And life exploded...

Whew—I’ve been going since 7:45 this morning, and I’m thankful for the chance to catch my breath! Since the kids arrived back last Tuesday I’ve been crazy busy with training students, tying off loose ends, finding things, making copies, and teaching. I’m so thankful that there is less homework to mark the first few days of term! School started well; we are stretched very thin this term, but as I was talking to another staff member today, God will use these times to drive us to Him and to keep working on our character. And while that is not a comfortable or enjoyable processes usually, we can rest in the knowledge that His hands hold the chisel.

I have 19 students this year; 11 in grade 6, and 8 in grade 7. So far the new grade 6 class is still trying to figure out what hit them—me! As a class they seem to be a little slower than classes from years past, so I am learning how much time to give them and who needs to work on being more productive. We have been tackling basic number theory these last few days, and I’m finding out who is going to need more help with math concepts. This morning we started working on key word outlines in creative writing; our theme for this term is going to be paragraph writing as that is a skill that takes a lot of practice. We started a quick survey of taxonomy in Science class, and we are beginning the term with one of my favorite young adult novels, Holes. I put up some pictures of west Texas from my collection of Texas calendars today, and they were trying to decide which one looks the most like Camp Green Lake!

While things are 'covered' for this term, we are in desperate need of more staff--in particular a grade 1 teacher. Please pray that the Lord will strengthen us while we wait!

Parting shot: First weekend on river duty, and the new students are discovering the charm of playing in a river!