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| reading outside with Luis Fernando |
For the third year in a row our bilingual boys are participating in “Reading Month” at their school, Alison Bixby. Reading and writing are a huge part of their bilingual education, and this year the 4th grade boys have to read 20 minutes a day in english, write four journals a week, and then read 40 minutes a week in spanish. Each quarter they have a spanish and social studies project due as well.
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| "el gato con botas" - Antony, 1st grade |
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| Luis and Cristian, 4th grade |
So even though the month of November is dedicated to reading at the school, these boys are no strangers to the concept of reading every day. The school, as a whole, is trying to reach a goal of reading 1000 books this month and rewarding kids for reading outside of mandatory items (ie- class time). This means if any child is reading during recess, before school, etc and seen doing so, the teachers give them tickets to collect. At the end of the month the child with the most tickets will get to choose between several (really nice) prizes. This is a great incentive - reminds me of when I could read for Accelerated Reading and win personal pan pizzas (I wish this was still possible).
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| MJ, or Cristian (4th grade) |
At the beginning of the month we have “dress like your favorite character day”. This year we had Michael Jordan (Cristian), a funny character from a spanish book (Luis F), the cat in boots (Antony) and the Wizard of Oz (Norman). It is a fun day where the kids get to be someone (or something) from a book they admire. At the end of the month we have the PJ party where we all go to school, wear our pj’s, drink hot cocoa and parents read their favorite books to their child’s class. It’s all very Christmas-inspired.
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| reading on the way home from school |
Speaking of Christmas time, the public school boys have finished up their academic year! They finished final exams last week and are currently busy decorating their houses with the tree, lights, and other handmade/Christmas-themed crafts. I’m excited for them as they enjoy Nov-Jan off for “summer break” (weird, right?).
Another big announcement would be our newest addition here at Jovenes - William Javier Palacios! He’s 9 years old and has been at JEC for about two weeks. He’s adjusting pretty well in the yellow house, and I usually find him playing as close to the Christmas tree as possible.
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| William playing with toy cars by the Christmas tree (now fully decorated) |
One of my favorite memories when I first arrived here was talking to the sweet new boys (at the time), Obed and Issac, about Christmas, Santa, snow angels, etc. Yesterday we started talking about Santa again, and all the boys gathered round like I was telling stories. Its so fun to see the amazement in their eyes. Although it is very sad to hear them say, “so why doesn’t Santa visit us?” and “but Santa only visits gringos”. Ha! The last one made me laugh. I told them they have to be on their VERY BEST behavior for Santa to come, so even one rotten egg could ruin it for the whole bunch. Hopefully this means some good behaving little boys for the next month and a half.
In other, more unfortunate, news my car is in big trouble (yes, again). I really seem to have the worst luck in vehicles here (and mechanics - see this blog). The car has been in the shop for a total of two full weeks, and is currently sitting at Jovenes idle. Two weeks ago I had to purchase a new alternator since it was broken and wouldn’t charge my battery - my car kept dying on me (luckily I was never alone when this happened). This past week it has been in the shop while they tried to find out what was wrong with it. It seems (after three mechanics giving us their opinions) all agree I need a new transmission. This is kind of the pits considering a little over a year ago I went through this exact same problem with my first car - forcing me to end up selling it and purchasing my current one. My boss wants to purchase a new transmission ASAP in hopes that once installed my car will work very well and not have to go to the shop every week or two. We've put a mechanic in charge of getting us a quote for a lightly used transmission and am praying to find one as soon as possible. Hopefully God can send me a trustworthy and capable mechanic to install it as well. Please pray for my patience and for this situation. Its really trying at times, because I need a working vehicle to do my job here (the only other cars at JEC are all stick shift - which I cannot drive) and keep my sanity. Its been a trying few months with this vehicle, so this kind of the cherry on top of the sundae. Thank you for your prayers!
