School Life

Also in March our school had "student-led conferences," where the parents come to school, not to conference with teachers, but their child. The students meet with their parents and lead them in a conference about how they are doing and what they have been learning. The students prepare a portfolio of work to show and also tour their parents around the school. It is a fun time to step back and see how far our students have come since the beginning of the year. Here are a few pictures someone snapped that I thought I would share so you could get a taste of what goes on in school life here:

It's Been Too Long

Hi there friends,

Sorry it has been so long since I have really updated this blog. I have been thinking of you all, whoever it is out there in this big world who reads this. Life has been busy, which means there has been lots I have wanted to share but no time to do it. I am going to go all the way back to March now and give a little recap. We celebrated quite a few birthdays involving:
A women's brunch and tea party (well... actually more like latte party). :)
A group adventure hike to a local waterfall.
A very wild and crazy watermelon party.

Silly!

uh oh... one shoe lost in the mud

Yes, I did fall in the mud, that's why I look so covered in mud.

opps backwards... she's turning 25

SO excited!

Laura could not wait to dig into her watermelon cake-
she started eating before we could put candles in and sing. Luckily we had this really
cool fireworks candle to keep the excitement going.

Molly and I pose in watermelon pink and green.

Birthday coloring... fun for all

Glorious

This past week after school I was outside with some students working on a project. The sun was beginning it's decent and went behind a huge, white cloud. This is the display we saw:

I only have one word for that: GLORIOUS!

The Heavenly Man

I have not yet read this book, but it is sitting on my shelf.
I bought it over Christmas break and intend to read it one of these days...

After today I am more inspired and motivated than ever. Brother Yun came to our school and spoke. He is traveling around Indonesia right now and took a morning to stop by and speak to our students. All of our middle school and high school students, along with our teachers and some interested parents, gathered during 3rd period to hear him speak. He told the beautiful and awe-inspiring story of how he became a believer. He told of how he got the call to be a messenger of the Good News. He told of a miraculous escape from prision. He also brought a message of hope that the church in China is alive. He said the church in China is growing by a million believers every month! Staggering.

Beyond just the stories he told, I was struck by his visit because nearly 1/3 of our school population is made up of Indonesians. But they do not consider themselves native Indonesians or local to this area. They all are from the upper class here and consider themselves "Chinese Indonesians." When he asked if anyone in the audience had ever been to China, a large percentage of these kids raised their hands. And some of the parents of these kids who came for the event speak Chinese as their native language. I think some of them were listening more to Brother Yun speak in Chinese than they were the English translation. I was reminded again of what an international place BAIS is and of the family of believers we have around the world.

Math Olympics

A Day to Celebrate Math... (and as the math teacher that means I am in charge of it) This year's plan- "Mini Measurement Olympics" for all grades- preschool all the way up to 12th grade. The little kids made up their own units like tiles and counting. Older elementary did metric units (which is easier for our students here and comes more naturally to them). Secondary students did US customary units to make it more challenging. When I told them that we were not doing metric but instead customary units there was some groaning. It was challenging for them because they do not think in terms of those units normally in their everyday lives. (I did hear some kids throughout the day asking "how many inches are in a foot" or "how many inches are in a meter.") We had a fun day and ended it with an all school assembly where we set up the game show "Hollywood Squares." We chose staff members to be the celebrities in the squares and continued our theme of measurement by asking questions like "How long is the school building?" and "What is the population of the world?" Here's a bit of a recap of the day.

A beautiful day to be outside and participate in a "mini measurement olympics"

First event- "Paper Plate Discus"

Students had to throw the plate. Then estimate how far they threw in inches. Then measure the exact distance and see how close they were.

Hmmm... how far would that be in inches

Next event was the "Drinking Straw Javelin" Students had to throw the straw. Estimate and measure.

Next event was "Left-Handed Sponge Squeeze" Students had to estimate how much water they could squeeze out of a sponge in fluid ounces. This was really hard for them; they did not know fluid ounces at all.

Matt the other math teacher looking to see how much volume it is.

Next event was the "Big Foot" Students had to estimate how many square inches their foot is, then trace it on graph paper and calculate the actual amount.

The last event I don't have a picture of but it was the "Right-Handed Marble Grab" Students had to grab a handful of marbles and estimate how much they weighed in ounces. Then they measured it on a scale to find out the actual weight.

Calculating the difference between their estimate and the actual measure.

This picture cracks me up because there is something about 8th grade boys and climbing... no matter how many times I told them to not get on this thing they just couldn't stay off.

In the busyness of it all I don't have any pictures of our assembly and Hollywood Squares. Here's the only thing I do have to show you. These are our squares and celebrities:

Love it! :)

Good Morning

Happy Monday morning to you.

The sunrise out my bedroom window one morning last week.

I love mornings.

I don't especially like waking up, but I do like being up early. I like the quiet that
the morning holds before the rush of the day and all the troubles that it brings.

And especially Monday mornings. It feels like they hold so much promise.
Promise of a new start with a new day and a new week upon us.

Lamentations 3:22-24
"Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.

They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

I say to myself, 'The LORD is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.'"

Weird Things

Ever since moving to this foreign country I have found myself intrigued by the many bugs and insects that find their way into my world. To be honest I never really grew up around critters. We had the occasional ant and rolly-polly bugs, but nothing like you can find here in the tropics. After two and a half years they have become part of daily life. They don't really freak me out anymore, but they do still catch my attention every so often. We just have such interesting and weird creatures all around... and all the time.

All of these pictures come from around my house or around the school.

And this is my favorite. This frog has been living on my window sill for the past 3 weeks.
My classroom is on the second floor so I have no idea how he got there or why he stays.

Just a few insights into daily life here.