Term starts tomorrow. The problem with holidays is that you get too used to them and you begin to get to the point where you just can’t imagine what it was like to work. I’m sort of like that now, but it will all fall back into place once tomorrow is over.
My parents and sister came over here to visit during the first week of the holiday. It was nice to see them again after 8 months. We went on several trips around the country, including Baalbeck, Qaadisha Valley, Jeita Grotto, Byblos, Beirut and Beiteddine. Jeita Grotto turned out to be very pricy. If you’re on a budget, don’t visit there.
While school was still on, we had a question and answer session in the class where my kids could ask them questions. It is good for them to hear different English voices and accents so that they understand more of what they hear. One of the questions which totally threw my sister was “Do you like your army?”. How are you supposed to answer that?! Oh they’re not bad, but I prefer the French one? The only time we ever see the British Army is on TV. In Lebanon they’re everywhere with the checkpoints on the roads.
I asked the children to write an essay about the best thing about their school. I was quite surprised with the quality of their work. Here are some quotes from their work:
“We learn with Mr Peter he don’t shout at us he is very nice.” For the record, I do shout at them, maybe loudly once a week.
“My best thing is that the teachers don’t hit.” Well, there’s a thing! Who would have thought it, the teachers don’t beat the children!
“We go on many picnics.” We have NEVER been on any picnics.
“My school is my second house and my favourite house”. I’m glad it’s not her first house, I couldn’t stand having this little girl living with me!
“And I love Handwriting because my writing is very nice and I write French because I don’t love writing in English because my handwriting it is not nice.” Do you understand this? Maybe she’s referring to me not allowing them to write in the silly curly style their French teacher makes them write in. I can’t actually read it when they do. I make them write the normal way, where the r looks like an r not an n. The p looks like a p not an r.
The second week of the holiday I went to Syria, you can read that journal yourself.
The Easter work in class went very well I thought. We did 4 lessons: Entry into Jerusalem; the trial and crucifixion; the communion; the resurrection and ascension. I used the visual aid of a piece of white paper for Jesus. We all agreed that if we were paper we would not be white because we do wrong things. Then we wrote the sins we’d done that day on the paper and burnt it. This represented our sins being destroyed, when Jesus died. I put the ash in a bucket (a tomb) and the next lesson I pulled out from the bucket a new piece of white paper (Jesus’ resurrection) minus our sins. We discussed why Jesus did all of these things and then about him going to heaven.
It was encouraging to hear all of the questions they children were asking, as they don’t often get a chance during the chapel time. On one occasion when I asked for questions, one boy put his hand up and asked “Mr Peter, how do babies get inside mothers?”. I told him to ask his mother.
Just a short entry this time, I’ll post again when some more things have happened at the school.
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