Saturday morning oatmeal

This morning we had oatmeal for breakfast and it reminded me of when we were little and we would have oatmeal every morning. I'm a pretty nostalgic person and I usually wish for simpler times and for the days when we were little and could do whatever we wanted, but I don't get very nostalgic here. I don't know how many times I've told people how content I am here or how much I love my life but... it's been a lot of times. :) My friend Kirsty asked me today if I was really excited about Christmas and going home. Of course I am excited to see my family and friends and to be around familiar things again, but for probably the first time in my life, I'm not waiting for the next thing to happen. I live every day happily and when the next day comes along, I start over. I think we are almost conditioned and expected to live our lives in the future- waiting to graduate high school, finishing college, finding someone to marry, having your first baby... and then when we have all those things, a good job, a content family, a big enough house, then we can start enjoying life and relaxing. I'm so happy I don't feel the pressure to accomplish something or to have a good enough life here. It's great. Now, I say all this in the month that I have to start paying off school loans, so we'll see if my attitude changes but right now I'm pretty mellowed ;)

School has been pretty good. My kids earned a game day this week (they've been working for it for probably a month now so... I'm glad they finally got it!). I brought Twister, Uno, cards, Scattegories, Scrabble, Old Maid, Crazy 8's, marbles, Go Fish, Snow what, Hangman, Checkers, chess... it was great. I gave them the afternoon to play in the field or play games and they had a blast. Next 'prize' they're spelling out is Party Day so... maybe they'll have that when we get back from Christmas break. :)

I am starting reading groups with my kids next week. I just finished a story called Spy Hunt with them about young Andrew Jackson and his brother spying on a neighbor they suspected was a Tory! Imagine trying to explain the difference between the Rebels and the Tories- who are both groups in the US but it was before the US was a country so they were called colonists but the Rebels wanted to become a country and the Tories wanted England to win the war and stay colonies.... try explaining US history to students just to background to a story ;) I am now on the patriotic section of my Abeca curriculum in Reading so instead of making them read all the stories, I let them choose from these selections: Mounted Calvary (the continued story of Andy Jackson and his brother!), The Crimson Arrow (a story of a young colonist and an American Indian that become friends), or Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell (the first woman doctor from the US). Pretty exciting stuff. Most of my kids chose the continuing Jackson story so I'm going to split them up into 3 separate groups and then have a group for Arrow and Dr. I'm interested to see how it goes- I'm giving out four different roles - Reader, Recorder (answers the questions), Illustrator, and Vocab Finder. I'm going to have them rotate each day, so we'll see if the roles thing works. I've changed my reading curriculum from the beginning of the year and have been writing my own tests and quizzes and the kids seem to be doing a lot better, so it would be great if they could do these literature circles! I think when I go home I'm going to bring back a suitcase filled with as many Great Illustrated Classics as I can bring with my weight limit :)

This evening, I think we're going to go los aguas termales (hot springs) and tomorrow our filipino neighbor is coming over to teach us how to make a dish! She and her husband are teachers at the school and I think we're going to start a Bible study which I'm excited about. Hopefully next week is a good week- I'm pretty sure my kids are going to just start getting back into the rountine and then it will be time for Thanksgiving! Oh well... such is life :)