I am sitting in the parking lot of the Montessori school, about to pick up the boys.  I think, wow, I haven’t written in a while.  That’s because I go from home to school to Montessori to home with maybe a gym class or grocery run in between.  The picture for this post is from the amazing Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton.  But basically it’s bus stop, work, school, home.  Day after day.  I know I need to reflect, but I’d rather read the news, go to People.com, or watch YouTube videos.  Before I go to sleep, I usually think about and pray for my parents, without whom working full time and parenting three kids would be impossible for me!

Also indispensable: Kristi, Michele, Tara, the army of tutors who support the ESL students, and the wise and funny teachers at my school who also have a heart for the newcomers. Special shout-out to my Texas posse!  And a big thank you to the teachers of Sasha, Andy, and Mitya.

I know I really need to work on the reflection piece (beyond “Thank God we made it through this day! Let’s eat this pasta!”  Or maybe the soup I was able to make only because my mom watched Mitya). Usually, any reflection goes on subconsciously and I miraculously come up with an idea.  For example, I am brushing my teeth and think, of course we are going to make cards for our principal who is moving to a different school.  Her last day was today.  She is a very kind person, and we will miss her.  We put on a play in the auditorium two weeks ago and even though she was extremely busy, she still came and cheered for the kids!  The students enjoyed writing kind messages of gratitude to her today.  And that literally happened because I had an idea this morning.

Let me tell you a bit about the students.  The kids I have vary greatly in skill and ability. I have a student who failed two grades in Afghanistan and speaks to me in Dari (sometimes I answer her in Russian) and another Afghani student who is on a third grade reading level and was my right-hand person for the play.  Both kids are in the same class.

We do Elizabeth Claire phonics three times a week, fluency work on Tuesday and Thursday, journal every day, and work on a specific reading and/or grammar skill.  Today my last period class was interrupted by a peer mentoring session that lasted for 45 minutes.  I have students who don’t speak English.  I hope they were able to understand something. Thankfully, the session included a lot of drawing, for which I am grateful.  Otherwise, some of my students would be totally lost.

Next week, the regular classes are starting a unit on A Long Walk to Water.  I have three kids from Africa, so I hope they appreciate this story set in the Sudan.  Since so many of my students are on the readiness and preprimer level, I will be doing a lot of reading out loud, vocabulary development, and connecting the story to the students’ own experience.  I hope to work with them so they can create an audiovisual presentation called A Long Walk To (Our School).  I need to talk to my professional learning team on Tuesday to flesh this out.  I think this project could be really cool for the kids.  Maybe we can create a YouTube video I can then watch in the evening. 🙂

My own kids have a lot of fun on the weekend, but during the week, we generally stay close to home.  Truthfully, I am too tired.  I remember a “funny” evening when I was guilt tripped into taking them to the park by the river.  We saw a long black snake and Sasha says, “That’s where I saw a crocodile!” My foot is still sore from running out of that park that day.  So, we stay home.  When we are not at tae Kwon do, athletic conditioning, or Chinese, we stay home.

Tomorrow, God-willing, we will go to a great museum-park with animals.  The weather is supposed to be great, so I am really looking forward to it!  I love my job, but I am thankful that I get to explore the world with my own children on the weekends.  Last week, we went to the International Festival in Harrisonburg.  This weekend, I just want to spend time at the Frontier Culture museum.  Love that place!

And now it’s time to pick up the kids!

Hope you have a great weekend,

Elena