el acontecimiento principal

For months, the residents of Classroom #2 have been training for a 5K, and today we finally did it!   

The goal of all our blood, sweat, and tears (maybe not blood) was the 5K at Colegio San Gabriel, the school for the deaf in San Juan.  It was the perfect setting for Kevin and Kristian’s first race.  Along with having the race experience, they were able to see some friends and acquaintances afterwards. 

To make it even more exciting, volunteers Brendan, Rebekah, and Joella joined us for the fun—and Jen came too!

As you can see, before the race began we were all smiling.  Kevin and Kristian were filled with nervous excitement. 

Brendan was kind enough to be our bag man and babysitter.  

Thanks Brendan! 

Then the gun went off, and so did we!

Kevin took off way ahead of everyone, and finished in 25 minutes (not too shabby!)

Kristian, Jen, and I stayed together.  Krisitan wore himself out in the beginning as he let his excitement get the best of him.  He ran a good part of the first kilometer, and then we caught up with him.  This race was a lot longer of a distance than we have practiced in gym class, but Jen and I did our best to encourage Kristian and distract him.  And then finally, we made it to the finish line!

The best thing about races in Puerto Rico is that we’re all winners!

And we were all still smiling by the end of it!

voluntarios maravillosos

I don’t think I’ve mentioned before the latest and greatest addition to ESD…our new volunteers Brendan, Rebekah, and their baby Joella.  For the past few months, they have been coming a few days a week to work in the classrooms and on the grounds.  Brendan comes to my class in the morning for vocabulary and reading classes.  Rebekah is a nurse, and she teaches health class to my boys.  They are so hard-working and willing to do whatever we ask of them.  They are learning sign language…fast.  In fact, Rebekah recently taught health (about the circulatory system) without an interpreter!  Joella is five-months old and is adorable.  And my favorite part…she gets to hang out in my classroom while her mom and dad work around the school.  On Friday, Kristian had math class with Joella on his lap!

Okay, now that you have the background…on to the blog…

It seems that I often write about Friday story time.  I guess that just shows how much I love it.  This week, we had a treat.  On Wednesday, I asked Brendan if he would work with Kristian to plan story time.  He willingly agreed and ran with the idea.  Watch the video for yourself…(if you listen carefully, you can hear me interpreting it---also, Brendan is wet because he was attacked by water balloons shortly before)

Then, Brendan and Rebekah further topped all previous story times by bringing in homemade cupcakes and icing for the kids to decorate.  They had so much fun! 

la semana santa

I was fortunate to be able to spend this past week in New Jersey.  I took the opportunity to sleep, read, visit friends, and most importantly--spend time with my family.  Even though it was only for a week, this trip really recharged me for the end of the school year.  

I arrived to PR at 1am Easter morning.  So I spent the first part of Holy Week with my New Jersey family and the end with my Puerto Rican one.

Happy Easter! 

And he said to them, "Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here."

Mark 16:6

una semana de soledad

This was a lonely week in my classroom.  Every day I was the only one in it.  One of my boys is sick, and I have no idea what happened to the other one. 

On Monday and Tuesday, I didn’t mind the solitude.  I got some work done, and I visited other classes.  On Wednesday, my empty classroom was getting a bit old.  Betsy found some work for me to do, and again I did some more of my own prep work and visited other classes.  Thursday was a holiday, so at least the whole school was empty.  By Friday morning, I was still holding out a little hope that at least one of my boys would show up, but…nope!  In fact, we only had 4 kids in school and they all arrived late!

So on Friday, I ran a school errand, helped out in the office, and I even got to hang out with the kids for a while.  I was really starting to miss teaching!  I led chapel in the morning and calendar time in Jen’s classroom.  Then later, I read a story to the students (I haven’t done this in a while since my boys and Leo have taken over this job.)  At the end of the day, I taught gym class to one of Judy’s kids and played baseball with the littlest ones.

I realized today how much I missed taking part in story time.  So the rest of this blog post will be about this week’s story.  It is called The Whales’ Song.  If you would like to know the story, watch the video below.  Try to understand as best as you can.

 

After the story, we painted a scene from the book with watercolors and glued on whale silhouettes.  This was an activity that I wouldn’t have been able to do as effectively with the full group of kids, so for this reason I was glad to have only a few children. 

Enjoy the video, enjoy the pictures, and please pray that I have students next week!

arte de crayolas

You may be wondering what this is...it's art, of course!

Jen has been looking for a way to use up old crayons, and she found this fun project on pinterest.com.  The timing was perfect because I was in the middle of teaching about color in my art classes.


The project is so simple, and so fun...all you have to do is glue some crayons on a piece of cardboard and melt them with a hairdryer. 

I was able to use it to teach the younger kids about mixing primary colors to make secondary colors. 

 The older kids learned about warm and cool colors through this project.

The kids' enthusiasm was reminiscent of last year's packing tape sculpture phase.  I love when the students get so excited...I wonder what the next craze will be.  

I think Jen is already consulting pinterest for me.