 0. If you're at the 5, you're trying to visit your friend at 100 and it's easier to roll forward to the 10 rather than backwards because then you'd have to drive back up and waste gas. It was a cool chart. One of our slower kids was on a roll today. He really got it! He was so happy that he got it too. Cute kid.

We did the long-awaited social studies lesson today. I split the lesson over two days because I need the computer lab for the other part. The first part of the Nile River lesson only took a few minutes, so they were able to finish their costumes and dress up for a picture. For the Nile River, I dug up the volleyball court (it's sand) and made a relief map of the Nile River. I poured water from "Lake Victoria" to show how it ran all the way down (north.. rather than south as some of the kids thought would happen) to the delta. I had also made mountains in Ethiopia and Central Africa and demonstrated melting snow flooding down into the valley in Egypt. I ripped up some weeds that were growing all over the court and I stuck them all along the edge of my river to make it look more fertile. The sand was damp underneath which was perfect because it made it black and Egypt was called "Kemet" or "Black Land." We made a little irrigation ditch and flooded that too. I also made a model of a shaduf and stuck it in the sand and demonstrated how they were able to easily get the water out of the Nile into their irrigation ditches. Anyway, it was fun. I'm going to put a few pictures here but the rest can be found on Facebook. :)

On the twelfth day of 3rd grade my teacher said to me

It's the night of Open House!
What is true beauty?
Identify the sentence subject!
Let's make Egyptian costumes!
Where is Ivan?
Memorize your verse!
Study your spelling!
Did you read?
Don't stick your finger in the socket!
What is a digit?
Be respectful and act responsibly!

Well there you have it... the first 12 days of 3rd grade! The song got worse as it went on but I had to finish it. Hahaha. I can't believe we just finished the 12th day. Today I taught Bible and language arts and tomorrow I have those two and social studies. Janine and I put together a last minute bulletin board for the Ancient Egypt unit (as you can see in the picture). All along the Nile will be pictures of things we do. Once we get everyone together, the kids will dress up in the costumes they made and we'll be able to put that picture (along with some other pictures of them making the costumes) at the bottom of the board and build up as we go "down" the Nile. (I hope some smart kid doesn't complain that the "Down" is at the bottom of the river when the Nile river flows down towards the north.) I hope to get pictures of Pharaoh masks, mummies, pyramids, and whatever else we do. Haha.

The kids were pretty zoned out this morning. They're pretty bad on Monday mornings. They usually come in extra tired from the weekend. When I was teaching language arts, I was going over the vocabulary words and one of the words is "college." I told them I was still in college and they were shocked. They said "Is Miss Meisner in college too?" Um.. no. Hah.

Tonight is Open House from 6:30-8:00 or whenever. I'm hungry so I'm going home to drop my stuff off and find food of some sort to snack on... I'll probably cook some bananas. Haha.

The blessings of technology

Due to kind friends and a hi-tech communications engineer, I was able to tune into Cebu's evening service via Skype. That was really nice. Pas Nene preached on the sovereignty of God. Very good sermon. This morning I went to Davao Chinese Baptist and that was also pretty good, but they don't have an evening service. Actually, they have 4 services, but the 2 in the afternoon are the same sermon as in the morning. So yeah, it was a pretty good Sunday.

I am looking forward to this upcoming week, but it will be busy. We have open house on Monday night and I need to get a headstart on lesson plans for next week (particuarly language arts and Bible since they are every day and language arts is more like 3 lessons every day).

Opinion of the day...

Chris and Janita should update their blogs.

On the eleventh day of 3rd grade my teacher said to me...

What is true beauty?
Identify the sentence subject!
Let's make Egyptian costumes!
Where is Ivan?
Memorize your verse!
Study your spelling!
Did you read?
Don't stick your finger in the socket!
What is a digit?
Be respectful and act responsibly!

I forgot to mention that during prayer time yesterday, one of the kids shared a prayer request that about her friend's cousin or cousin's friend (I forget which) had dengue. Some of them didn't know what dengue was so I told them it was really serious and that I had it when I was 13 and that you can die from it. The Duke of Earl-y To Finish, in all his brightness, said "And did you?" I gave him an "Are you for real?" look and laughed at him and the kids all laughed and then I realized he was serious. He suddenly realized it was a dumb question and he got all embarrassed. Hahaha. Speaking of laughing at kids, today Princess Talks-A-Lot, who reads everything with a dramatic flair, read a Bible verse very dramatically and I smirked/snickered and glanced back at Janine who was hiding behind her paper snickering too and some of the kids in the front caught us laughing. Woops.

