geeking out

On Friday afternoon I was thrilled to find that I had received the first of many goodies I'd ordered for my classroom. My department head laughed at me while I did a happy dance because I was so excited to have new "toys" for science class. One of the things I acquired is a working model of the sun-moon-earth system called "The Orbiter." It will make rotation, revolution, and moon phases SOOO much easier to explain this year!

The Orbiter

I'm also pretty excited about my new rock and mineral collection. My classroom came stocked with two buckets of questionable rocks and minerals, many of which were unidentified and therefore relatively useless in teaching about the properties of various rocks or how to identify them. Now I have three labeled sets of rocks--igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic--as well as a set of labeled minerals! For the purpose of identifying minerals, I also have brand new glass plates (for testing hardness) and streak plates (for determining the color of the powder, aka The Streak). Yay for science!!

four boxen of rocks

Chillin' & Grillin'

On the first Friday of the school year BFA hosts Chillin' & Grillin', a huge party where middle schoolers and high schoolers play games and get to know each other, then partake in a picnic meal of hamburgers, hotdogs, and other tasty treats. This year the middle schoolers competed on teams based on their grade. Eighth graders (my team!!) wore red, seventh graders wore blue, and sixth graders wore black. The first game involved students trying to thaw, unfold, and put on a frozen t-shirt and was VERY entertaining for us teachers to watch. The second game was callled Ultimate Ultimate, and the rules were the same as ultimate frisbee except that there was more than a frisbee flying around! Other objects we scored with included a ball, a rubber chicken, an inner tube, a sock with powder inside, balloons, and a hot dog. For this game, sixth and seventh graders competed against the eighth graders, and the students practically begged their teachers to play too. I'm so proud of my eighth graders... for the second year in a row, my team won the middle school C&G games!!

I put together a little video of the action. Most of the pictures are mine but about a dozen of them (read: the good ones!!) were taken by Mark Powell. Enjoy!

studying German

So I survived the first week. Now that school is on a roll, I can start studying German. I have not been able to get into any of the high school German classes due to my teaching schedule, and the language schools around here are RIDICULOUSLY expensive. So, I've been sitting in on the middle school beginning German class, taught by my friend Katrina. It's a great class, but it's also geared towards middle schoolers, so it moves painfully slow for me as an adult. A friend at BFA suggest Livemocha, a free online course that I have enrolled in to at least get me started until I can get into the high school German class.

Here is a screen shot of my favorite picture, from my first lesson.

Die Frau ist dick = The woman is fat.

Because when the oven repair guy calls, the first thing I need to be able to say in German is, "The woman is fat."

welcome to another school year!

Today was the first day of the 2010-2011 school year! As early as 8:30 am the relative humidity was at 94%, so I started the day off feeling super sick. BFA is very different from any school I've ever attended, and I'd wager that the same goes for most of you reading this. So, here's what the first day of school looks like at BFA.

Everyone in the whole school converged on the Kandern campus for the Opening Ceremonies. Students, teachers, support staff, residence life, and parents filled up the auditorium. The teachers and residence life staff marched into the auditorium--similar to a commencement ceremony--followed by the Parade of Nations--seniors carrying flags from all the countries represented at BFA this year. The new director, Phil Peters, rappeled down to the stage from the rafters to welcome everyone to the new school year. A charge was read to the Senior Class, the faculty and staff, and the Residence Life Staff, and then the roll was called for each country represented at BFA. Even though this is only my second year here, the Opening Ceremonies is one of my favorite times of year.

Teachers lined up before the ceremony

The Parade of Nations

Phil Peters rappeling from the rafters!

BFA's new interim director, Phil Peters

Following the Opening Ceremonies students said goodbye to their parents, the elementary students boarded a bus for Sitzenkirch, and the remaining students went to either the middle school or high school assembly. At the middle school assembly Miss Steele introduced all the teachers and went over important things for the students to know about life in the middle school.

Students say goodbye to their parents

Miss Steele welcomes the middle schoolers

After the assembly, students checked out their textbooks from the library and then had their pictures taken for school IDs. Then, it was lunchtime!

After lunch, middle schoolers went to their homerooms for an hour and a half. I am a homeroom teacher again this year, so I had the lovely task of assigning mailboxes, locks and lockers, going over the class schedules, collecting tissue boxes, selling planners, and all the other housekeeping tasks necessary to begin the school year. This whole process took about 45 minutes, so we spent the remaining time playing games to learn each others' names and doing Mad Libs.

My classroom as seen from the back

From homeroom the students went to advisory for 20 minutes. Advisory is a 15-minute block of time when the students work on life skills and general skills needed for all their classes but not necessarily taught during classtime. This includes things like note-taking, problem solving, listening skills, how to skim/summarize a paragraph, communication skills, time management, conflict resolution, and many more. This year I will be working primarily with the 8th grade for advisory, so I took today to introduce the new students to advisory and explain the purpose and what it's all about.

My classroom as seen from the front

During the last hour of the day, the students went through the "mock schedule" -- in less than an hour they visited all seven classes! Students had 8 minutes in each class with 5 minutes in between in order to orient them to where they needed to go and prevent students from being totally lost tomorrow when we actually have a full day of classes. And then, just like that, it was time to go home.

"Shine like stars" - Philippians 2:14-16

This year I will be teaching the same classes as last year: 6th grade math, 7th grade life science, and 8th grade earth science. I will also have 6th grade study hall this year as well as 8th grade homeroom. Because I have an 8th grade homeroom and will be working with 8th graders in advisory this year, I am what's called an 8th grade sponsor. When the 8th graders plan class events and parties, I will be a chaperone and help out, and in the spring I will get to travel once again to Lugano for Experiental Learning Week!

