Zoo Fun!

Things in the classroom are going well, although things are a bit different now.  My one assistant has left my classroom for a practicum she needs to complete for her education, so she will be gone until sometime in March.  I have been blessed with another new assistant to fill her place until she returns.  It is definitely a challenge though, because she does not understand what I am saying at all.  It’s like starting all over again and learning how to express what I need to say and have her do in a creative enough way for her to understand.  So it is a bit stressful, but I am very thankful to still have my other assistant Sonia in my room still.  And as for Sonia, she is expecting a baby!  She will be leaving my classroom sometime towards the end of the year too because her baby is due in June sometime.  I pray that I will be able to meet her third child before I leave Honduras.  I keep reflecting on how much my relationship with my assistants has grown since the beginning of the year.  It definitely took time to develop, but I truly appreciate my assistants and can easily call them friends.  We have fun together in our classroom, and I give thanks to God for them often!

Our decorations are in the process of being changed again, and this time it is for Valentine’s Day, yay!  I definitely have enjoyed making these decorations, I really love this holiday!  Our music teacher left before Christmas break to continue on with his education in Costa Rica, so we haven’t had music in my class since being back.  I feel as though music is important for young kids, so I have brought my guitar back into my classroom and we have been enjoying it.  They really enjoy “The Wheels on the Bus.”  I might be the only one singing the right words, but at least they enjoy doing the hand motions!

We continue to learn new verses for our morning devotion time.  So far we have been memorizing these verses: Genesis 1:1, Psalm 18:30, 1 John 3:23, Psalm 18:30, John 1:3, Psalm 23:1, Genesis 26:24, and James 1:17.  We say them every morning, and I used to not say the last word in the verse and they would remember it on their own.  They have gotten so good at saying these verses! Some of them know most of them all (with a few made up words because they can’t say the real English word, it’s super cute).  But it’s definitely been a joy seeing them remember these verses!

This weekend some of us went to Lago de Yajoa again, but this time we went to go see the zoo.  One of the high school classes gets to go on a fieldtrip later in the year to the zoo, so we went to check it out before hand.  It was a blast!  The zoo was a Christian zoo—how cool!! They had worship music playing throughout the whole zoo and the staff was very friendly!  It was awesome.  The zoo was very hands on, clean, and there were a ton of animals!  I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Now for a fun story.  So I started doing this “dinosaur” act a few years ago to my friends and younger brother.  He always hated when I did it to him, but he laughed every single time.  So naturally, I have continued to do it J.  I recently showed my roommates the dinosaur, and they loved it as well.  Well, it just so happens we got to the zoo and saw three huge fake dinosaur statutes in the park.  I JUST HAD TO GET A VIDEO being baby dinosaur.   Kind of weird, I know, but I hope you get laugh!