Night School

It all started as an interesting observation, became a joke and flourished into a winning idea!

Tuesday was an unbelievably hot day.  Mid-morning I told my kids we were going to have to turn the fans on five (otherwise known as "the blow every loose paper to kingdom come" setting) because the sweat was just dripping off of us.  Later after our Tuesday volleyball night, I was headed home.  It was about 9:45 in the evening and there was a group of about 20 men in reflective vests sweeping the roads.  I thought to myself, that's brilliant - work at night after the sun has gone down!  And why aren't we going to school then too?

Wednesday morning I told my kids about what I had seen and I suggested that it would be a great idea if we started going to school at night.  They were not at all convinced!  Who knows exactly what I said then to try and convince them it was a great idea but the next morning, the three instigators arrived with flashlights in hand, ready for "Night School."  They were so proud of their little joke and to be sure, it tickled my funny bone too.

Of course, when the other students saw the instigators' flashlights they were disappointed that they hadn't brought their own.  I think they thought I had told them to do so, not realizing that the joke was on me.  So we had "Night School" on Thursday and we kept the lights off all day while our three friends shone their lights on things for us.  But everyone wanted to participate so we made official plans for "Night School" on Friday.  Everyone could bring their flashlight and wear their pajamas since that's what you do at night.

Hard At Work

A Little Bit of Whiteboard Action with Our Fancy Clip-On Flashlight

A Midnight Snack

Bedtime Reading

Settling in for a Snooze

"Night School" definitely gets the two thumbs up award from this crowd!

Awkward But Cool

We have penpals that live across the world from us all the way in the great state of Texas.  We had a skype conversation with our penpals today.  It was a little on the awkward side but still very cool!

Awkward - My students couldn't seem to treat this as a normal conversation.  Their penpal would introduce themselves and there would be this long silent pause before I prompted them, "Say 'Hello' or 'it's nice to meet you!' Tell them your name.  Ask a question."  You would have thought we had never had a civilized conversation before!

Cool - The two penpals who talked to each other and had so much to say because they are both into riding horses.  No awkward pauses there!

Awkward - The school announcements with the Pledge of Allegiance and the Pledge to Texas (didn't know there was such a thing) came on the intercom in the middle of our conversation.  They told the kids they didn't have to stand  but there was one little kid behind the camera who was confused.  He was up.  He was down.  He was looking around.  It was awkward!

Cool - In discussing questions we could ask, one of my kids wanted to ask her penpal if they believed in God!  I love the fact that that was her number one question!

Awkward - It was awkward to have to tell her that she probably couldn't ask that question since our penpals are in a public school.

Cool - One of our penpals tried some French out on our French speaker when she said, "Au revoir!" at the end of her conversation.

Awkward - My kids told their penpals about Jumpy, our classroom pet.  They all wanted to know what kind of spider it was.  I'm sure they are picturing tarantulas or some other kind of exotic spider and not this.

Cool - My teacher counterpart asked about the staffing situation at the school and I got to share the great news of how God is providing.

Awkward - It was awkward the number of American children who looked at me with a question in their eyes when they were asked what state in the U.S. they were from.

Cool - Listening to all the kids ask each other where they were from and hearing our penpals respond with "Texas, Texas, Texas" and then hearing our students respond with "Nigeria, South Korea, Australia, Switzerland, Niger, Canada" - Now that was just COOL!

Seeds, Kid Quotes & Rain

We are in the middle of a unit on plants.  We've planted some flower seeds and we are watching them, hoping against hope that they will sprout but we have some overzealous gardeners and I think they may be over watering.  In talking about the different parts of plants, we read the book A Seed is Sleepy.  The illustrations in this book are beautiful!  Not to mention, it fits right in with the work we've been doing with adjectives and it's filled with interesting facts about seeds. 

This particular page led to some funny second grade quotes.

After thinking for a few minutes, one little girl said, "That's really inappropriate."  Another little boy offered, "My sister can sew it some clothes."  Funny, funny little second graders.

Speaking of funny kid moments, you may remember Microwave Man, the little first grader who desperately wanted to use the microwave at the beginning of the school year.  He was back again this week.  I saw him standing in front of the microwave with his fully popped popcorn on a plate.  "You aren't trying to warm that up, are you?" I asked, "because you don't need to."

With a disappointed look he responded, "Well, it says popcorn (on the microwave)!"  Ha...we don't exactly know about microwaveable popcorn around these parts! :)

And now for the rain...

Sitting in my classroom after school yesterday afternoon, I was surprised by the sound of rain on the roof.  I hadn't noticed that the sky had been overcast but when I went out side the rain was definitely coming down.  It was just enough to wet the dry ground and plenty to provide a little time to dance in the rain and start a game of barefoot soccer in the rain.

Oh, Yes He Does...

...have a snowboard here in Niger!

Oh, Yes She Did...

...take that whole plate of grasshoppers with the intention of eating it all!

Celebrating Our Unique Cultural Heritage

Friday was Multicultural Day at Sahel Academy.

We began our celebration with a Parade of Nations. 

There are 22 countries represented in our student body and that's not counting the students whose parents come from two different countries.

Niger

Cameroon

Congo

Nigeria

Mali

Chad

Benin

Togo

France

Switzerland

England

Italy

Sweden

Iran

Pakistan

India

Korea

Australia

New Zealand

Brazil

United States
and

Canada

Our students were dressed to the nines in traditional clothes from their homelands.

They got to enjoy traditional foods from a variety of countries - things like sushi, grasshoppers, maple syrup, chin chin, grits and apple pie.

The students got to enjoy or participate in dances from a variety of countries.

Here's the Africa group breaking it down:

In each room the students learned interesting facts about the countries represented.  They saw a variety of artifacts from the countries and they got to participate in games or activities unique to those countries.  There were wrestling and taekwondo matches, a type of Korean jacks, a fashion contest, "snowball fights" and even a chance to get a little henna on your hands among other things.

Here the Swiss kids sing a song about a Cuckoo Clock:

 Celebrating the amazing mix of cultures at our school brought a smile to many faces!

Desk Love

Remember how I covered up my desks like this so my kids could collect interesting words for their poems.

Next week we'll be taking a standardized test so we uncovered them

so that the desks can easily be moved apart. 

This was an amazing moment for them! 

Apparently, they have missed their desk tops. 

They couldn't stop going on about how beautiful they were.  

They were hugging them. 

Yes, that's right - hugging and kissing them! 

One was waxing poetic about how they had been

passed down

from generation to generation. 

 

I think next time I won't even bother passing out skittles for graphing and eating 

since uncovering one's desk is far more exciting!