Only a month as passed since my last post, but so much has happened.  Since outdoor ed, it's been a whilrwind.  Our biggest event was the passing of our beloved friend and teacher John Pride.  Mr. Pride was our 5th grade teacher and also the Social Studies Teacher for our junior high.  He is greatly missed by our staff, our students, our church, and his family.  Until we meet again, John, in heaven! 

What a busy, long week.  I don't know where to begin.  I guess I'll start with Monday.  A good day.  We have band on Mondays in the morning.  We haven't quite figured out how we can manage the students who get taken out for band at different times and yet effectively use our time with the rest of them.  That's ok, no harm done.  We will figure this one out.  We had  soccer and volleyballl at St. John Monday.  Phew!  Tough games.

Tuesday the 7th grade went to Wheeler Mission to put up bulletin boards.  This is a cool ministry that Mrs. Hougesen does.  The sixth grade did some amazing writing that day.  8th grade started Flowers for Algernon.  Great day!  We had our first Bible Quiz practice.  Great turnout.  I may try to post study aids on this site.  Exciting.  Volleyball and Soccer Games at home that day.  This is also the day my computer keyboard died.  I have been improvising with netbooks, other computers, and jumpdrives all week.  Bummer.

Wednesday was the first day of NFL, Night for Learning.  I did the childcare.  We had a schedule change because we had chapel on Thursday this week.  The 7th grade read The Monsters are Due on Maple Street.  It's a Twilight Z one.  I was surprised to learn that several of them had no idea what The Twilight Zone is.  This is a first!  Adults...we are getting old.
The Sixth grade read a Ray Bradbury story All Summer in a Day.  It's from the Martian Cronicles.  Again, surprised to learn that most of them hadn't really heard of the science fiction genre.  Hmmmm.  Now they have.

Thursday we had chapel and chapel families for the first time.  Loved talking to my chapel family about manners.  Such great kids.  Soccer and Volleyball at home against Our Shepherd.  Soccer Won!  Yeah!

Friday is a whirlwind.  Fortunately it was a good day.  We are all looking forward to Outdoor Ed next week.  What an experience that will be.  We spend a few days at Camp Lakeview, learning in nature.  It will be fun, but really exhausting for me.  That's ok.  It's a labor of love.  What a pleasure it is to serve the Lord by loving these kids. 

This week has been a good week. Short week after Labor Day weekend, so it went fast.

On Wednesday Mrs. Hougesen and I  did chapel. David and Goliath. We did this same chapel at Lutherwood and LuHigh. This time we think it was for the last time. She had Christian in 3rd grade be Goliath and Romeo in 1st grade be David. It is a funny chapel because they dress up like the people in the Bible and act out what Mrs. H  says.

Our Olweus Anti-bullying program is going well. We had class meetings this week. Bullying rules 1 and 2. We will not bully others, and We will help those who are being bullied. 

The Windy City Players came on Wednesday. They performed a cute version of Tom Sawyer.

The JV volleyball team won last night at Zion!!!  Varsity lost. They have some learning to do. They go to Lafayette this weekend, so some learning will certianly happen there. The Soccer team lost 0 - 3. They almost got 3 goals though, so maybe it's almost a tie.

The first week of school has been great.  Here's a few highlights:

In art we are making Name Collages.  They are made up of words that describe us found in magazines. 

In all of our classes we have used technology.  In English we are using computers to wordprocess our first journals.  We also made wordles in 7th and 8th grade using our names and nicknames.  They look really cool.  We have used netbooks, the smartboard, the internet.  It's just part of what we do.

We had our first class meetings for the Olweus bullying program.  It's been great

I am so impressed with our new students.  They have great attitudes and are a great addition to our family. 

I have to say, I love my job.  I thank God for it.  What a blessing it is to serve Him.

