And The Fun Continues....

It is hard to believe that the end of February is here and we have just finished our third week of school. This week was such a week of big up and big downs. After suffering from a case of what Ryan has deemed "the weepies" last week (let's not get into the details :) I was praying this week would be better. Man were my prayers answered.

On Monday, we realized that our backyard has been breached. My guess is that it is one of the only "safe zones" in our neighborhood. A safe zone is a place where people don't pelt rocks at any animal or wild screaming kids don't try to trap them for amusement. Needless to say, every day we came home from work we saw a new addition.  (The horse might be my fault. I keep feeding him in hopes his owner will think he has run away and then I can keep him for my own.)

Ryan was reading a magazine and felt a pair of eyes on him. Then we saw this!

In Ryan's word's: "Of course the horse whisperer need to get up close"

Yes, the wild cat without a tail sleeps in our garbage pit now.

And those shy piglets now have no problem enjoying meals in our yard. Thanks for nothing pig fence!

          
 On Tuesday I came up with the idea to make bean bags and have the class 3/4 kids try to do a bunch of things with them for exercise club. I lost my shit when we tried a move where they had to put the bean bag between their legs, jump up with it, and try to release and catch it. I don't even have the words to describe what that looked like. The kicker? All the class 1 and 2 kids trying to do it too in the door of their classroom minus the beanbags. I literally fell on the ground laughing and all the kids copied me thinking it was the next move. God I love these kids.

Now that's resourceful!

Ryan has been pulling out a group of 5 boys from our class 5/6 class. They are really low and struggle to keep up in the class. So, Ryan decided to teach them in a small group every day to make them more comfortable and help them build basic skills. On Wednesday, one of the boys came up and said, "Epi, look, I read." He then read the book Ryan had chose for the day (pay special attention to the title). He was so proud of himself. He then told me, "Epi, Ryan make Toutai study lot this year. It good." Awesome :)

Ryan: "I go halfway around the world and I still can't escape this lady!"

On Wednesday I accidentally hit a kid in the head with a door. Let me explain. There is this one kid in our 3/4 class named Noela. He is a ittle busybody who always finds a reason to be out of his seat. He goes to the bathroom about 15 times a day.  So, on Wednesday, I went to use the bathroom. When I was finished, I opened the door and hit something. It was Noela. Yep, he was standing that close to the door while I was using it. When I asked him what in the heck he was doing, he replied, "I saw you go to the bathroom, so I got you water." Nice. He heard me use the bathroom, but at least I didn't have to haul my own water to flush!

Thursday was by far my favorite day of the week. It poured buckets, which makes class really hard because of the noise on the tin roof. So, Ryan and I decided to try some drawing activities since we had the supplies. (Thanks for the crayons Nina!!!) In our class 3/4 class, we told them they were going to write and draw a book about their family. When I took out my model to show them, they literally gasped. Ryan and I were a little worried this would be chaos since colors are not something kids ever get to use and drawing is not a practice used here in classrooms. But, the kids were so into their creations, there was hardly a peep. One little boy was trying to get the rest of the kids to be silly with him, but to no avail. Ryan took this boy out and made him sit outside the classroom. He came in five minutes later bawling, begging Ryan to let him come back to class. When Ryan said yes, the rest of the class clapped. Sione sat right down and got to buisness.

In class 5/6, the same thing happened. We took kids in small groups to the library to teach them how to pick books to practice reading in English at home. The rest of the kids were decorating a portfolio cover in the classroom.  When I came back to the classroom after working in the library, I couldn't believe my eyes. The class was silent, like, pin- dropping silent. Every kid was focused and engaged on making their cover. It was one of those magical classroom moments you hope to experience and wish you could make last forever when it does. When I broke the silence to say class was over, the kids decided we should continue after school. I told them we would for sure finish Monday. Every student stopped by the library on the way home to make sure and remind me to keep my promise.

Feeling good, Ryan and I walked a bunch of our little kids home in the rain. This meant holding the umbrella over the gaggle of them while we took a brutal soaking from the run-off.  We decided to warm up with afternoon Starbucks coffee and actual pillsbury snickerdoodle cookies sent in a care package from home.  All in all, one of my favorite weeks here.