Sooo...Hello. My name is Kathryn and sometimes my life is weird. Awesome, but weird. Also, I go by Kathryn now, just in case anyone was wondering about that (otherwise we would have had three Katies here, and that's just too many), but Katie is still fine with me, I kind of miss it sometimes.
School so far has been great. I'm up to fifteen students now (a huge class, I know!). It's strange just how different two groups of five-year-olds can be. This class is definitely louder and more active, but I'm loving my little ones, they are so much fun! They are a smart little bunch so I am able to do more center work learning and less group teaching, which we all enjoy. I especially like it, since that was my number one goal for my teaching this year-have more centers, and as of last week, I've got about 10 different center activities we can do. They aren't nicely organized like on all those teacher blogs, but they exist, so I'm happy. It's nice to actually meet a goal. :)
We've also done a lot more art activities since these kids LOVE anything that involves paint, glue, markers, crayons... They happily spend all their free time after snack and lunch coloring and copying whatever words they can find on the walls. Sadly for them, today they finished up the giant bucket of paper I had for them in August. Guess they'll have to do more homework to get some more!
Next week a student teacher from the US is coming to finish out the semester in my classroom.
I'm excited to get to do for another what my amazing master teacher did for me, but a little nervous about getting to be a mentor teacher.
Painting with vegetables...as you can see we are still learning the "paint the paper, not yourself" lesson.
Introducing a whole new class to the song "Aiken Drum"! I'd never heard it before last year, but it's basically my new favorite song. Madeline L. Pott's youtube video pretty much makes it theirs too.
Last month we had various camps for the students and I got to be co-director for Lower Elementary Camp. It was basically VBS in two days. Craziness.
The kids had a blast though, and I think the teachers had quite a lot of fun too! I'm so thankful for all that God did in helping us teach our kids to "Tell It!" on the mountain and everywhere.
Learning about Elijah and how our God is the one true God!
Crazy teachers have trouble carrying the oh so heavy "stones".
And to think I spend eight hours a day with these people!
Minus me, this is the Pre-K/KG team!
The trip to Uruguay in July was so much fun. It was actually cold and the hostel showers were mostly hot...such a luxury in the middle of winter! It was a lot of fun just being far away from work and exploring a new town. We did all the touristy stuff, and explore about a billion museums.
One of the coolest parts was going on a tour of their legislative building. It has seven types of marble in just one room!
We also traveled to a few different towns...got lost on a couple buses (because you know, it just isn't an adventure without getting lost on at least one bus...). The last two days were pretty cold and rainy, but we still had fun and it meant we got to try a special Uruguay treat that people apparently only eat when it's raining. It made for a super yummy treat on a cold, wet night.
The major downside to the chill and wet was that I caught a cold that kicked off a chain of colds I couldn't shake for about ten weeks (my kids kept giving me new ones before I could get well). Oh well, such is life!
The giant hand in Uruguay!
Normally it looks like it's scooping out of the sand, but it was crazy windy that day so we gave up on the beach and went for hot chocolate instead.
If you ever go Uruguay, I definitely recommend going to Colonia. It's absolutely gorgeous and is basically a living history book. The streets are old and most of the building in the old section are original.
A really old building. Apx 300 years. My mind was kind of reeling...
And over here we have a classic old town Colonia corner,
complete with lamp post and hand painted tile street sign.
We paid our three dollars and climbed to the top of a lighthouse. The view was gorgeous, well worth the squeezing past the dozens of people on a tiny staircase.
We biked up the coast to see an old train, but we were too cheap to pay to get on the real thing, so I had to settle for "riding" a tiny train instead.
Being myself I had fun hopping around pretending I was taking pictures of mountains.
As it turns out, if you hop around taking pictures of moss on rocks, random people will think you are some sort of moss scientist and come up to ask if it's a rare kind of moss.
It's a little hard to make things up in a different language.
So, that's my school year so far. I'm thoroughly enjoying myself and I thank you for all of your prayers! I miss everybody terribly, but frankly...I love Paraguay!
Best road in Montevideo!
3 comments:
Katie, er, Kathryn,
I am loving these posts. Thank you! You look GREAT, and you are obviously thriving where God has planted you.
We did miss you at the beach in May, and we just returned from a camping trip up in the North Georgia mountains at Fort Mountain. Love that camping!
God bless you as you continue your ministry in Paraguay. You are an inspiration!
Should have signed, Anne Fowler, didn't realize the garbled-dy-gook html would conceal my identity!
I always liked Kathryn. Of course I had some hand in choosing it.
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