Viking Acrostics

Wednesday,

Today my class behaved wonderfully! In the morning we worked in groups talking about the Vikings, and then each table was given a different sheet of paper with separate items listed about the Vikings. These included Viking boats, Viking jewelry, Viking Gods, and Viking homes. We worked on using big descriptive words (Wow words) that correlated with each poster. Each table was given a poster, and the children had 5 minutes to brainstorm all the different descriptions they believed went under each category. Every 5 minutes the papers were rotated to the next group, and that table added on any more descriptions the first group had not thought of yet…the kids really enjoyed this activity! Here are some pictures I took while they were working hard:

After PE, we spent some time looking at poetry. The children were going to be completing an Acrostic poem about Vikings. We looked at two different examples of a good acrostic poem, and a poorly written acrostic poem. We had the kids decide what made them good or bad, and what kinds of standards they wanted to set for themselves to make great acrostic poems! They did a fantastic job on their rough drafts, and I’m excited to see their finished products!

After school, Niki, Laurel, and I almost missed our bus! We started running after it, and my earring fell out in route. Oh well, at least we made the bus =) Tonight after tea (dinner), Adam picked us up and we went to play games with some of the youth from Cumbernauld. It was a blast! I ended up going up against a teenage boy in one of the
games, and I’m very proud to say I destroyed him! He didn’t have a chance against me ;)

Another day at Carronshore

Tuesday, May 31^st, 2011

Today I didn’t go to the school until the afternoon because we take our Harding courses in the morning on Tuesdays. We were up for breakfast at 8:00, and had Bible class from 8:30-10:30. We learned today about John Gras, which was really interesting to me! Our class is about the history of the reformation and restoration movement from this side of the world’s perspective. There is a lot of History I’m not familiar with, so it should be an informative class. After class, I rushed quickly to get ready for school, and we headed to catch the bus.

Today I went to art class with the students, and actually painted with them because Joshua was absent and the teacher didn’t want him to fall behind. They were starting to paint their Viking ships. After art, Miss Laird had me teach until French. We looked at a map and atlas, and marked the coordinates. I was able to show them where I live in America, and how far I travel to get to Harding University. They were fascinated! I also talked about Colorado, and passed around postcards. At the end, Miss Laird asked me to do a question and answer session. These were a few of them:

*What are your police officers like in America?
*Do you call soda, juice?
*Do you like America or Scotland Better?
*Is it colder here than America?
*How do you get your voice to make that pretty accent?
*Who is the tallest person in your group?
*How many countries have you been too?
*Do you think you can come back and be our teacher next year at Carronshore?

They were just bursting with questions! I had them do some mental math to figure out how many countries I had been too. It was a great day at the school, and I’m already looking forward to going back again tomorrow =)

Monday: First day of school

I’ll start this post with a quote from my favorite movie, Finding Nemo.

“First day of school, first day of school!!!!!”

Monday was my first day with the 2^nd graders at Carronshore Primary, and it was just as wonderful as I imagined it would be! The children are just lovely, and were extremely excited to have an American teacher at their school. My cooperating teacher, Miss Laird, is fantastic as well!

During the day, we have a 15 min. break where all the teachers and faculty drink coffee or tea. It seems that they are excited to have us at their school, and they have started asking us lots of questions.
The students seem to be fascinated with my accent, and want to know all about America. Miss Laird told them they could come tomorrow with some questions for me.

Today was mainly observation, and getting to know the students better. There are 33 children in my class (22 boys, and 10 girls), which is quite a handful! We also have about 4 severely learning disabled children, and 2 with terrible behavior difficulties. There is also one little boy who has hearing impairments, so we use a microphone to teach. It’s one of the more difficult classes in the school, but Miss Laird handles them wonderfully, and there are truly some sweet angels in there.

I went with the students to their music class today, and the teacher had them sing a song in their attempted “American accents.” Oh my, it was HILLARIOUS!
Laurel, Niki, and I are all at the same school and have lunch at the same time. We ate in the cafeteria with the students, which turned out to be a big mistake. Some of the older boys were a little inappropriate towards us, so we’ll be eating with the faculty tomorrow!

