new friends at Luz y Vida

Last Thursday, November 12, we traveled into the city to visit students at Luz y Vida School. They welcomed us with respect and friendship. We listened to them singing in Spanish, then sang to them in English, during their devotional time. After sharing our extra snacks with them,we played together in "The Jungle," an auditorium designed to build self-confidence and stretch muscles! They teamed up with ECA kids as partners, showing how to climb the wall, totter across a swinging bridge to slide down a very tall pole, hang in hammocks, and play soccer holding hands! No one wanted to leave after 1 1/2 hours! We will pray with our new friends for more generous people to help pay for this auditorium, the "Big Foot" project, before Christmas, as described in www.colombiastreetkids.com.
Our goal is to buy Christmas gifts for these students before their school ends on November 20.
We hope they can come visit us at ECA in a few months.

Christian characters

Who is who????? Kids dressed as characters who followed God,who are worthy of copying. Parents added to the excitement and show, watching the parade. This day is a highlight to end the month of October.

in chapel

Today, Joyce led in singing and Daniel Barrios played the drums. Both of these second graders were using their God-given gifts in music!! Mr. Hudgins talked about God as our Best Friend: He never says, "I won't be your friend anymore," even when we disobey Him, like Adam and Eve did. We can be like God, and never say those words, but always be there for our friends.

practicing Korean

Joyce's mother, Mrs. Kang, joined us Monday afternoon to teach us how the Korean language shows respect to elderly and adults. We learned how to say "hello" and "good bye" to kids and to adults. We practice when we greet each other in the morning.

Joyce helped her mom serve from piles with beautiful round rice treats, using chopsticks! They explained these are NOT sushi, but kim bab, a Korean food. Most second graders were brave to try this new food that Mrs. Kang had graciously made for us. We found it can be fun and interesting to learn from people who are different from us!

Thank you, Joyce and Mrs. Kang!!

Learning respect from Koreans

THANK YOU, parents, for coming to meet with me on Saturday. I am reflecting on what I learned from you about your children, and thinking about some changes, especially in homework. I appreciate your perspective very much.

Last THURSDAY, Flood Day, we had just 11 second graders at school. Isabella had brought a FROG to our classroom. Because it had not eaten much, we spent recess time that day, catching mosquitos in the chapel room. Lissi's mom helped us by lifting the lid on the frog's cage to put the bugs inside.

Last WEDNESDAY, JOYCE wore her Korean dress, and explained when and why she would wear it. She tried to teach us a few Korean words, so I wondered if her mother would be able to come to teach us more. She agreed, so we will be learning about how Koreans show RESPECT in their language from Joyce's mother on Monday.

Digging for History

Thank you for coming to our Open House! Teachers and students are always encouraged when parents come to our daily work place.

Last Friday 2nd graders got dirty, digging for buried things. We are talking about how we learn about the past: photos, stories (like the Bible), older folks (grandparents and parents), and items left behind. To begin our Story of the World curriculum for social studies, students excitedly dug into dirt to discover things like part of a skeleton, parts of cooking utensils and buildings. Archeologists try to predict how these things were used in the past.

A curious middle school science teacher wandered by to ask questions and share our excitement!

We will be studying about ancient peoples, beginning with the Greeks.

Two Mr. Wainmans!!

Today Mr. Wainman, Sr. came to visit. In Bible class we listened to both of them tell their stories of adoption. They described how their relationship is like God's relationship with us: He wants to adopt each of us into His family.

Touring construction in the new building was our field trip this afternoon. Wearing the hard hats was a much fun as looking through the windows into the building where our classroom is now.

Getting Started

This is my spot to show you photos from El Camino about what second graders are doing. Thanks for checking occasionally to get a peek inside our classroom and school.

STARTING OFF RIGHT....

PROCEDURES: Our first week we learned and practiced procedures for preparing for the day in the morning, preparing for lunch, preparing to pack up to go home.

RESPECT is one of the largest words on our wall: RESPECT God, RESPECT others, RESPECT myself. What does this look like? sound like?

READING: Reading to self is the first skill we described and practiced. Each book I read to my 23 students will be an opportunity to teach strategies to enable them to become better readers.

F.R.O.G.S. are the titles of notebooks for carrying papers between school and home. It stands for For a Responsible Organized Growing Student. Kids are almost finished, in time to start observing a real frog tadpole in SCIENCE!

Next week: Ms. Laib spent 2 years living in Madagascar. She will help us learn about people who are different from us.

SPELLING begins officially. Color words and number names will help us review short and long vowels.

BIBLE centers on God's faithfulness to His promises. He made a covenant with all people after Noah obeyed Him.

MATH includes graphs of birthdays, patterns in clapping names, classifying ourselves.

RENWEB will contain spelling words and Bible verses each week.