Not in My Backyard

So here is my Friday in photo form. After school there was a crowd forming outside the gate of the school. These boys who live near the school had caught a boa constrictor near their house. I can't imagine finding this in my backyard. I hope I never do! I'm pretty sure Abi and Laura are thinking the same thing. It was Friday afternoon so we made our own Twister board from construction paper. Lots of fun! These kids were super flexible.

Mimio Classroom

After sending out my last newsletter, some of you asked how it is having an interactive whiteboard. This has been a great investment on the part of the school. I use it often as a way to get kids attention. In our unit on Science we would start each lesson with a little 3 minute video clip about some insect or spider. In Math there are many great interactive games to practice multiplication. When the students break into groups one of the groups is at the whiteboard. In the picture below is a lesson on irregular plural nouns. Other students are working at their desks while groups came up to play this "Who wants to be a millionaire game" to practice making irregular plural nouns.

The equipment didn't come without its hiccups. I waited several weeks to get a second video card so that I would be able to see the picture on my computer screen and the projector at the same time. We also had several days without power. This could be frustrating because in the morning I would get all the activities to use for the day ready on the computer. Then by 9:00 the power went out for the rest of the day and all that work was gone. More recently though it has been working smoothly and the students really enjoy seeing what I'm going to put up on the board.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends and family in Canada. This year in Nicaragua we didn't have regular classes, but we did have a teacher workday. That means I was able to escape a little early and join the other Canadians in Nicaragua for a Thanksgiving celebration.

At the teacher workday we always have a parent of one of our students lead us in devotions. The pastor that lead us that morning talked about thanksgiving. Little did he know how appropriate it was for me being Thanksgiving Day. He used the story of Jesus feeding the 5, 000. We all know the story of Jesus telling the disciples that they need to feed the people before they leave to their homes. The disciples did the calculations and could clearly see that the 5 loaves and 2 fish were not be enough. Jesus takes this poor man's meal, looks up into heaven, and HE GAVE THANKS. With much love His Heavenly Father looked down at His Son giving thanks for this meager meal and responded by making it sufficient for the whole crowd. Sometimes we look at our things thinking it's not enough and that we need more. If we stop and give thanks, the Lord can multiple what we have to be enough or just give us a heart of gratitude.

As I said after the teacher workday we ate a Thanksgiving meal together with other Canadians. There were about 35 of us all together. There wasn't a turkey to be found in Nicaragua so we went for the ham and chicken option. After sharing a time of thanksgiving, we played some hockey. The pictures above were taken at about 6:00pm but at this hour it's already dark in Nicaragua. We used the car's headlights to light up our game.