Today we managed to finish our Egyptian costumes (for the most part). I did a little lecture on true beauty too. I asked "What is beauty?" Prince Ants-in-the-Pants said, "Beauty is when you're really beautiful." Wow. Profound words from such a young lad. Anyway, we talked about heart beauty and being right with God. After we looked at some verses about the heart and being right with God, I asked if it was wrong to look nice and take care of ourselves. Princess Talks-A-Lot said, "No because if you're scraggly on the outside, you might be scraggly on the inside too and not beautiful to God." Scraggly? Hahaha. Yeah, so we talked about that and then went on to talking about who made us and why we should take care of our bodies (because God made us and it is glorifying to Him).

And now I'm trying to figure out the Language Arts curriculum. I realized we really aren't trained much in how to use the types of language arts programs that many schools use now. There's so much to fit in! We're also not really trained on guided reading groups -- how to plan lessons for so many different groups and run everything smoothly and tie it all together. Sigh..

On the tenth day of 3rd grade my teacher said to me,

Identify the sentence subject!
Let's make Egyptian costumes!
Where is Ivan?
Memorize your verse!
Study your spelling!
Did you read?
Don't stick your finger in the socket!
What is a digit?
Be respectful and act responsibly!

The kingdom can rejoice -- our dashing Knight in Clanky Armor is back -- Ivan the Terrible! He wasn't his vivacious and naughty self, though. In the morning he was a little out of it. I think he picked up by the end of the day. He did have a cough and used it as a way to cause havoc in the classroom by having a coughing contest with Prince Ants-in-the-Pants from the Land of Hyperactivity (the peasants formerly knew him as Prince Charming). By the way, Princess Talks-A-Lot still lives up to her name, but she has toned down considerably on her number of comments that she used to interject within every fraction of silence that she could find. She really is a nice kid -- painfully slow to do her work, but pretty smart, fairly insightful, and always does her work cheerfully... unlike SOME people. The Duchess Whines-Too-Much has been driving me crazy with her complaining about every bit of work she gets. She pretends to not enjoy anything, even if she really does like it. She was whining about her Egyptian dress even though I knew she really liked it because she kept smiling... while whining. She whines about her heritage class, the fact that she doesn't get to change her desk yet, the partner she gets in group work, the time frame allotted for assignments, and basically everything else she can think of. I think I'll teach her a song! "Are you humbly grateful? Or grumbly hateful? What's your attitude? Do you grumble and moan or let it be known you're grateful for all God's done for you?"

In prayer time today, one of the kids prayed for everyone's "Hurtness and sickness." I almost laughed. Then later, our Resident Hypochondriac (who always has a story to go with his every ache and pain that he wants to pray for -- his neck, his elbow, his cheek, his leg...) raised his hand when I asked "What do you call growing in what you know in your mind?" during Bible class and announced, "Internationally!" What a good MK. I said, "You mean intellectually..." and smirked. He's a gem. I like him a lot.

Tomorrow we finish our Egyptian costumes. I don't know what I'm going to do with the Duke of Earl-y To Finish because he rushes through everything like it's one big race and does a messy job. I think I'll make him go back and add more detail and make it look neater.

On the ninth day of 3rd grade my teacher said to me...

Let's make Egyptian costumes!
Where is Ivan?
Memorize your verse!
Study your spelling!
Did you read?
Don't stick your finger in the socket!
What is a digit?
Be respectful and act responsibly!

Well, Ivan is still inflicted with a horrible bout of influenza. That means he's woefully behind since we made Egyptian costumes today. The kids were really into it and loved it... they read books on it first and listed some of the things that the Egyptians did. They were fascinated with the perfumed animal fat. Hahaha. We're going to finish the lesosn on Thursday, much to their disappointment. "Why can't we do it tomorrow???" They were happy that they were the first 3rd grade class to do Egyptian costume making too. Hahaha. Cute kids.

On the eighth day of 3rd grade my teacher said to me...

Where is Ivan?
Memorize your verse!
Study your spelling!
Did you read?
Don't stick your finger in the socket!
What is a digit?
Be respectful and act responsibly!

The poor Knight, Ivan the Terrible, was inflected with some kind of disease and was not present at school today. The whole class seemed different without our sunshine boy . Even Princess Talks-A-Lot had little to say today.

