Child of the week - Kyarolin

Meet Kyarolin:Now, I know that teachers are not supposed to have favorites. Don't get me wrong, I love each one of my kids just as much as the next, but their are a few kids who just pull my heart strings a little more. Kyarolin is one of those. Maybe it is the fact that she looks like a Cabbage Patch Doll.Or the fact that she sounds like a cartoon character when she talks.
Or the fact that she says that she is my daughter. In any case, I love Kyarolin and she is a joy and a laugh to be around. This is her first year at our school and she is 3 years old. Her main accomplishment that she has made this year is in the area of social development. At the beginning of the year she would be content to spend all of recess in my lap and never interact with the other kids. Now, the fact of the matter is that I would be happy to have her in my lap all day long, but I knew it was important for her to play with the other kids. So I started encouraging her to play with the other kids. I would take her over to the sand box and sit with her for a few minutes and then leave her contently playing alongside the other children. She has developed greatly in this area. She is still shy, which is fine, but at least she talks and interacts with the other kids more.
Kyarolin comes from a loving, stable household but her parents are not Christians. There is also a bit of turmoil in her household as her oldest sister, Diosmeri, who was the only real Christian of the family, just turned up pregnant by her boyfriend and got thrown out of the house. Pray for her family that they would come to a saving knowledge of Christ.

Happy Valentines Day

For Valentines day we did a special art project with the kids at school. They turned out so cute and the kids were very excited to have something to take home to give to someone who they loved for Valentines Day. And of course it was another great opportunity to teach the kids about the greatest love of all: that God has for His people. It is so precious to me to teach my kids that no matter who else loves or doesn't love them, God always has and always will love them.

Student of the week

Meet Adrian.

Adrian is 4 and this is his first year at the school. He was a late enrollment as one of the students dropped out. When his mother first brought him to the school she ensured me that he was a diablito (a little devil). This was very sad that she said this because she said it right in front of him, not in jest. She then told him that he had better behave himself because his teacher (me) was very mean and would spank him if he was bad. I quickly assured her that I was sure he was a good kid and would do just fine. Needless to say, this was not really the way I wanted to start out with him. I much prefer positive reinforcement instead of threatening punishment. But many parents do not give any form of positive reinforcement at home and think that the only way of discipline involves threats and spanking. Then kids grow up learning to not respect authority but only to fear punishment, which for many kids is not enough incentive to obey. Many parents and other people refer to kids as malcriados or poorly-raised. It makes me sad to hear people say this about kids because it makes me think that not even the parents care enough to try to raise their kids properly.
As it turns out, Adrian is anything but malcriado. He is a very sweet kid and always has a smile on his face. More recently he has starting tell me that he loves me about 50 times a day. He is extremely intelligent and has already learned to write his name all on his own. His mom tells me that he always insists on doing his homework by himself, with no one helping him.

Since he has started at the school I have also seen a change in his mom. She is a very nice lady and often comes to pick up Adrian early from school just to sit in the classroom and watch him. Sometimes she still makes comments to him that I would not necessarily approve of, but as she observes the way that I speak to the kids I see her attitude changing. Please pray for Adrian and his mom (Yesenia) that she would see her child the way that God sees him: as a blessing and a wonderful creation. Pray that she would understand that raising her child is a responsibility that God has given to her and that the way she treats her child now will affect him for the rest of his life.

Child of the week - Alexander

I have decided to do something that I promised a long time ago: present a child from the school each week.

Meet Alexander.
Alexander is 4 years old and is in his second year at the school in my level 1 class. He is very smart and will be moving on to the next level class at the end of this year. He knows his whole alphabet, all the colors and can count very proficiently. He is still working on his handwriting skills and is getting better at writing his name without help. He is a very energetic child and especially enjoys playing with toy cars. His parents are not Christians so please pray for Alexander and his family that through him his family may come to know and worship Jesus.

Here he is receiving a Christmas gift from his sponsors (who happen to be my parents.):
If you are interested in sponsoring a child please contact me by email. lombard.katie@gmail.com

Sports

Every Friday we do sports and games with the kids at school. We feel it is important to also teach the kids about physical fitness (you can never start too young, right?) so we always start that time off with doing stretches and other exercises. Since I love yoga, and kids are usually pretty flexible, i like to include some yoga moves into our stretches. Now, I don't tell the kids we are doing yoga I tell them that we are doing "animal exercises". Those of you who have ever done yoga know that many of the positions have animal names. Here are the kids doing an "Upward dog/ downward dog" which I told them was called the Lion to get them to growl at the end.I think it is cute how you can see some of them growling in the pictures.

Back to school!!

The kids are excited to be back to school after a very long Christmas vacation!