Sahel Academy Spirit Week 2015

Every year before the annual NUTS softball tournament here in Niamey, Sahel Academy celebrates spirit week.  We break out our nuttiest costumes and our most amazing cheers.  Here's a peek into 2015's Sahel Academy Spirit Week.

Monday was Sweets Day.  I loved this little guy's fruit salad and then there is the most refreshing sweet of all - Coca-Cola!

I thought the bottle opener was an awesome touch.

Tuesday was Fanatic Day so the kids all dressed to show what/who they cheer for.  Here's a picture of my whole class minus one student.

Wednesday was class theme day.  We chose to be Minions. I made myself into GRU and even had a bald head.  What!!!!


Better than that though was the Benji Minion pictured beside me in this photo.  His costume was awesome.  He had a bit of a hard time seeing through it which provided some very entertaining moments as he stumbled here and there and tipped from side to side.  It was great fun!

Before school started that morning, I could hear my students all the way down the sidewalk and into my classroom yelling, "Banana! Banana! Banana!"  You know you're in for it when....

And here's the whole bunch of Minions together.

Thursday was Futuristic Day.  For all you saggy pants haters out there - this one cracked me up!

Friday was Sahel Spirit Day and that, of course is when all the fun goes down.  For example, First Grade won an ice cream party for being the best dressed elementary class for class theme day.  They were over the moon excited!

Then there were the cheers/dances.  These guys had been practicing a dance choreographed by one of our seniors for over a month.

And this year the girl's kept the Sahel Academy Haka alive.  Go girls!  You were awesome!

Breaking Ground

Exciting news!  On October 2nd Sahel Academy broke ground on a new elementary wing.  We have been talking about this building for the last year and a half so it's exciting to see the work beginning.  In our current elementary wing, we have four large classrooms.  In our old elementary wing there are two small classrooms which my class is currently occupying.  These two classrooms are fine when classes are small but they are inadequate when classes are over 10-12 students.  For that very reason, our kindergarten has, until very recently, occupied one of the original buildings which is set far back into the corner of our campus away from all of the other classrooms.  This new building will allow all the classes to have their own large space.  We will be together and no one will have to move from year to year. Yippee!  Because it will be a two story building there will be space for an elementary computer lab down the road and more classroom space for middle school as it is needed. 

Pictured above from left to right is our SIM Niger construction manager, our SIM Niger director, our youngest Sahel student and our new Sahel Academy School Director.

Summer Meanderings

It's been a coon's age since I posted on here.  How long is a "coon's age" anyway?  Something to ponder while I catch you up on my summer meanderings.  This summer marked the halfway point of my term so I headed back to the US for some time with my family.

I spent about a week and a half with my family in South Carolina before heading down to Atlanta for a weekend.  I only took one picture the whole time I was in Atlanta.  Shame, shame!  Well at least it was a good one of me and my friend, L.  We have been friends since my first year of teaching.  I might not have made it past my first year of teaching without her encouraging presence.

The rest of the weekend was filled with time with good friends in Atlanta - tubing (where I earned a wickedly weird sunburn), a barbecue, visiting my home church, hanging out with precious people for a very short amount of time.  From there I hit Toccoa to spend a night with my favorite Nigerien Neighbours, a precious gift indeed to spend a night with them and then it was on to see some good friends in Franklin, NC.

After a night or two back in South Carolina I headed up to Toronto to be with some good friends of mine.  We spent several days at a cottage together.  I enjoyed sitting out on the dock by the lake. 

Here we all are after enjoying a breakfast by the lake!  These women have been amazing friends for over 20 years.

Before leaving Toronto, I spent an afternoon with M & C exploring downtown Toronto.  There was a lot going on as Toronto was playing host to the Pan-American games.

Here we are in Nathan Phillip's Square.

They had several music stages and some funky musical acts like this one that was tooling around on a very interesting contraption.

I thoroughly enjoyed walking one of my favorite cities with my friends.

After a week in Toronto, I headed back to South Carolina for more time with the family.  Here we are enjoying downtown Rock Hill.

My last week included a little meet in the middle road trip with K which turned out to be a little more of an adventure than either of us would have hoped for.  K's car ended up breaking down so while we waited for a tow truck till the wee hours of the morning we took pictures together, laughed and enjoyed our unplanned adventure and the gift of more time together.

All too soon, these summer meanderings were over and I had to head home to Niger.  I'm not going to lie, saying goodbye was hard but I'm thankful for God's comfort even through that and just for the sweet gift of being together with family and friends.

Jumping Up to Middle School

It was January 2012, I took a picture of my then second graders jumping off the sidewalk.  Then just cause it was such a fun picture, I immortalized them in black and white as my blog header. 

It's 2015 and those second graders just graduated from fifth grade and they are moving on up to middle school.  So just for fun I took another picture, same location, same order.  It's amazing that in such a transient community the core group of this class is pretty much the same.  They are still amazing kids!

Stranger than a High Schooler and Other Admiring Notes

In every First Grade Teacher's Life there comes a moment when you have to make a choice - correcting the spelling or letting it go because it's just too funny to change.  I chose poorly here because this note literally read,

Daer Coach,

You are stranger than a high schooler...

 

Don't ask me why I didn't just focus on fixing the word "dear" and leave the rest of that awesomeness alone!

This note is pretty awesome too because it looks like coach is out on the field with his hair dryer.

 

Better than that might be the picture of the bulging bicep inside the card.

There is nothing like a note from a First Grader to bring a little joy to the day unless of course it's a quality quote.  It just so happens that I have one of those too.  We were talking about how the Israelites were always grumbling.  So I asked the kids if they ever grumble.  Mr. Vocabulary raises his hand and says, "Yes, I grumble when I don't get my duty sleep!"  I laughed and said, "You mean your beauty sleep?"  He was pretty confident that it was "duty sleep."  So another little boy tried to help him out and said, "Yeah well it's dudey sleep cause he's a dude!"  Clever little guy!

Targets, Ombre, Chevrons and All Things Crafty

Just thought I would post a few of my favorite recent card creations.

 

I decided to use my circle dies to create a rainbow target and then pop a word out from the middle using the scripty thanks die from Lawn Fawn and a Hello die from Papertrey.  I loved the way these turned out.

Then I had a little ombre chevron action happening in these ones and used the same dies to cut out the words for these two cards.

I love this last little card for its color combination and that sweet little "Congrats" stamp from Stampin' Up's Your Perfect Day set. 

Happy, Happier, Happiest

I've been on a forced blog break due to a dead computer and the work of learning to use a new one.  But I am back with this gem of a picture that I hope will leave you feeling...

happy, happier, happiest.

 

If that doesn't do it for you then perhaps some First Grade dance moves and muscle love will.