I blame Ivan for my cold. I bet he has a cold too and he probably gave it to me. That's probably not true, but I blame him anyway. :) I have one of those delightful colds and I'm really tired. I took some medicine right near the end of school which gave me a burst of energy so I could paint arm bands and wigs and stuff for 2 hours in preparation for tomorrow's big Egyptian costume day. Woohoo! Hopefully it's not utter chaos. Tune in next time to hear the results.

On the seventh day of 3rd grade my teacher said to me

Memorize your verse!
Study your spelling!
Did you read?
Don't stick your finger in the socket!
What is a digit?
Be respectful and act responsibly!

I have no grand tales of our favorite Knight and Princess, so I'm sorry to disappoint my faithful readers. Today went pretty well. I did teach my first lesson, which I thought was an epic fail towards the end. They kind of zoned out at the end. Oh well. The one thing that worked well was how I paired the kids up and assigned them different passages. The Ezekiel passage was a little more complicated so I gave it to two of the boys who are pretty good readers and have decent comprehension. The one boy nailed it! He really understood what it was talking about.

I need to write my next Egypt lesson for Tuesday. I'm going to have them look through books and read about the Egyptian's hygiene, makeup, and clothing. Then we'll divide into centers and we'll make costumes. The first center will be Egyptian wigs, the second will be neck pieces, the third will be dresses for the girls and kilt-like things for the boys, and because the boys have it easy, they're going to make armbands. It might take 2 periods, but if not, we can compare the Egyptian's idea of beauty, style, and hygiene to what we do today. At the end of the unit, which I might not be here for, I want to have Egyptian Games and they can come dressed up in their costumes and play Egyptian Jeopardy. That will be a good assessment for how much they got out of the unit. Haha.

On the sixth day of 3rd grade my teacher said to me,

Study your spelling!
Did you read?
Don't stick your finger in the socket!
What is a digit?
Be respectful and act responsibly!

The morning started out well with Princess Talks-A-Lot marching in saying, "I couldn't do my homework. I took Ivan the Terrible's take home folder home by mistake." I'm not entirely sure how that could have happened since we had moved their desks on them and Princess Talks-A-Lot now sits in front of Ivan the Terrible. Ivan the Terrible marched in a little while later and was completely clueless as to whose homework folder he had. I asked him if he bothered to look at the name on the homework. The fair Princess only had to do her 100's booklet whereas the evil young chap had a TON of homework, including an apology letter. Somehow, Ivan's brain went on vacation and he didn't even notice the lack of homework. He didn't look at the front of the 100's booklet and just started filling it out. Genius. The Princess was a lot more responsible because she even recorded her reading on a separate sheet of paper when she realized her reading log was in her own folder in the possession of the space cadet Ivan the Terrible.

Elementary had their first chapel today. The kindergarten teacher led them in a bunch of songs I didn't know. I liked them a lot. The kids can really sing! I've never heard so many children sing so in tune! It was beautiful! Of course I had to cover my mouth to keep from laughing because I happened to glance down the row and I noticed Princess Talks-A-Lot singing with gusto and great drama.

I learned more about Ancient Egypt today... and last night. I think I dreamed about Egypt too. I have to come up with my next lesson plan about Egypt... I think I'm going to talk about clothing and makeup and hygiene and have them make costumes.

On the fifth day of 3rd grade my teacher said to me...

Did you read?
Put your homework in the inbox!
Don't stick your finger in the socket!
What is a digit?
Be respectful and act responsibly!

Continuing the Mid-Evil tales, the knight of doom, Ivan the Terrible, managed to have to write an apology letter in his music class today because he pulled the hair of the fair maiden of the Land of Motor Mouth, Princess Talks-A-Lot. Shame on the young brat. On the other hand, the blue-eyed and sweet-tempered Prince Charming (who just happens to struggle with dyslexia) got a special note from his computer teacher for being so well behaved or something. He was all smiles. What a cute kid. He had a couple frustrating moments in school today, poor guy.

The day went rather smoothly. I wasn't paying attention for the first half of the morning because I was writing a lesson and doing some lesson observation stuff. Last night I compiled a list of ideas for the Egypt unit and it was really fun. I enjoyed it, and I hope I get some more creative ideas online. I wrote a lesson plan on Egypt in the Bible and I have the kids divided into 4 groups. They're looking at various passages that mention Egypt and are going to write down stuff they learned. Then in the end, I tie it in with the fact that though Ancient Egypt might be fun to study because it's interesting and maybe "cool," the Egyptians didn't honor God and God judged them and took away all the riches that they were so proud of before. I have a group looking at some passages in Ezekiel. I want them to keep thinking about that as we study the unit -- and think about the Israelites, God's people, who were in the midst of such a land and culture and did not always have the happiest of times, but God was with them every step of the way. Because my lesson needed different pairs than the ones already set up in the room (because of the amount of reading and writing that the lesson requires), we moved everyone around while they were in computer class. They came back and were confused and couldn't find their desks at first. Hahaha.

