My Classroom

Here are a few pictures from my classroom.  It is small, but I am making it work. 

 

 Below is the gym.  It was too hot to walk out to the pool.  Carter begins his first P.E. session in the pool next week.  All kids have PE at least twice a week and they do 4 week pool sessions.  There will be three adults in the pool.

 This hallway leads to my classroom.  It is always shiny!  They mop it at least once a day.  Our walls will be decorated soon. 

 I made a tree in my classroom to remind me of home.  I am going to change the leaves as the seasons at home change.  Most of these children do not know about seasons.

 

Things that are different from my school at home:

• I only have 15 students in my classroom.  None of my students are from the U.S.  I have 2 from Canada, 8 from Saudi Arabia, 1 from Lebanon, 1 from India, 1 from Phillipines, 1 from France, and 1 from many countries (his mom is US. and his dad is from Columbia and they have lived everywhere!). 
• Each grade level has a housekeeper.  They clean everything!  They wipe down all desktops and door knobs each day.  They clean the floors, counters, garbage, and recycle bins.  I left a mess in my room and was planning on cleaning it up the next morning, but when I arrived my classroom was already clean and organized!  I feel like the garbage has a sensor because each time something is placed in it Florenda empties it.  Amazing!  I plan on buying this lady a huge gift!
• Classes have 8 specialists. Some specialist they see more than once a week.  Our specialist are: Arabic, Islamic Cultures, PE, Art, and Performing Arts.  I take them to library.  The library is wonderful!  I will take a picture soon!
• Each grade level has a learning support and language support teacher. 
• Each teacher has multiple observations and will be evaluated through out the year.  A bonus will be given for different performance levels.
• Most of my teaching is not stand alone subjects.  We try to integrate as much as possible.
• Collaboration is key to success around here.  The majority of planning must be done with a team and the lesson plans are uploaded to a website. 
• I have duty a few times a week.  Recess, after school and one afternoon recess. 
• Many kids pray at 1:45 in the prayer room.
• It is more exhausting to teach here.  I am not sure what it is, but I am beat at the end of each day.  I know my conditions sound ideal, but expectations are really high.  It is a lot of thinking and learning all new curriculum.  I started Daily 5 so things can feel a little normal. 

Teaching overseas is a wonderful experience!  

First Day of School

 Today was the big day!  We have been building up to this day since March!  I can't believe how well the three of us slept last night considering all of the unknowns for our first day.  (It was tough getting a good picture of the two of them together.

 They caught the bus just a few houses down from us at 7:20!  There are 21 school buses and each bus has an assistant.  Our boys were the only ones on the bus today.  I think most parents brought their kids.  Bryan met the boys at school (by bike) and helped them get to their class.  However, Carter had already made it to his class, so Bryan had to help other kids.  It was a little crazy getting off the bus for many of the kids.

 Our precious kindergartner!  I didn't have time to cry today thinking of everything I had to accomplish.  I am crying now thinking of how much he will grow this coming school year.  He was so excited about his day!
Carter's Point of View: My favorite part was writing.  I drew a slide but never wrote the word slide.  The teacher never told me to write slide but I like writing.  All my friends speak English! 

 I think I felt pretty good when this picture was taken, but about 2 hours later I was almost in tears.  Things should be easy since I only have 14 kids, but the routines and procedures here are so different.  I think about how I used to spend a few hours in a staff meeting going over a handbook of procedures.  I was never given a handbook here, just a bunch of emails and I am expected to have a grasp on everything.  At 9:30 we have Morning Tea, which doesn't involve tea!  It is snack and recess.  The 4 new teachers (me included) went out to the wrong recess area.  The rest of the school were on the fields.  We had know idea about this plan and figured we were to be at the place with playground equipment.  Oops!  We are expected to be glued to our email during the day.  Messages come all the time of things that need to be done.  This is not normal for me!  I never check my email  unless the kids are out of the room.  I had to spend 15 minutes looking up everyone's bus number on an excel sheet.  There is no one for me to call for this help.  I had to let my students draw while I did this task.  Hopefully I can train my assistant to help me with these tasks.  Also, I can only pronounce a few of the names in my room.  It was my first day and I felt a little blue after school, but tomorrow is a new day!  I think I am blue each year on the first day.  It is my least favorite day of the year.  Tomorrow I am going to introduce some familiar routines in the classroom and implement my reading style (Daily 5).  Hopefully that will feel normal!

 Cameron is two doors down from my classroom.  He loves his teacher and thinks she would make a great friend for me! She is also new this year and comes from Billings, Montana.
Cameron's Point of View: My favorite part was having lunch with my mom.  I also like recess but it was short. 

Carter's Classroom

 

Too Cute!

Mrs. Malik is Carter's teacher.  She is also new and has been to all the trainings with me.  I was delighted when he was placed in her class.  She has been International for most of her teaching career and raised her kids in International Schools.   Her children are called Third Culture Kids because they grew up in the International system.  I will talk more about that later.  Carter loves her!  I am so excited for his great school year!

Typical Johnson look!  They get this from their dad!

Day two tomorrow!  I will try and take pictures of my classroom!  Oh, and I will tell you about the third grade room cleaner.  She cleans everything all day long in our rooms and hallway!  Amazing!  I am getting really lazy living here.

Global Citizen

Rebecca's Point of View: I want you to meet some of my new friends. They may look American, but their accents will give them away.

This is my new teaching partner. :)  We are neighbors and will be working closely together.  She is Canadian but has been teaching in China and Korea for about 8 years. There are 6 of us teaching third grade.  We also have an English As Second Language Teacher and a Learning Support Teaching.  We also have 3 teacher assistants that float from room to room. (Lots of grade level support)

 This is my friend that is from the U.K. She has been teaching in Oman for the past few years. 

