You Should Pass It...Right Away.

The title of this blog post has nothing to do with the actual contents of the blog post. This is a phrase that has a funny behind-the-scenes story involving my bro and sis-in-law and it's been rolling around in my head all day.

Anyway!

It's really really awesome how the Lord gives me exactly what I need when I need it - and He withholds from me what I don't need when I don't need it. Quite often do our weekly speakers at chapel come and give a message that I know that the Lord needs me to hear right at that moment. Last Saturday I was talking to my dad about being thankful - and he said that thankfulness is a choice. I thought it was odd that he said this because I'd never really thought of thankfulness as a choice. I suppose I have, but just not in a black/white kind of sense. And then, the next day at chapel, that is exactly what Mr. P spoke about. "You can choose to be thankful or you can choose to be unthankful" actually came out of his mouth from the Lord and staight to my ears. Besides being a wonderful parallel to how salvation is a choice, it reminded me to choose to be thankful for what I have right now. Not what I could have, or where I could be, or what I could be doing.

Then, this week, my personal time with the Lord led me to Philippians, and I came across a part of a verse (4:11) that says "...for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content." Yes, in my single life, at my home, at my 7am - 5pm job, I can be content, because that is where the Lord has placed me. I know I am doing His will because I have peace about it. Confession: I am not naturally thankful for this. I find myself thinking "what if, what if, what if" and I have to conciously stop myself and remind myself to choose to be thankful. Even Paul said he had to learn to be content. Not to my surprise, because my God is just that good, our speaker today, Mr. G., spoke about the fears we have...but how much greater our Refuge is. Two weeks in row the verse from Philippians about not being anxious for tomorrow was given and two weeks in a row I needed to hear it. And that, my friends, is how God works.

And now for a Kindergarten update: 14 school days until Christmas Break! Woo hoo!
My five days off for Thanksgiving will be over at 5am when my alarm signals me to Rise and Shine (and give God the glory glory). This week our letter is N and time is of the essence. There is a certain point I want my students to be at before two weeks of break. I asked them before Thanksgiving break if they were going to forget everything I taught them, and then they started listing things they were going to "practice" over break. Bless them.

There is never a dull moment at my job, and I'm sure this next week will prove to be just as interesting.
I finally got a projector installed in my ceiling, for which I am THANKFUL! It was getting a bit tiresome to move my laptop and arrange the kids so that they could all see the pictures on the little screen. Now I can make (and have already done so) PowerPoints with my visuals and project them on the wall for all to see! Yay!

Til next time,
The Kindergarten Teacher

Counting the Days

Is that bad?

Thank the Lord that He has given me a job I love. Even so, I find myself counting the days until breaks. A three-day weekend was absolutely needed. Though I didn't get as much done as I was expecting, it was very profitable in the "resting" department. I'm starting to come down with my Thanksgiving illness (I am always sick on Thanksgiving...who would have thought this year would be any different?!), so I decided to take it easy this weekend. I'm finding that I'm getting really good at thinking on the spot while teaching, and that's usually when most of my best ideas come.

And now, there are seven school days until Thanksgiving Break, and then another nine until Christmas Break. My grandfather is coming down for Christmas, and that means two things: a lot of playing cards, and a lot of baking cookies. YAY! It will be a much needed break.

I very wisely finished interim reports before this weekend. I knew that I would not want to do that on a Saturday. I'm so proud of how my students are doing...when I think back to week 1 and 2 (shutter) I can really see their progress, and that makes me so delighted. One day I will take a picture of one of their writings to share with my three readers (woot!). One student has just as good handwriting as me. It's incredible!!

Til next time,
The Kindergarten Teacher

There's No Place Like Home

What an interesting week! I have had a very hard time finding the time to post during the week, so for now, unless I somehow miraculously start requiring less sleep, posts will probably be sparse. That just means that when I do post, the posts have to be that much better.

I started my week as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. My mother willingly made me a Dorothy costume for our Storybook Parade that we had on Monday. After our parade, I attempted to make the rest of the morning as normal as possible, but as the Special Area teachers were helping with the middle school Fun Fest (so our Areas were cancelled), that was a challenge. The kids were very adaptive, thankfully. I took advantage of the empty theatre and brought my fun Kindergarten music and we danced around a little to burn some energy before lunch. After lunch, we began our Pumpkin Math workshop. I had five wonderful volunteers to help groups weigh, measure, and count the seeds inside large pumpkins. The kids loved it! It was a very successful first "big activity" and I was pleased with how the kids handled the very different situation. The kids were so exhausted by the time they had counted all the seeds (one pumpkins had 770 seeds...that's a lot of groups of ten) that I popped in Charlotte's Web and let them chill for the last 45 mintues of school. I knew, being Halloween, they would probably have very eventful evenings anyway. And it was my birthday, so I took advantage of the video to clean and get ready for the next day so that I could leave right away after school. :-)



On Tuesday it was back to normal. And again, the kids did very well going back to the normal routine. The week seemed to go by really fast and really slow at the same time (why is that?).

Thursday was an interesting day. On Thursday I learned that I will never ever, ever, cease to be surprised in the education field. Why, you ask? I've been keeping my eye on two students, boy and girl, who are very very very fond of eachother (yes, they are five). Well, I found out that the boy had taken one of his mother's diamond rings and had given it to the girl sometime during that week. And she had taken it home. This exchange must have been done very very quietly because not even the other kids told me. I'm convinced it had to have happened during a special area or lunch, because in the room I always keep them in different places (reminds me of "keeping apart attempts" at camp). Thankfully they were able to get the ring back to the rightful place. After that was assured to me, I was able to laugh a little....ok, a lot.

This week is a 4-day week filled with the Letter 'I' and Interim reports. I can't believe we are halfway through the second quarter! After those first 2 weeks, time flies. I will also be able to see the sun come up (thank you, time-change) and will most likely be going home in the dark (sad face).

Alas, so begins another week in Kindergarten that I am confident will prove to be just as interesting as the past 11 weeks.

I love my job.

Til next time,

The Kindergarten Teacher