I have a video to watch on Ancient Egypt. My next lesson is going to be on the Nile. We'll see how that goes.

On the fourth day of 3rd grade my teacher said to me...

Put your homework in the inbox!
Don't stick your finger in the socket!
What is a digit?
Be respectful and act responsibly!

Surprisingly, there isn't too much to report in our ongoing saga of our Mid-Evil fairy tale concerning Ivan the Terrible and Princess Talks-A-Lot. Ivan came barging in this morning and told me he had actually done his reading, but he failed to record it on the little green sheet and my co-op thought he had forgotten again. The boy was sentenced to the dungeons of recess detention so he could do his reading, but then we found he had recorded it in his homework book instead and did not have to undergo such tortures. I sat in the back and took pictures, particularly of Princess Talks-A-Lot as she constantly reached for the sky in an effort to take over the world of spoken communication in the room. Ivan sat next to her bouncing his leg and waving his hand at break neck speed in order to beat her at her quest for linguistic domination. That was my entertainment (and frustration) for the day.

In other tales, the kids are starting a social studies unit on Ancient Egypt. I'm at school and I need to write some lesson observations and start brainstorming the unit. I'm really excited because it looks like it could be a lot of fun. I don't know much about Egypt other than mummies and creepy guys that wear a lot of makeup and also happen to rule the land of the pyramids and camels. I would love to read The Golden Goblet to them, but I'm not sure if that will fit in. It would be a great book to go along with the unit, though.

On the third day of 3rd grade my teacher said to me...

Don't stick your finger in the socket!
What is a digit?
Be respectful and act responsibly!

Yes, Ivan the Terrible, who is not really named Ivan, stuck his finger in the electric socket. Sheer brilliance. What a naughty boy. He was pretty bad today, especially in Filipino Culture class. Princess Talks-A-Lot was in fine form too.
"What are the three main regions of the Philippines?"
"Well... the three main regions of the Philippines are Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao."
She loves to add excessive detail to everything comment she makes. They usually begin with, "Well... I think that's kinda like...."

One of the boys is dyslexic. They had a Bible puzzle where they were supposed to shade the shapes with the letter "b" inside. They formed letters to spell the name Jesus. The other letters chosen were b's and p's. Dyslexic nightmare. Poor guy. He's the sweetest kid, but really struggles in school. It will be interesting trying to figure out how to differentiate instruction to meet some of his needs. At least he's not an annoying kid. He always hugs us when he leaves. So cute!

Tomorrow is the first day of the new Language Arts program. After that gets underway I think I will start picking up lessons. Social studies also starts tomorrow. The unit is Ancient Egypt. That could be really fun! Apparently they mummify a chicken leg. I wonder if we could mummify Ivan the Terrible too... you know, just temporarily.

I read three books today. I have another one waiting for me at home, but I need to write lesson observations before I forget. I need a total of 5.

On the second day of 3rd grade my teacher said to me...

What is a digit?
Be respectful and act responsibly.

Sometimes I'm not sure what I like better -- the class or the fact that the elementary and middle school library is a few doors down and I tend to stop in to get books and visit the guinea pig... Hahaha. Gizmo is quite the guinea pig. He has personality and class. I miss my guinea pig(s). They just have a tendency to die.

The second day was good. I have a ton of notes but I took those mostly for my lesson observations and I don't want to bore you all with the details. The kids did some more introductory things. I really like the kids in the class, even though two are a little more challenging. The one girl that talks incessantly put on her life goal footprint (for a bulletin board) that she wanted to be a preacher. Hmm. Hahaha. Her favorite thing to do is shoot her hand up as high as it will go and then pause and say, "Well I think that's kinda like..." and ramble on for a while. Cute kid, but too talkative. When the kids leave for the day, Janine has this thing called "3 H's" -- they either have to give us a handshake, a hug, or a high five. It's so cute that the little boys still give hugs. Of course, Miss Extreme Talkativity nearly hugged the breath out of me, but the other little boys were sooo cute.

