I had three really good days at school. Each day, I gave the students a verse to help us with our goal for the next ten weeks - to learn math because we love God. The verses - "love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind," "you that love the Lord, hate evil" and "love covers all sins" - led to some really good discussions and tied in with our lessons. In 6B, I was able to use the verse "love covers all sins" to create a new classroom management system. I keep a tally on the board of "hurts" and "helps." "Hurts" (talking, complaining, etc.) add homework problems to their assignment; "helps" (encouraging each other, following procedures, etc.) cancel out the hurts. They responded much better to this system, which made sense since they prefer to act as a community, resisting the classroom management system I use in 5B and 6A which has an element of competition in it.
On Thursday, I made a fun discovery. I've been struggling with 5A and 6B since January as their learning style is very different from 5B and 6A. While 5B and 6A will listen attentively, chiming in with answers and competing against each other to get the right answer, most of the students in 5A and 6B take notes passively and hold side conversations that distract the other students. I've been trying to figure out how to engage them more in the lessons and present math in a way they will appreciate. Hannah and I have been talking about the differences between students who love literature and those who prefer math. I decided I needed to give math a more "literary" approach. In 5A and 6B we started a math journal. At the end of class, I have them write a journal entry that allows them to think about math in a more creative way. On Thursday, the prompt was, "If you could be any number, which number would you be and why? What would your life be like? Who would your friends be?" Once they got the idea, they settled right in and spent 15 minutes quietly writing away. Afterwards, they shared their answers, which for the most part were well written.
After school on Thursday, we went to Andy's basketball game, then took his parents to Al-Azaim for their last dinner here.
This was the opposing team's warm-up suit even though their colors were white and green. America has more influence than it realizes ...
Lisa got to be assistant coach as Andy needed an extra set of eyes on the ground. She did a great job! (And so did Andy!) :)
Dinner at Al-Azaim
We loved having Andy's parents here and it was a bittersweet last meal with them:
Dinner is an all night long process. At sunset, we went outside for tea and baklava:
Doesn't get much better than this:
Zander and I played together:
And then it was dark and time to go home:
Friday, March 29th:
Since we have a four day weekend, I enjoyed the day to sit around the house, reading and taking a long nap. We had waffles at John and Mary's for brunch and I baked dessert for tomorrow's fellowship picnic; otherwise it was a quiet day.