The White Elephant

Well, I had written out a long blog post, but right before I hit send my computer crashed and it didn’t save anything I wrote. I will just keep this short and post some pictures for you to experience yet another wonderful day here in Scotland.

Worship this morning was such an encouragement. I’ve been feeling so strained in my time spent with God lately, and I was very refreshed to have the time set aside today instead of running to catch a bus or train. It’s so busy here, that I tend to be lost and consumed in what I’m doing, or where we are going next. It’s not a matter of IF I will be busy (because life itself is always busy), but rather, how can I spend my time most effectively? How do I see through the eyes of Christ, and not myself? I have a long ways to go in this area…

After eating some delicious vegetable soup and sandwiches, we headed out on a train to Edinburgh for the day.

I loathe souvenir shopping. It seems rather pointless to walk around into a bunch of stores with exactly the same items in them, all overpriced, and buy people sheep figurines and Scotland key chains for the sole purpose of buying something in Scotland. Nonetheless, I had an incredible time in Edinburgh today, which included:
*Having to hold on to our dresses all day long so we didn’t flash people on the streets. It was SO windy!
*Cramming 5 girls into a tiny telephone booth
*Drinking Starbucks and laughing hysterically about taking posed, candid pictures
*Making friends with local police and asking them to take a picture with us
*Visiting a breathtakingly beautiful church that started being built in the 1100’s and continued to be built through the 1900’s
*A big dinner surprise

I’ll expand on the surprise. For dinner, Dr. Wood took us to eat at a coffee house/restaurant called The White Elephant. This is where the author of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling wrote all her books!!!!! I LOVED it! The location. The opportunity. The atmosphere. The warmth. The food. Everything!

Here are some fun things I learned:
She sat it the back room where we ate dinner writing while looking out at the Edinburgh Castle
Some of the names she used were inspired by the gravesite we visited, such as Tom Riddle
Her daughters school, which is right behind The White Elephant, helped inspire the school of Hogwarts

Such a fun experience and a great way to end another wonderfully blessed day! The biggest blessing of it all, however, was coming back to the Carronvale and having a Skype date with Elijah =) I am blessed beyond measure, and thankful more and more each day for what God has done for me!

Rugby In Edinburgh

Transportation: Train Ride
Destination: Edinburgh
Inspiration: Rugby Game

Such an exciting day once again in Scotland. We headed off to the train station to go see the Rugby 7 games. While I didn’t know much about the rules of rugby beforehand, and still don’t after watching it all day, it was a BLAST!

We got off at the train station and walked along the beautiful streets of Edinburgh to the stadium. It was cold and windy, but our excitement about the games helped ease the chill. We had seats in the very front row, and cheered loudly for the first game of South Africa against Canada. It was hilarious to see people dressed up in all different costumes in the stands. After 4 or 5 games, the USA finally played. It was exciting to be in another country cheering on our American teammates. We had a US flag, and were all up on the big screen cheering =)

After the US games, we all walked outside in the rain to get some lunch. We all ended up having to pay 8 pounds (which is close to 15 US dollars) for a disgusting deer burger and cold french fries. We all ended up throwing most of it in the trash can….so gross!

What did get eaten of our lunch almost got thrown up about 30 minutes later. Something slightly traumatizing, yet downright hilarious happened. A streakier ran out onto the field, and security guards had to chase him down. Everyone was laughing hysterically, and it was without a doubt the most eventful thing that happened all day.

I have taken the liberty of notating today’s weather pattern for you:

Sunny and cold
Rainy and freezing
Sunny and cold
Rainy and freezing
Repeat 30 times….I’m not even slightly exaggerating. But, it was totally worth it, because going to the rugby tournament was probably one of my favorite things we’ve done so far in Scotland!

After all the games, we decided to take the train down a little further into town and go explore Edinburgh. I absolutely LOVED it! The streets and buildings were exquisite! I loved the cobblestone roads, and steep staircases through close street allies. We split off and were able to go exploring around the shops.

