The Next Place

We had a final wrap-up session with the choir and then it was time to say good-bye and head off in different directions.  The main part of the choir was flying back to the States together, but a few of us were doing other things.
I determined to get a bit of sleep, but the sudden transition left me unable to relax and sleep. Our small group left early the next morning (better stated as the middle of the night) for the train station.  Sometime after we arrived at the train station, we found out the station was closed the day before due to strikes/demonstrations by the ferry workers.  Tires had been burned on the train tracks.  I slept most of the 2 1/2 hours to Paris.  We arrived at 9:30.  I insisted on food for the first of many times so we started off with crepes.
The Bastille was our first stop.  We stopped for maybe a minute.  I'm not sure what we could have seen if we had looked around, but all we saw was the July Column marking the spot.

We did a lot of walking.  Really miles and miles of walking.  We continued to the Notre Dame where some of us went inside and others waited for a very long time to use the self cleaning bathrooms.

Then we continued to the Louvre, one of the biggest and most famous art museums.  Martha and I were the only ones who went in.  The others found other things to amuse themselves.  We waited in line for over an hour and then spent about 2 hours racing through the museum.  Of course we didn't see anywhere near all of the museum but we did see the Mona Lisa.

By the time we were done it was around 5:00 and the crepes had been digested many hours before and I was begging for food again.  We ate along the well-known street, Ave. des Champs Elysees, but we were too cheap to eat at any of the very expensive places and instead ate a French burger joint equivilent to McDonalds.  And no, I cannot pronounce the name of the street, nor many of the other places and streets we saw.  We laughed all day over our horrible pronunciations, but there was no time to find out the correct way to say them.

We tried to find a certain garden, but the gardens were closed.  We decided to go to a certain Metro station to catch a river cruise but somehow got the wrong train and ended up at the Eiffel Tower.  It turned out to be a good mistake, since the cruise we wanted started at the Eiffel Tower and not the other end.  The cruise was ok but we all agreed that it was the part of the busy day we should have skipped.
The Eiffel Tower.  Perhaps the lines were shorter by 9:00 in the evening than they were at midday, but they were longer than they were a few hours earlier.  I had no idea how many times you need to stand in line to go up and down the Eiffel Tower.

 This really is an accurate representation of how I felt at this point.  Walking all day on almost no sleep and hardly any food, was almost more than I could handle.

Around midnight we exited the Eiffel Tower.  One hour to get back before the Metro closed.  The next hour included a lot of running, climbing over the ticket turn stiles when my tickets disappeared, and dashing onto trains as the doors were closing.  We walked out of the station 4 minutes till 1.  Exhaustion!  And I'm out of time again so I'll finish the next time.

Other Strange Lands

Summer is here and summer is my chance to go other places and do other things.  I really do love teaching, but I usually desperately need summer by the time it comes.  It's here and I'm loving it.  This summer "other places" equaled England, Scotland, and France.  Quite the adventures we had.  Since I already put lots of pictures on Facebook, I'll stick to a few favorite spots and interesting happenings.

Being the C. S. Lewis fan that I am, I was delighted to see the lamp post and door (complete with a lion's face and fauns) that inspired Lewis to write the Chronicles of Narnia.  A number of us also ate at Eagle and Child, the pub where Lewis frequently met with the Inklings.

One of my favorite sandwiches of the tour (bacon, brie, and cranberry) and I did actually take a picture of it.  Now if only I could find this kind of bacon on this side of the pond.  Traveling always does that to me.

 We ate a hurried lunch in Thirsk, the town where James Herriot had his veterinary practice.  Later in the bus we had some James Herriot story time and the pub, Black Bull, where we had eaten lunch was mentioned in the story. The food at the Black Bull also happened to be some of the best I had the entire tour!

  Of course the group I traveled with was a great part of the tour!

Hadrian's Wall.  It was in this area that I suddenly had the contented feeling that I was seeing England as I had imagined it.  Beautiful country!

And then we got to Scotland.  I loved Scotland.  Less refined than England, it felt more closely tied to years gone by.  Of course we enjoyed hearing and struggled to fully understand the Scottish brogue.

 Singing in St. Giles where the sound kept going and going and we had to sing slower than normal so as to take it all in and not be confused.

The Shambles in York.  In this charming little street, where the bottoms of the buildings are smaller than the top, I found it difficult to imagine the days when the shop fronts were full of raw meat and the families in the upstairs rooms threw their waste out the windows and into the streets.

I think I have more favorites that I realized.  I will need to write about the additional 5 days of travel I did with a smaller group at the end of tour another time.

All the Excitement Lands on One Day

On Wednesday we had our Book character dress-up day at school.  Students and teachers were told to dress up as a character from a book.  Most of the teachers obliged and pulled together eye catching costumes.

