The Ties That Bind Us

The secretary at our school, Milsa, lost her father two days ago. I went to the showing on Tuesday night and then to the funeral on Wednesday. She is only thirty years old and her father was only in his early fifties. It was so sad!

It was such an experience to go to something like that in Honduras. When someone dies here the family holds the showing that same day and it lasts all night. This is a time for family and friends to gather together, talk about the deceased person, share stories, and eat. The emotions everyone expresses are so raw and real because the death has just happened. It was amazing to see people drop everything they were doing to come and show support for Milsa and her family. In the states sometimes people can't make it to a funeral that's been planned for four or five days because of prior commitments or being out of town. That doesn't seem to be as big of an issue here, and it's so nice!

I'm exhausted this week and looking forward to my three day weekend. I don't know why we have the day off tomorrow but I'm very grateful! I had planned to go out of town for at least a day but then I decided my time would be better spent getting things done for next week. I always feel overwhelmed during the week because I can never get anything done on the weekends. So this one should be very productive!

I taught my students all about rectangular prisms, pyramids, spheres, cubes, and cones. A lot of people thought I was crazy for teaching first grade ELL students these topics, and maybe I was. But I don't like to water things down too much for them because I want to challenge them and see what they can retain. Well I found that at least one of my students retained that information, yesterday, as I was discussing same size and same shape during a math activity. As I was holding up a puzzle as a prop I asked "What shape is this?" Many students shouted out "square!" But one little girl said "no, cube." I was thinking there is no way this girl really remembers this but then when I held up a book as another prop and asked again "What shape is this?" the students shouted "rectangle!" The same girl shook her head and said "no, rectangular prism." Holy Moly!!! How exciting!!! I was so proud of her and even if she is one of the few who remembers that lesson I'm happy!

Another great thing happened yesterday as well! During our science lesson I poured some water into a cup that I drew a line around. I had the students predict what would happen to the water. Some said it would stay the same, some said it would get lower, and others said it would get higher. Other students thought it would freeze or get really hot. I had asked the students to date their papers and draw a picture of what the water looked like in the cup. All of the students did this and were very eager to show me what they had drawn. It's a constant battle to get my students to stay in their seats and raise their hands to show me something. Well one little boy came up to me to show me what he had drawn and I noticed two different pictures of cups on his page. As I looked at them I realized he had drawn a prediction picture of what the water would look like on Monday. I was SO proud of him I just bent down and gave him a huge hug! He just laughed and laughed and walked away with a huge smile of pride on his face! I then quickly had three or four more drawings like this because all of the kids wanted a big hug :). I love that I'm allowed to hug my students everyday!!

Three day weekend here I come...


“We live in deeds, not years: In thoughts not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.” –Aristotle