Full Belly!

Hello mates!

I can't believe tomorrow is Thursday already! I have had a great week, so I thought it would be a good time to share (as well as put off lesson planning!)

To start this blog, I must tell you about all the yummy food I have been/will be eating this week! (Hence the title Full Belly!) On Tuesday the roommates and I were invited to one of the associate teacher's homes for dinner. She made us a delicious roasted lamb with potato wedges and lots of veggies. It was so nice to have a home cooked meal again! It was fun getting to know her and her family. Definitely made for a better Tuesday night then sitting around watching TV! Tonight our ISU supervisor arrived and she took up to eat at a little restaurant in Clyde called The Post Office. Once again, the food was amazing. Krystal and I split a chicken and honey mustard cheese burger and chicken lip (fingers). I think the best part was the aoli is came with! It is a dipping sauce that is used quite a bit here. It has sour cream and garlic in it, very good and unhealthy :). We finished dinner with dessert and tea, which I have grown to love! I can't remember the name of my dessert, but it was so good, I wish it was a never ending plate! It was fun to sit down and chat with Ann and tell her all about school. It was fun to see someone from home too! Tomorrow night Ann is taking all of the associate teachers out to dinner. I am sure it will be a great time. We all have really great teachers we work with so it will be fun to have a social night to get to everyone better!

School has also been really great this week. My students have been so focused! Every year at the Terrace School the Life Education bus comes for a couple of weeks. It is a bus that travels around NZ to school and teaches the kids various things with the help of Harold the giraffe. This year our kids will be learning about friendship, so Maria had asked me to do a friendship unit to go along with what they will be learning. Today I taught my second lesson. In my plans I have left a lot of time for discussion in small groups and then sharing time in large group. Each and every one of my student's has participated and it's been wonderful! There are a handful of kids who I have never seen raise their hands, so seeing them so involved has been a good boost this week!

Our classroom has also been filled with creative kids! We have been focusing on narrative writing this term. I have been trying to help the kids be more imaginative and creative in their writing. We have been talking about ways to expand stories and the importance of using lots of verbs and adjectives. On Tuesday I was giving a lesson on using more verbs and some how we began talking about how 'said' is a boring word. On my white board I wrote "New words for said." I told all the students by the end of the day they should write a word on the board. It was great! We banned the word 'said' from our writing and now have a list of 30 alternative words. Today we came up with new words for 'happy' and tomorrow we will think of new ideas for 'walk.' It has been soooo awesome to see the things my students have come up with! It has made for a euphoric teacher!

I hope you are all having wonderful weeks back home! I have heard it's snowing in Iowa.. I'd like to say I'm bummed to be missing it, but I'm not. Sadly it was raining here today, hoping for better weather tomorrow.

In a while crocodiles,

Michelle