Unfortunately the photographer failed to get my entire outfit on the picture so you can't see the striped leggings and pink pig feet (pink slippers).  My ears only made it to first recess.  I took them since the headband was too tight and was causing a headache.
My students appeared as characters including Tom Sawyer, Anne of Green Gables, Mama Bear, a cowboy, Daniel Boone, Strawberry Shortcake, Laura and Mary Ingalls, Queen Esther, and Piglet.
You would think I would know that this was enough excitement for one day, but no, I didn't pay attention to that.  I also planned our class book sale for that day.  This was my motivation for good behavior plan that started when we returned to school in January.  Each day the students could earn up to 3 pennies for good behavior.  The pennies were saved for the book sale.  On Wednesday I brought in several boxes of used books I've collected in my many used book store trips.  I invited the mothers to come a bit before school ended to help with the choosing and sale of the books.  I believe the sale was a success.  The help of mothers certainly made the sale much easier for me.

Loaded book shelves before the start of the sale.

I have to say that this time of the year is my favorite.  Not because of the weather!  And not because of student motivation (which tends to be low at the end of winter)!  It's because the students are reading so well and that is so much fun.  They love to read and gobble up the new books I put out.  It's fun to put out new books and find they need more a few days later.  Right now I bring crates of books to our room from the school library.  In another month or two I'll have to go to the public library to keep up.

First Grade Drawings

And they're reading...
 It's been seven school days since we started putting sounds together and making words.  They did learn how to sound out simple words in Kindergarten, so for some students we are still doing review.  Others have forgotten.  Even though I know the process of teaching a child to read, it is still partly a mystery how this really unfolds.  I'm glad the first month is behind us.  We had a good beginning, but I'm ready to move past this in-between stage.  It's such a relief when they can read well enough to reread the directions and figure things out themselves a bit more.
Most worksheets that my students are doing right now require a little reading but if the child is very observant, they could do much of the paper without reading at all. My students have one set of worksheets that always make me smile.  This set of papers must be read.  The word is given and they need to draw the picture for the word.  My smiles come from the pictures.  Here are a few of the pictures.

 rip Note the hole in the shirt.

 rat.  The artist was a bit unsure about the feet.  I had to hurry them along so the paper would get finished.

 rug.  I like the detail.

 man  Yes, don't forget the beard...  and ears.

men  Interesting perspective.

I like these worksheets.  Some students don't like them at all but there are always a few that excel in artwork and love these pages.  And it's fun to see their creativity.

An Exciting Week

One thing that I have been passionate about for many years is reading.  I remember being punished as a child with "no more books for the rest of the day."  That was a tough punishment.  I also remember responding by asking if I could still read my Bible.  Of course Mother wasn't going to ban Bible reading.  At least one time I remember taking her up on that.  Somehow the intended "revenge" wasn't as sweet as I thought it would be.  Thankfully as I matured, Bible reading was part of my passion for reading rather than revenge.

Now as a teacher, I believe that teaching students to read well, both in mechanics and in discernment, is key in their journey of deciding to do with God's Word.  Obviously if they never learn to read the words on the page, Bible reading will be difficult.  If children's reading material exposes them to much evil, they can be led far from truth while they are easily swayed.  If their reading material is too sheltered, they will grow up thinking that one should believe everything they read as truth. 

I just realized how far off subject I have strayed.  The main point of my post was to show off the books that arrived for my classroom this week.  Our classroom really needed some books of it's own and now we have some.  What better way to get children excited about books!

 This first set of books are going to be used for reading class in the second half of the year.  I'm pretty excited about this experiment and I think the students will be, too.

 The Hardcover books (all ready for our shelves).

The soft cover books.  Sure wish books came already covered with contact paper, but I'm happy enough with my books that I'll try not to complain. 

The students have figured out that the secretary keeps bringing us more books.  They've started to get excited when she walks in.  So do I.

Tonight I went to a 15 year high school reunion.  I think 17 out of 31 classmates made it.  I enjoyed seeing this group again who was such a huge part of my world for 4 very formative years of my life.

Summer Is Over and Gone

Last school year ended a really long time ago.  I thoroughly enjoyed having such a long break.  Problem is, I'm still waiting for summer.  As I told my sister, I wore a sweatshirt and socks almost everyday this "summer".  A few weeks ago I resigned myself to waiting another year for summer.  Even if hot weather still comes, I will not be able to go outside and enjoy it anyway.  The time for school has come again.

Our theme this year is Reading/books.

Good by to freedom.  Hello regular schedule.  Eager to meet the 18 new faces tomorrow morning.

6 meals = 18 items

Today I was ordering lunch for myself and five children at Wendy's. As I ordered each item the cashier asked, "Is that everything?" and looked apologetically at the man in line behind me and rolled her eyes slightly.  Yes, it was pretty many different items (drink/fries/sandwich or nuggets for each) but I was ordering as fast as the cashier could punch buttons and I was fairly organized if I say so myself.  I fought the urge to grin very big.
Later the manager came by to ask if everything was O.K. and check if the youngest two children were filling their hollow legs.  Needless to say he did not get a reply from either child.  I thought he was lucky to get smiles.
And then I went back and ordered two large frosties.  I really wanted to order six smalls in six different flavors while keeping a straight face.  I didn't.  There aren't six flavors anyway.

The stop at Wendy's came after time at the park and a stop at the used book store.  I think we all had a good day.  Oh, and the food really was just fine even if the service was a bit unique.

The others were running too much to get individual shots.