It has been a week of endurance for all of us. The kids are doing great hanging in there, but after about the first 45 minutes to hour, they start wilting. The challenge of talking/listening over the fans, the sweat rolling down our faces, and the overall uncomfortable feeling of it all takes its toll.
I am trying to get through all our core subjects every morning. We start off with our big chunk of reading with both Mrs. Kaisand and me teaching. It's been a modified version, as we would typically do a 25 minute slot each afternoon as well, but we are making it work. I then try to get the Vowac lesson taught before they go out for recess. When they come in from recess, it's hotter and more difficult to concentrate, so I try to get as much teaching in as possible before then.
Today, the temperature in the room shot up two degrees as the students re-entered the room from recess! We are thinking of modifying our recess plans for tomorrow, which is forecast to be even warmer (is that even possible?!?!?).
Today Mr. Alons brought in bags of ice cubes for the students and teachers to use, so after recess, we took our waterbottles to the freezer and filled them with ice and fresh water. The students who did not have waterbottles had time to get some nice long cold drinks. We then headed to the air conditioned library for our 20 minute slot of coolness. It was a good place to get our Vowac worksheets done.
We were then able to come back to our room and get our math problem solving worksheet completed. We had to work hard to get through it, but we did it!
We ended the day by watching a sight word video while I listened to memory verses. I turned off the lights and the students were able to sit quietly and learn some sight words (we call them "outlaw words" in first grade!"). I was just tickled that I was able to hear everyone's memory verse before we went home...and I was tickled that most of the students did EXCELLENT! Way to go!
Please do keep us in your prayers tomorrow...it has been a long and tiring week--I'm sure you can see on your child how much the heat affects them. We as teachers are also wearing down. Please pray that we may have one more day of energy to teach these precious kiddos!
Many thanks for all the feedback and comments! Right now, it looks like there are five in the drawing for the DAIRY QUEEN GIFT CARD! I will draw for the winner tomorrow afternoon!