I'm SO excited for the opportunities this year holds. Seeing my former students move up to high school is bittersweet, but I love that they're growing up and maturing into beautiful young people. And yeah, I couldn't help but grin from ear to ear when a bunch of former students (now freshmen) cheered my name as I paraded past them during the Opening Ceremonies. I love them so much!! On the other end, it's been so refreshing to see the bright-eyed new sixth graders gazing in awe at everything. They have a million bazillion questions about everything and are so afraid that they'll do something wrong or be embarassed in front of their classmates. SO precious!!

Middle school teachers hard at work! :)

My good friend and fellow middle school teacher, Katrina. She hit 100% support on Wednesday, boarded a plan on Thursday, and arrived in Germany on Friday--four days ago! You should read her blog.

Thank you SO MUCH for helping me answer God's call, which has brought me to Germany and BFA. I am so so so so so excited to share with you what He does this year. Let the fun begin!!

schnitzel pop tarts

Before reading this post, please watch the following segment on Pop Tarts. Yes, another word from my good friend and personal mentor, Brian Regan.



Meet the Toasty. Or as I like to call it, the schnitzel poptart. But it's not a poptart in the sense of having a sweet crust with frosting on top. It's just a little schnitzel patty in the shape of a pop tart, and it cooks up in your toaster. And it's delicious. Ven die ofen is kaput, dis ist sehr gut.

I like to slap a little cheese on mine, but Jill is "healthy" and eats hers with salad. Go Jill.

summer summary

Allow me to introduce you to my brand new newsletter!
Click here to view using Google Docs (can be downloaded as a PDF).

extreme makeover greenhouse edition

My roommate Jill has been back since Monday. When we moved into the Greenhouse a year ago, we were blessed to also receive furniture, appliances, and linens. Over the past year, however, we have both come to the conclusion that we need to take more ownership of our home. There's just something about arranging and decorating your living space that makes it more meaningful and personal. So rather than continue just working with what we got, we set out on a mission to find new bed linens and rugs to make our bedrooms our own.

You may or may not remember seeing pictures from last fall, but my room is two-tone: chocolate brown wood paneling on two walls and a minty-olive green on two walls. Loving the color combination, I decided to use earth tones like green, brown, and cream in my decorating. Also, I have three beautiful curly bamboo plants and a cactus so I wanted my bed linens to have an organic, plant-y feel to them. This week, I finally managed to find a beautiful duvet cover and matching pillow cases! Also, Pennymarkt just happened to have new duvets on sale for a great price, so I took advantage of the opportunity to replace my duvet. Not knowing how old it is or how many people have used it before me made me cringe just a little, so I'm sleeping a little better now knowing that only MY micro germs are inside my duvet. What's even better is that next week Lidl will have pillows on sale so I can replace those too. Pillows hold so many microscopic germs and whatnot that I just really cringe when I think of how long my pillows could have been used before I moved in. Maybe I'm just a germaphobe, but EW.

I've also gotten rid of my schrank (wardrobe) and replaced it with another dresser. On top of that dresser I set up two large mirrors and a rack to hang all of my necklaces. My nicer ones (pearls, etc.) will stay safely tucked away in my jewelry box, but all my other colorful, funky baubles are now out in plain sight to remind me to wear them more often! Kind of girly, I know.

Last week I got a great deal on a new bookshelf as well as a schuhschrank (shoe closet). Up until this point I'd just been stacking books under my desk, and since I got rid of my schrank I needed a place to keep my shoes. I was pretty proud of myself for putting the schuhschrank together; it was kind of really complicated.

The only thing that's missing now is a few rugs for my floor. I like the look of the laminate wood floor, but I hate that it gets so dusty every day. Also, it's nice to have something soft to step on in the winter time. Right now I have some ugly black and white woven rag rugs, and they really just make me sick to look at.

Coming soon: extreme makeover living room and bathroom edition!

what now?

Today I wrapped up my Summer Institute course with TeachBeyond and am not sure what I'll do come Monday morning when I don't have to go to class! Over the course of two weeks I learned, read about, and discussed the three aspects of transformational Christian education: spiritual formation, cultural adaptation, and Biblical integration. The workload was challenging, especially toward the beginning when I was still jet-lagging, and the material we covered was pretty deep, but our conversations were encouraging and I enjoyed getting to know some of my fellow missionaries a bit better. After teaching for two years, it was good for me to have a "check up" on how I'm doing, where I still need to improve, and how much (if any) of my personal philosophy of Christian education has changed since I wrote it out for graduation in 2008. Actually spending time in the classroom and on the mission field has broadened my perspective and certainly given me much more to consider, and so it was beneficial for me to sit down and flesh out again exactly what I believe and determine how that will play into who I am as a teacher and how I run my classroom. I'm excited to see how I can apply the the things I learned at Summer Institute over the course of this school year.

One of my main goals is to become a more reflective and self-evaluative teacher. During student teaching, we were required to keep a daily journal and then submit it weekly to our advisor back at Moody. I found this to be extremely helpful as I navigated the classroom, but unfortunately I haven't done it since then. I keep a personal journal and blog, but it's been two years since I've kept a journal strictly to reflect on my daily classroom activities, interactions, and lessons. In addition to that, someone challenged me to find a "coach" teacher who can go through my journal with me, encourage me in my weak areas, and help me recognize my strengths. Please pray for me as I consider who to approach with such an important task!

Now that I'm finished with class, there are three weeks of summer left. I hope to devote a decent amount of time to organizing my classroom and getting a head start on lesson plans for the new school year. In addition, I'm enjoying having some downtime after such a busy and exhausting summer in the states raising support. Finally, I look forward to meeting all our new staff members and hearing their testimonies at our All-Staff Conference just prior to school starting. Does anyone else love the back-to-school season as much as I do??