Classroom Happenings

We are have reached the longest month of the school year. March always seems to take forever especially since we have no breaks.             I am trying to have a more positive lookout on it this year. I am excited for multiple weeks of continuous learning. Whenever we have breaks and really throws us for a loop. I am so proud of my students this year. They have really done a great job inside the classroom. Some times I can tell they are getting tired of all the work but for the most part they push through it. Some days I have create some incentives or games to keep them cheery and happy but I am okay with that! Whatever gets them learning.

            We have started our second novel study of the year. A novel study is when we pick one particular book and read it as a class. Since we only have one copy of the book we are reading out loud. This way I can work on their comprehension skills along with listening all at once. We just started reading Charlotte’s Web. I have never read the book before or saw the movie so I am just as excited as my students. Today we started reading the book and our reading class is supposed to finish at 9:00 and I got a little into the book. Shocker. Before I knew it was 9:00 my students all giggled when I figured out what time it was. They go the book was so good we didn’t want to stop you from reading. In reality they all just want to finish the book because I promised we would watch the movie once we finished the book. One of my students also told she went on youtube last night and watched the movie because she couldn’t wait to see what happened…. I told her I would be very upset if she tells me how the book ends. I am really hoping by reading this book they will become more motivated to read chapter books.

            As we are reading this book I had to spend a large amount of time explaining what a farm was. Along with teaching them farm words. Coming from living in a farm community we grew up knowing all these words. It was fun to explain to them a farm and all the different types of animals. I just love when they get so interesting in their learning.

            We are also working on a big project in our Science class. We just finished talking about the four different spheres and how natural disasters affect them. We are now going to create a news report over tsunamis and how we can prepare for one. Each student will record their news report on the ipad for all to see. They are pretty excited about this. Another student told me they were watching videos over natural disasters last night on youtube. At least they are watching stuff related to class at home!

            Hope you are all doing well at home!

Love,

Abby

Tropical Depression and Goodbye

The weather took quite a turn this past week. On Friday after school it seemed as if it was never going to stop down pouring. For a solid four hours the rain just kept falling from the sky. I remember thinking at that moment I wonder what it was like when God created the flood because it is raining so hard but I could imagine what it was like then. After a night of down pouring the rain decided it wanted to continue on to Saturday. On Saturday morning Lusi and I made our way across to get some groceries. When we got onto the boat I saw this big cloud and thought oh crap it’s going to be one of those days. Well by the time we got off the boat we were already wet. After buying and tightly wrapping our groceries into our plastic bags we walked back to the boat. Then the wind came. You can only imagine what happens when its windy and raining and you are on a boat. By the time we got back to our house we were dripping. Luckily by some miracle my phone did not get wet.

            The rain continued to fall and by Sunday night we were in a tropical storm watch. We only received the tail end of the storm, which led to a lot of rain and wind. The cement walkway that goes through our planation had so much water on top of it that fish were swimming on it. While I was walking I could see the fish swimming. A major positive of the rain was that school got cancelled on Monday! Yay!! My first “rain day” of the year. When its raining this much none of the kids will come to school and considering we don’t have sealed windows at the school water gets inside the classroom. So its better to just call it off.

            On Tuesday morning one of my students informed me that she would be moving off island. This was going to be her last week of school. Saddened by the news I tried to stay positive for her. I am so excited that she gets a chance to go off island and have better opportunities. She will definitely be missed inside the classroom. She kept telling me all of the things she was going to do. On Friday morning she even brought me a gift basket. My teacher heart was so happy and sad.

            We have finally gotten our sun and heat back, didn’t think I would be so excited to see the sun again! I can’t believe it’s the month of March already. The school year seems to be flying by. Now we are entering our six weeks of school with no breaks. Pray for us teachers that we keep our sanity. This is always the toughest part of the school year.

With Love,

Abby

Refueling

Sundays are my day to “refuel” myself for the week. I spend my days catching up on schoolwork, homework, and housework. I also make sure to set time aside to actually relax. Some weeks it seems that the work can just pile up but in order to keep my sanity I have to let myself take a break. As I was reflecting over my week and the upcoming week the one thing that kept coming back to my mind was my car.

            I am not sure I have mentioned this in my blog yet but way back in November my car overheated. Not real surprising in the extreme heat and salt conditions we have here. We brought the car in thinking it would be a nice quick fix. Man was I wrong. At first frustration was flowing from. I was so mad that it just wouldn’t be fixed. I was upset about how much money ended up getting put into this car. I also missed the convenience of being able to go to town whenever I wanted. As time started to pass I kept praying for this car to be fixed. Still no answer. As I was sharing with Lusi I told him about how sometimes I think God gives us blessings in disguise. At first we don’t really understand why something may be happening in our life and we may become very frustrated. As the bible says many times we need to be patient and God will do things in his own timing. I believe that this was one of these moments. The car was becoming a major stress in our lives. No need to get into the details. It was causing us to get into disagreements and added stress. Once the car was broken we noticed quite a change. Both of us were a lot less stressed. We spent more Saturdays enjoying the island life instead of trying to do American things and eat American food. We ended up finding nice little marts to shop at a lot closer to home and a lot cheaper. We also became very appreciative of the bus system and still being able to get around the island when needed. Not having a car reminded me a lot of my first year here and reminded me of why I fell in love with this place. So even though I didn’t see it at first I believe it was truly a blessing.

            Sometimes we don’t understand why things are happening in our lives we just have to trust the process. Everything always has a strange way of working out. 

With Love,

Abby