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.