As a Child

It was a day to be thankful that I get to work with children. Last Friday reminded me of the joy of childhood. It was an exciting day in second grade as our Painted Lady butterflies hatched. I listened to the excitement in the children's voices while they watched the butterflies unfold their tiny wings, unroll their slender pieces of tongue, and begin climbing to the top of the cage. Later, on recess duty, I watched a child exuberantly chasing a butterfly across the playground, trying to catch it. The look on her face was pure joy. I know there are also days that remind me of the challenges children can bring, but this was a day to focus on the innocence, curiosity, and joy in life that children tend to have more than adults. So often I, as an adult, am weighed down by the challenges of life. Friday was a wonderful reminder for me to take the time to be awed by the little things - such as the hatching of a butterfly. God is so good!

Sandi Patty Concert

Sandi Patty, an award-winning Christian singer, gave a concert at my church this evening. It was a wonderful time filled with praise to the Lord. She sang some great "old" songs, including one of my favorites, Via Dolorosa, and mixed in some newer ones as well. She also shared several stories from her life. When she was in high school, her goal was to perform at Disneyland and she was crushed when she wasn't hired. But later she realized that God wasn't saying no to Disneyland. He was saying yes to something better. I really like that - what a neat twist of thought. It puts things that disappoint us into the proper perspective. God doesn't just say no. When it seems like He's saying no to something that I want, he's already said yes to something else I just haven't seen yet. I love the fact that God sees (and plans) the big picture! Speaking of pictures, I don't have any of Sandi Patty for the blog because our church choir was able to sing four songs with her (how cool!!) during the concert; it's a little hard to take pictures when you're singing. We ended the concert with one of my favorite songs: How Great Thou Art. It was a great evening.

Circus

Last night I relived my childhood by attending the circus with my dad!  We had a great time watching the acrobatics, clowns, and animal acts.  Although I have mixed feelings about the whole animals in circuses debate, it was thrilling to see the tigers and elephants, as well as horses, zebras, and dogs.  The acrobat and aerialist acts were spectacular.  It was also interesting to watch all the workers setting up and taking items down in one area while an act was going on in another area.  Everything moves like clockwork.  I even got to pet a couple of the dogs and talk to the ringmaster before the show began.  The entire circus was very well done and definitely entertaining.  

Technology - Good and Bad

I introduced my second graders to the concept of blogging yesterday afternoon.  I had a great lesson plan: explain what a blog is, show samples of individual and classroom blogs on our class computer, and then set up our own class blog.  In an ideal technological world, everything would have worked great.  Unfortunately, I do not live in an ideal technological world!  The first part of the lesson did turn out well.  Only one student had heard of a blog before (his family already has a blog); most of the kids thought it was a "blob" at first.  They liked the idea, though, so I started to show some blog examples which I had bookmarked on my computer.  We had just begun looking at the first example when our classroom lost it's internet connection.  After trying to work through it - using both Safari and Firefox - I finally gave up and we decided to move on to math and come back to the blog later.  Of course, once the kids were all working on their math activities, our internet connection came back.  Talk about frustrating!  Anyway, we only looked at a couple of the examples, but we did get our own class blog started.  The students chose a name:  Second Grade Scotties, and a layout, and then we added a class picture, and their first post (dictated to me).  The lesson turned out fine, but it sure would be nice to live in a technologically perfect world when you're trying to teach a lesson dealing with technology.

New Glasses

Yeah!  I picked up my new glasses this afternoon.  They're much smaller than my other ones, but I can see much better with them.  

Routines

I've been waiting for some really profound thoughts before adding a post, but nothing's come up and I'm thinking I need to update as we've now been in school for two weeks.  It's getting a little easier to get up in the morning (although I really love sleeping in on Saturdays), and we're beginning to develop some routines in the classroom.  My students are really sweet and social; we're still working on the social part.  Our new reading curriculum has arrived and almost all of the supply order is here, so things are moving along well.  This week we're reading stories about "Frog and Toad" and learning about the life cycle of a frog in addition to our insect study, so we're getting a lot of science in.  Thankfully the rain stopped today, so the kids could have outside recess (and I could get my cup of coffee).

On another topic, Christian singer Sandi Patty is coming to my church on Thursday, September 25 for a free women's concert - if you're near Holland, check it out at Christ Memorial Reformed Church.  Our church choir is going to sing several songs with her, which should be fun.  We've definitely gotten into the singing routine to practice for the concert.

My dog, Tosca, is also trying to help us follow a routine of a daily walk after work.  Most days it's working.  We'll see how it goes when the weather gets colder.

All in all, I think routines are good.  They give me a sense of belonging - of finding my place. After a more relaxing, routine-less summer, it feels good to fall back into a routine.   But the most wonderful routine is the fact that God is with me every day.  I'm thankful that His routine doesn't take a summer "break."

School

Summer is officially over; we had our first day of the new school year today.  Although I love the relaxing pace of summer, there's something nice about getting back into a routine again. It will, however, take a little while to get used to getting up with the alarm clock.  There's an excitement about a new school year: new faces, eager children, a fresh start.  Each year as I pray for my new students and their families I'm awed with the trust I'm given to teach these children about God and His world.  I love teaching second graders and enjoyed meeting them today.  After only one day I can tell it's going to be a great year!