September 2, 2011

There's not a whole lot of new information to share this week. Things are cruising along pretty smooth. I'm going to post videos this week instead of pictures. Our story this week was called "Yang the Eldest and His Odd Jobs". It's a story about a boy who uses his violin talents to earn himself money at a street fair. Usually, I play the students a violin piece from my I-pod, but this year, I happened to know that we had two students who had been taking violin lessons. I asked
the two of them to come and play for the class:

I am so proud of the both of them for having the guts to stand up in front of their peers and play like this, but I am especially proud of this second one. She told me after the fact that this was the first time she had ever played in front of people outside of her lessons. They both did a fantastic job!

All in all, things are moving along at a fairly normal rate. Because of the change in math core this year, I feel that the material we are covering hits harder sooner, but for the most part the kids seem to be handling it okay, and those that are struggling don't seem to be afraid to ask questions. If we keep this attitude all year long, I have no doubt we'll be successful.

We ended this week with a short character lesson based around the book, "The English Roses," by Madonna. It's the story of the a group of girls who don't befriend another girl simply because of how pretty she is and how much better that must make her life. They come to find that her mother died when she was young and so outside of school, she has no friends, and is always at home helping her dad out around the house. The lesson to be learned is that we all have what I call "baggage". We are all dealing with something that no one else knows about, and you never know hot heavy that something is. As students in this class, we are all a family for the next 35 weeks and we will take care of each other as if this were so. We will be there to root for each other when things are great, and we will be there to pick each other up when things aren't going so well. No matter what, we will be there for each other!

"To the world you may just be one person, but to one person you may be the world!" - Brandi Snyder