I really like the school and environment and Davao itself. It's a city, but it feels nothing like a city -- mostly because my previous city experience has been Manila.

Next week is the first full week of school! I'm excited! :)

On the first day of 3rd grade, my teacher said to me...

"Be respectful and act responsibly."

The first day of school is halfway over! I was up at 5:45 and was over to school a little before staff devotions at 7. I'm wearing a skirt with bright flowers on it and a white shirt that I just managed to spray water all over when I was trying to rinse my plate off in the teachers' lounge sink. Brilliant. I also have really loud shoes on... clack, clack, clack... Not as bad as the "clompers" that I had as a kid, though.

One of the first activities of the day involved the students coming up with classroom goals. One student misunderstood the directions (write some goals to make 3rd grade a fun and safe classroom) and wrote stuff like "Do some crafts" or "Read as a classroom." They brainstormed by themselves and wrote ideas down on their papers and then got together into two groups and wrote down all their ideas. Those got posted on the board and read and then Janine went through and helped them bring them down to two main classroom rules: Be respectful and Be Responsible. (One of the groups came up with the rule "No burping.")

There are 4 sequential consequences for breaking the classroom rules. Each day is a fresh start. These are the consequences in the order that they happen:
1) Write name on board
2) Stay in class and miss part of recess
3) Write a note home to parents or call them in the presence of the teacher
4) See principal

Of course the most makulit (the word that best describes this child -- no English equivalent can be found) boy shot up his hand and said, "What if we keep doing it after we see the principal?" This is also the kid who snorted several times and then announced that he needed a Kleenex and then proceeded to twist his tissue into a point and began to drill his nose. I tried to tell him not to be so dramatic about it but unfortunately... I was laughing. It was really funny. I sat in the back covering my face at various moments because I was laughing at the kids. They're funny... and one of them talks waaaaaaaaaaay too much. It reminded me of some of the older adult students in classes in college. They talk way too much and ask questions at every opportunity (as they studiously scribble the answer word for word in their notebook and formulate another question that takes about 20 minutes to answer). The girl that talks too much is really spiritually tender and insightful, but she still talks too much.

One classroom management strategy that Janine uses to get the students' attention is to say, "Show me five!" as she holds up her hand. Each finger represents one thing: Eyes facing the speaker, ears listening, mouth quiet, hands still, and body not moving.

Anyway, two kids were absent today so there were only 6 kids in the class. They did 2 math speed tests/diagnostic tests and one really long spelling test. I felt sorry for them. Today they have PE and Library so they won't be back until the last half hour of school. Today was just a lot of introductory stuff and so is tomorrow and probably some of Monday as well.

I used to be jealous of the teachers because I thought they never had to do any work. We students had to take all the tests and do all the homework. Yeah... well now I know how much work goes into teaching and preparing and setting up a classroom. I'd rather be a student. :)

Last day before school starts...

It has been a busy week. I haven't updated in a while, I know, and I apologize. Saturday-Monday was a staff retreat held at Mergrande Resort, about 40 minutes from Faith Academy. We had lots of school-related meetings on Saturday and Monday. It was a little overwhelming, but ok.

Tuesday and Wednesday have been work days designated to setting up classrooms and getting ready. I helped my co-op do various little tasks here and there.

Today I turned 22. It was a different kind of birthday, due to some sad news of two deaths in the past 24 hours -- one of which was news that a fellow student, friend, and co-worker of mine died on August 1st (we just got the email today though). Although it was kind of a sad day for me, it was a good day for keeping various friends in prayer and reflecting on the life that God has given me. Redeeming the time and living fully to the glory of God is what I desire to do because only God knows how much time He has appointed for my life here on this earth.

Anyway, along with those sobering thoughts for the day, the people here (and Jenn -- who I think put a lot of it together... thanks, Jenn! :) ) have been really nice. Janine, my co-op found out it was my birthday by accident (she got to a section on kid's birthdays in her planner thing and she asked when my birthday was and I said... "Today...") and spread the word. Several teachers all went out for lunch at an Italian restaurant. Then later this evening, 3 other teachers came over for cake and ice cream. (Thanks, parents, for the cake contribution!) Marla, the science teacher, brought me flowers! I love flowers. So yeah, it was really nice of them and I really appreciate their thoughtfulness.

School begins bright and early tomorrow! I am excited to finally meet these students we've been praying for and preparing materials for! (That is a poorly constructed sentence, I know.)