Worth the drive

One of my least favorite things to do is drive.  Let me just preface this story with that statement.  So when my son asked me to drive him to church tonight, I was not quite looking forward to it. 
 I left work at 4:10, drove to pick up my sophomore son at 5:10, drove to pick up his friend, and drove them to church by 6:00 for the high school ministry program on Wednesday nights.  As he got out of the car, he said, "Wait, I've got to get my wallet out of the back." 
"Why do you need your walled?" I inquired.
"I need to tithe," he said.
As he was shutting the back door, I heard his friend say, "Got your tithe?"
"Yep," Jeff replied and they headed into the church.
As I drove away, I teared up.  "Wow, God!  You are Amazing!"
I was reminded how 4 years ago, we moved to Fort Worth.  Everything was new.  New school. New people. No friends. 
I really wanted Jeffrey to connect and make some new friends at church, so I insisted that he go to the Jr. High program weekly.  He wasn't thrilled about going.  I kept driving him there every week and hoping he'd make a friend or talk to somebody. Anybody. 
Each week was fruitless.  Then one week after I dropped him off, I cried all the way home.  I cried because my son needed a friend.  I cried out to God for Jeffrey.  I wanted him to have good relationships.  I wanted him to have Godly friends.  I wanted him to have connections. 
The next week, God answered my prayer.  I got a call from a woman who heard that we lived near her and that my son was going to the Jr. High night weekly.  She thought we might want to carpool.  I talked with her about moving to the area and how we weren't connected in a lifegroup yet either.
She told me about their lifegroup and how it had several kids in it the same age as Jeffrey.  I was so excited and we started going to that lifegroup.
Now it is four years later.  I can look back and see how much God has given us.  How much He has given Jeffrey.  He has wonderful Christian friends that are as close as brothers.  Jeffrey has friends that he can talk about God with and share his life with.  What an amazing journey!
I realized that God cares so much about our needs.  He cares so much about our children's needs too!  He worked in Jeffrey's life to give him the connections that he needed.  Thank you, God for listening to my prayer and giving us more than we could ever ask or imagine!  What good gifts you give to our children.
And tonight's reminder was well worth the drive. :-)

First Grade Survey

My first-graders are learning about surveys, data, and making a representation (or a graph) of the data.  Each pair of students came up with their own survey question and polled everyone in the class.  Then we went to the computer lab to make the representations on kidpix.  I personally think anytime you can combine kidpix and math, you are sure to impress someone with your tech-savvy 6 year-olds.  I am walking around viewing their representations when I come across one interesting one.  Now I told my students that they must have a title, their 2 categories labeled, numbers, and a representation of that number (tally marks, pictures, circles, bar graph, etc).  This group has the question: Which do you like better: bm or p?  Furthermore, they discovered that 15 people liked bm and 7 people liked p. 
While biting my bottom lip, I ask, "What is your survey question again?"  
"You know," they reply, "Which do you like better: blue macaws or parrots?"
"Oh, of course!  How silly of me!  One tip though: You might want to label it "blue macaw" and "parrot". Just so no one gets confused,"  
 "No.  We would rather abbreviate it," they reply.  Oh well.  I tried.  I think I'll hang it in the hallway anyway.  It will definitely leave people guessing!

Bathroom Rules for first graders

At the beginning of the year, I always go over the rules of the restroom: use whispering voices, do not play around, wash your hands, come back into the hallway and sit quietly.
Around mid-year, I think I should add some more rules.  Here goes:

1. Do not step in the water puddle on the floor in the first stall.
2. Do not put water bottles in the toilet.
3. Do not attempt to take water bottles out of the toilet.
4. Do not throw water on anyone else.
5. Do not crawl under, over, or peek into stalls.
6. Do not turn out the lights and hide, then pop out to scare someone and scream.
7. Take off your gloves before washing your hands.
8. Always flush the toilet.
9. If the toilet will not stop flushing, do not run screaming from the restroom. 
10. (for boys) Aim for the urinal.  Do not aim up in the air, onto the floor, or treat others as a target.
11. Do not sing at the top of your lungs just to hear your voice echo.
12. Wrestling is not allowed in the restroom.
13. Attempting to spider-man climb the walls is not allowed either.

So there are my 13 rules for the restroom. I'm sure I'll have to add more as May approaches. Hmmm...