Fall Season

Flying through Fall

Once again it has been a quick Fall season where the first quarter has been over in the blink of an eye.
God provided us with the staff we needed to start out the school year and we had a wonderful start. It has been wonderful to have everyone back in the building again and having school in person for all grades. We've had to wear masks in the halls and shared spaces but have been able to have things pretty regular inside the classroom.

Beginning of the School Year

 

We had our annual welcome back to school picnic where I got to spend some time with the girls from my first first grade class that are now entering into grade 11. How the time flies! Hard to believe it has been 10 years!

Once again I have a grade 1/2 split class with 4 students in grade 1 and 7 in grade 2. They are a wonderful active bunch and it is fun getting to teach some of them for the second year in a row.

Making handprints for our all about me books

Retelling Bible stories using finger puppets. This group of students love our Bible story times and have gotten quite excited about retelling the stories using puppets.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I was lucky to host a large Thanksgiving dinner on the Saturday and a smaller one on the Sunday. Although a whole turkey is hard to come by we had turkey breasts and legs and BBQ chicken. 

 

It was a lovely celebration and I was brought back sweet memories with lemon meringue pie. When I was a little girl our neighbours would invite us for Thanksgiving and there was always lemon meringue pie because it was my dad's favourite. 

Enjoying the fall season with markets and walks along the river. We have had our ups and downs with the pandemic but if it is in the wide-open air life can almost seem pretty normal.

Field Trip - Museum of Senses

We have been learning about the 5 Senses in science and wrapped our unit by going to the Museum of Senses. It was fun to take the kids out to museums and on field trips again. We had the space to ourselves for the morning so we could go mask free and feel a bit like normal.

 

 

Reading Day!

Last year we were in lock-down during our annual reading day so it was with great excitement that we could participate in this annual tradition. Students and staff get to dress up as a favourite book character and participate in different activities.

So fun to have students who I taught in grade one read to me now that they are in grade seven! 

How fast they grow up!

Amelia Bedelia - Who changed the towels

 

 

 

This year I decided to be Jillian Jiggs who is a character from the books by Phoebe Gilman including The Wonderful Pigs of Jillian Jiggs.

 

We are very thankful for making it through the first quarter. We are still praying for teachers as our grade three teacher was filling in until November. So we will need a new grade 3 teacher in less than 3 weeks! Our grade four teacher is our principal and graciously stepped in to help us out this year, as well as doing his principal duties which is quite a lot! We also still do not have an art teacher. We can praise the Lord we already have people interested for teaching next school year and praying for the Lord's provision for the rest of this school year.

Look out Summer here comes FALL

 Summer life - Resting up for Fall

Although it was not the summer I planned on having it has been the rest I have needed. When plans to return to Canada for a visit fell through I took on a house/pet sitting gig for the summer. The flat is located next to the river and has been a lovely summer home. I get to hang out with two cuddly creatures and enjoy a little rest as I prepare for the upcoming school year.

 

English Camp

Summer is a time when many churches host English camps. These camps are an opportunity to not only teach English but build relationships with Czechs in the community. Often these camps are run by local churches by missionaries and teams from North America. Usually during the summers I'm not available to take on summer English camps, however this year due to the challenges of Covid restrictions I was available to help. I have friends whose mission hosts a camp every year and with borders being tight their team from the USA was unable to come. So I signed up for a week of reading stories to a group of children at an English Family Camp hosted in Orlické hory (Eagle Mountains). It was a fun week of hikes in the hills, listening to a lot of Czech, singing and sharing stories in English.

Happy Birthday - So often my birthday has fallen during a week at camp and this year was no exception. My friends Curt and Vicky made a wonderful cake for my birthday making it a memorable day.

We ventured out to this old church on a hill and had a time of singing and sharing about the gospel.

Praising the Lord

There have been many things to praise the Lord for in the past couple of weeks.

The first week of August has welcomed 4 of our new teachers into the Czech Republic!

We have two Canadians join our team and they have been staying with me as they look for a flat. They surprised me with a box of timbits. So nice to get a little sweet taste of home!

 

Prayers and Petitions

We still have many mountains that need to be moved before school starts. Our need for elementary teachers is still a top priority. We have a plan Z to make it through to December but it is not ideal. We have been blessed with a very willing and flexible staff that will take on teaching assignments they have never planned on - like teaching grade five classes. We have a teacher who will be in the country until December who will take on grade 3 and our principal who hopefully be in the country by the end of the week is able to do grade 4 if we have no one else. This is not an ideal situation but we trust the Lord in his provision and his timing and continue to pray for teachers. We are still in need of elementary teachers as it is best to have a teacher who is teaching the class full time and not trying to split their time between administrative duties and teaching.

There are many things to pray for

Provision of elementary teachers and art teacher

Visas for our new staff

Housing for our new staff

Challenges with changes in Czech law regarding Health insurance requirements for foreigners

Challenges with Covid 19 restrictions and rules returning back to school

Covid-19

The pandemic has brought about many changes and challenges. Czech Republic is currently making changes to their requirements for health care requiring all foreigners to have a particular health care provider which will directly impact foreigners living in the country. So often here the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing so getting the right information can be tricky and frustrating at times. Please pray for our administration and mission teams as they work to navigate these new rules.

August has started off with a bang and I have hit the ground running. I am excited to welcome a large group of new TeachBeyond members to our team and it has kept me very busy. The plan is for me to teach a 1/2 split this year and help lead our elementary team as I slowly hand off duties to our new principal. 

With changes in numbers and class sizes we played musical classrooms again and so have once again relocated the grade 5 classroom. I spent this week putting it in order and making it look more like a classroom and less like a pile of supplies and books. I need to learn to take more before pictures. 

Next I need to tackle my own room!

There are many, many new changes and challenges we will face this year as we navigate the ever changing pandemic and its rules. Pray for health, and wisdom as we go into this new school year.