Tuesday, September 14, 2010

School has officially begun

I had my first Art classes today. They were fun to say the least. I had the students make line drawings by revealing small sections of a picture a little at a time. To avoid them "guessing" how something should look I had the picture upside down as they were drawing so they had to concentrate on what they could see rather than what they "thought" they should see.

Grade 1 to 3's drew a grumpy, short, fat, old man. while the Grade 5's drew a backpack.

Since students are eager to take home their original pieces and these were 8 1/2 by 11 I scanned them into my computer and printed them out for display. They are a representation of the real thing but at least the students got to take their art work home.

Two statements that students made to me today that had me chuckling.
- One student was late getting work done, and made this comment. "Tomorrow I won't dream, I'll just work"

Another student had a number line to count on. when asked to count backwards from 15 to 5 gets this puzzled look and replies "I would, but I don't have enough fingers."

Cheers. Until next time.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Back Again - Changes

Good day everyone

It has been a long while since I have spent time updating this Blog. So many things have happened since my last post (A whole year has gone by) Below are just a few of the major events that took place the past year.

My wife and I were blessed with a wonderful addition to our family. We were blessed with a baby girl, Nevada Justine Waldner, born on the 25th of July 2010.

We've also moved into a mobile home that I spent my summer fixing up.

I was part of a planning committee that hosted an educator's conference, known as the International Conference of Hutterite Educators, or ICHE for short. Also, during the summer I participated in a 3-day institute on teaching in the outdoor classroom.

There are a multitude of other events that took place in the past year, but they would simply be too numerous to mention in one post.

As the school year progresses I hope to find (or take) more time to keep this blog updated.

Tschüss,