Some of us girls stopped at a really cute café and got hot chocolate and chocolate chip croissants. YUM!Our group met back up after eating, and stopped to watch a street performer. Brittni and Dr. Wood were both pulled into the show. The guy wasn't very funny, but watching Dr. Wood and Brittni hold up a brick and throw knives at him while riding a unicycle made it SO entertaining =)

We headed back late in the evening, had our nighttime snack(which they call dinner), and then headed to bed.My internet wouldn’t work last night, so that’s why I’m posting a day late!

Calender House

I stayed up really late last night talking with Elijah on Skype (which was SUCH a blessing), but definitely made getting out of bed this morning a little more challenging than usual. After breakfast, we said farewell to our friends from England. They are such precious people, and showered us with so much love. We then ventured on to catch the bus and head to the Calendar House. While we were waiting at the bus stop, the bus we needed to catch was approaching, but it didn’t stop for us. It was so crazy! We all couldn’t believe the driver just drove right by. We stood out at the stop waiting, half frozen, waiting for the next bus to arrive.

The Calender House

Once we finally got on a bus, we headed to Falkirk to tour a mansion in Scotland called the Calendar House, and learned all about the Romans building the Antonine wall. We learned about the Romans, Celts, and the difference between Legionary and Auxiliary soldiers. It was fascinating to learn about this history and see some of the original artifacts. While we were learning about the wardrobe, I was chosen to try on the helmet. Kelsey took a few pictures of me modeling it:

One thing that was especially unique about this tour is that they gave it to us in a workshop format that they would present to elementary school children, so the whole thing was very hands on and interactive. One of my favorite parts of the tour was dressing up as soldiers, and marching around the property all the way up to the Antonine wall. We had to dodge tennis balls and everything, it was a BLAST!

Preparing to dodge tennis balls

The boys immitating our girls pose

Tour in the kitchen

Everyone taking pictures of the beautiful home

After a full workshop and tour, we walked to the bus stop and headed into town for lunch. We ended up stumbling upon a place called Frankie and Benny’s, which turned out to be incredibly delicious! Kelsey and I slit a pizza and pasta dish. Take a look at how amazing it was!

We had the rest of the afternoon off, so many of us rested and read. After dinner, while we were waiting for our ride to game night, our group played a hilarious game of telephone. I am so thankful to be here with such a great group of students. We’ve already become great friends, and laughter is constantly pouring out of all of our hearts!

We then had game night with some Harding Graduates who are missionaries and teachers here, along with some of the Scottish youth. I learned a new game called ninja (hilarious), and then we played a few intense games of Mafia.

Well, it’s nearly midnight here, so I should probably get some rest. We leave early tomorrow after breakfast to go to a rugby game in Edinburgh!!!!!

Falkirk Wheel

It’s been another beautiful day here in Scotland! We’ve spent most of the day exploring Falkirk, which I enjoyed immensely. Early this morning after breakfast, I went with Dr. Wood, Derek, and Niki to pick up our teams bus passes. Once we had those in hand, we all walked to the bus stop with Falkirk as our destination and headed out.

After arriving, we were given a few hours to explore the town and do some shopping. I loved looking at all the beautiful buildings, but was surprised to find most of the shops to be very americanized. It was pretty chilly out, so Brittni, Kelsey, and I headed to a local coffee shop, Costa’s, to warm up. It was similar to the American Starbucks, and I had a delicious caramel latte =)

We then headed to lunch at the York Café for soup and sandwiches. After a great morning, and full bellies, we took another bus and headed to ride the famous Falkirk Wheel. It was cold and rainy most of the time, but that didn’t stop us from having a blast! Here are some pictures I took:

We got back to Carronvale just in time for supper. We had all worked up quite an appetite from walking around all day, so I was excited to see we were having chicken and rice to eat, with apple pie for dessert. During dinner, our Methodists friends from England came to join us, and while we were finishing up eating, one of the women named Diane had a seizure! It was really startling and scary, especially because we found out she didn’t have a history of having seizures. Dr. Wood did an amazing job tending to her, and we called an ambulance. She seemed like she was doing alright when she left, but we’re still praying for her!

After dinner, we had a time of worship with the Methodists, which was really unique. Right after, some of us walked over to the gym and I ran a few miles which felt good. I just got back to my room, and we’re about to have tea time =) Here are a few more pictures for you to enjoy!