Our first 2 days were great.  It's nice to be back into the swing of things.  We actually got a lot accomplished in two days.  Some highlights:
Getting our lockers and keys.  What a great thing to have the responsibility of a key.  Only a few people lost them so far...more to come, I'm sure.

Chapel:  Pastor walked us through the year.  It is going to go fast, from the way he hung those events on the clothesline! 

The Olweus Kick off.  Check out the video at this link: http://www.schooltube.com/video/c82b37dc719307b5ab0a/Trinity-Be-a-Buddy-Not-a-Bully  It shares our anti-bullying rules.  We had a great time checking out our Bee-Attitude to be considerate and care for one another instead of tearing eachother down.
Notes from Mr. Pride.  We wrote to Mr. Pride and received answers back!  Pray for Mr. Pride as he is at home right now battling cancer.
Going to all of our classes.  We have a busy schedule, and it's hard to keep track of it all.  Keeps us busy though! 

God's blessings on our school year. 

Hey, I'm back, and I so want to kick of the year with optimism!  God's blessings on our new school year.  It's going to be full of challenges and opportunities.  Welcome to all of our students, new and old.  Some exciting things this year?  Smart boards, more use of netbooks, the Olweus Program, and an interesting schedule.  Hope

Wow, December flew by.  Some highlights?  The Advent Service, our field trip to the nursing homes to sing and do crafts at Christmas, our speaker from Japan, the Christmas Shop....It's a busy month!

And now it's the new year.  We have new students, a new semester about to begin...It's a new beginning. 

I'm looking forward to getting the yearbook done, and the play...oh, the play.  What play are we doing?  Not sure yet, but it's in

This year has gone by so fast.  Sometimes I feel like I am just frantically speeding through the days.  It's one thing after another.  There's the teaching, yes, but then there is also things like leading chapel (Seventh grade is leading chapel on November 24), planning Grandparent's Day (November 19), attending my own Bible Study, going to my daughter's sporting events and practices....It's a busy life. 

So sometimes it feels good just to be in the moment and to take stock in what is good.  This place is good.  My classes are good.  I have good things around me.  There are positive people who care about me.  At times the negative things weigh heavily on the day, but if I just look up, I can see there is so much more to this world than then negative. 

While I'm giving thanks, thanks for listening to this rambling message! 

We're 1/4 of the way finished with this school year.  Already, I feel the need for rejuvenation.  It's been hectic, but a joy and a blessing to be entrusted with these students and this school. 

This week all of my classes finished their demonstration speeches.   Students demonstrated everything from how to train a dog, to how to set up a turle or frog habitat, to how to throw a football, to how to prepare so many different kinds of foods!  I had so many bites of so many sweets....it was not healthy.  But it was fun.  I am thankful for the kids who really put thought and care into what they were doing. 

This week was also interrupted by a tornado warning about 10:00 on Tuesday.  My 7th graders were in the middle of a speech about how to make an ice cream sundae.  (It's more difficult than you think!)  As if it were the rapture, we left our ice cream on the table and headed for the safety of the school office.  While my 7th graders hid under a table, we were joined by all of the first, second, and third graders.  At first, it seemed tenuous.  I mean, it was crowded, we had ice cream melting, and those little ones are squirmy.  Some of them were scared, too.  Then we started singing songs, and the room filled with joy!  We started out with 'Jesus Loves Me' and then sang request after request.  It was awesome!  When the warning was lifted and we could return to our classrooms, one third grader said, "Next time can we sing 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer'?"  Ahhh, next time.  Hope there isn't a next time on tornadoes, but we should just sing like that more often! 

I am caught again with the feeling that although I feel inadequate in this job sometimes, I am there for a reason.  The reason might be that I need to be taught a lesson or two.  That God would do all this for me....well, that's grace, and it overwhelms me.  To think I was doing it for Him was just crazy. 

May I learn more in second quarter, and through it my students would too. 

PS:  Guess what , the Bible Quiz team got 4th place in the competition!  Yeah!