a package in the mail!

We got our first boxes of books this week!! Anyone who is friends with me on facebook will know the set up to this but let me give you just a bit of backstory here.

One of my all time favorite (and I truly believe most important) things to do with kids is to read with them. There are countless studies about what a good read aloud can do for a child’s developing language skills so imagine my dismay when I got here and discovered that my classroom had a total of 4 books in English! The principal had asked for suggestions on books to order but we’ve got limited access since many places won’t deliver this far. So, I put a plea out to the webosphere and I was thrilled by the response. Many offered to send books that their kids had outgrown or to gather books in their church, school, and scouting groups to send our way. I know the shipping costs are horrendous so I expected small boxes of maybe 4 or 5 books. Imagine my delight when the first two came weighing in at 20 pounds a piece and holding dozens of books each (including some activity books and flash cards)! It was better than Christmas. I opened them right up and did a bit of sorting to see which ones I would hold back as teacher-use only to fit with our teaching themes and then set the rest aside for kid use and daily story time.

The kids were as excited as I was! Instantly they were clumped in groups talking about the princesses or superheroes, listening intently to the antics of Arthur, Angelina Ballerina and Thomas as read by our intern and asking me if these were really all for us. It was awesome!

Thanks to Roger and Janeil for your amazing generosity. You’ve made a huge difference in the lives of these kids and saved my sanity! Whenever there is a spare few minutes where chaos is reigning or one of the other teachers fails to show (which, happens every day!) I know have something worthwhile to fall back on. You're the best!!