 These two ladies are lots of fun.  One if from the U.K. the other is from New Zealand.

 Here is most of the new teachers.  We had a party celebrating that we are no longer newbies!  There were over 33 new hires representing 13 nationalities.  Many of us were hired for new positions because the school is growing at a tremendous rate.

We have lots of fun!  Great group of people.

Good Humor!

Being a Global Citizen is part of our mission statement.  We are expected to respect other cultures, religions, and lifestyles.  The teaching staff has over 25 nationalities represented and our community has at least 85.  It is amazing to meet so many people from around the world.  In fact, I am not sure if there is another place that has so many different nationalities coexisting peacefully in one place.  Everyone that lives here has come to learn about the world, so disrespecting other cultures is not a problem.  So far becoming a Global Citizen has been the most rewarding part of living here.  I can't wait to meet my students in 3 days.  I am sure there will be much diversity. 

My New Mode of Transportation

My new wheels!  This is how I will be commuting to work each day.  Notice I am wearing a skirt with leggings!  I take the leggings off when I arrive to school, and then put them on for the trip home.  (The boys are also enjoying my new wheels!) Beep, Beep!

Camel Riding!

Cameron's Point of View: Today we went to the beach.  We went on the water trampoline. There was a camel and pony ride.  There were two ponies and one camel.  Carter and I rode the camel.  The camel was growling.  It had a net around its mouth.  It was a bumpy ride.  Carter and I rode two ponies at the same time.  Carter got the wild pony because his pony liked to run.  The first time I went on the pony without Carter I got the wild one.  The camel had fancy stuff around him.  A lot of people can fit on the camel.  

 This is the grumpy, growling camel!  Do you like his hat?

 Carter's Point of View: I rode the pony 2 times.  I rode the camel 4 times.  I like the camel riding best. 

 We also played on kyaks and paddle boards today.  It was great fun!

Rebecca's Point of View:  Tomorrow will be my first day back to work after a 12 day vacation.  We have had a fantastic week of acclimating to our new community.  We have left twice on the bus to go to IKEA and then the next day we went to the mall.  The mall had many of the stores that I am used to seeing at home: H&M, Bath & Body, Esprit, Jusitce, and Krispy Kreme Donuts!  We were so excited about the donuts!  The malls in Saudi Arabia are quite interesting.  Only men seem to work in the stores.  It was quite cute to see these tall men in the Bath & Body aprons.  Also, there are no fitting rooms in the stores.  You have to buy your clothes and take them home to see if they fit.  The reasoning is that they do not ever want women to be put in a situation where they are unclothed in public.  The malls are also quite large.  They have ice rinks, roller coasters, and water slides. We arrived too early to play on these things, and learned that they stay open late and families usually come at night.  Prayer time happened about 12:30.  We were inside a store and everyone left and the doors were closed.  We were able to get out, but unable to purchase the items we wanted to buy.  The entire mall closed down for about 40 minutes.  Our bus left at 1:00, so we never did get to make the purchase.

I have spent the rest of my vacation next to the pool.  I love the pool!  It has to be one of my favorite places, and I just discovered a path that leads from my school to the pool!  I will be doing this after school most days of the week!

Life here is quite nice.  However, I woke up last night feeling a little sad because I miss my friends, family, and pets.  I especially miss my cat!  He was already to travel, but Saudi Arabia is having a cat food shortage.  All cat food has been pulled because it contains pork products.  Hopefully this issue can be resolved and then he can make the journey.  For now he is living with Steve, Alexa, Hayes, and Noah (Bryan's Brother's Family).  It seems he is having a grand time exploring their gigantic house!  We miss you Sylvester! 

Stay tuned for Bryan's update on playing golf!

A Visitor

Cameron's Point of View: When we came home from Discovery Square we were going to Skype our grandpa and grandma, and then we saw the tiniest gecko we have ever seen! It was trying to Skype our Grandma and Grandpa.  It scared us at first because we thought it was a spider.  We almost slapped it.  I held it.  We let it go on our palm tree in our front yard.  It didn't want to leave.  It stayed on me.  Geckos are really fast and hard to catch.  We have almost caught one before.  Some blend into the outside walls.  They are not dangerous.  They are very nice. Once in Mexico, at the waterslides, I held a baby gecko. They are cute!

Trip Outside of the Walls!

Rebecca's Point of View:  Last night was a restless sleep because of the nerves I was having about my first outing to Jeddah.  I guess I kept thinking about how everyone at home keeps telling me to be careful or just stay behind the walls, but it wasn't that bad! Everyone was friendly and I didn't feel like anyone was staring at me.   I am so proud of myself and I am now ready for the next adventure.  Below is a picture of me leaving the house! (I wore my pajamas underneath! I also wore my Chaco sandals to give it a northwest look!)

 The bus left from our grocery store parking lot at 8 a.m.  It took about 60 minutes and was a really comfortable ride.  The freeway is quite smooth, and Cameron was so happy to see camels on the side of the freeway.  He yelled, "They are one humpers dad!" 
The bus dropped us right in front of Ikea.

 This Ikea felt like I was at home.  All the same items, all the same prices, and all the crazy fun.  The only difference was all the women were wearing black Abayas and the men were wearing whatever they please!  Grrrrr.  We bought some basic items to make our home feel like ours.  It came with many items, but having white linens is just not a good idea for a family with boys. 

I am told that public restrooms for women are only found in the city.  Outside of the city you will only find restrooms for men.  I am not sure what women are supposed to do, maybe squat behind some tumbleweed in an abaya!  That should be interesting.  However, I haven't been in a public restroom that is equipped with toilet paper.  There is a little hose next to each toilet with a kitchen sprayer on the end.  I guess I am supposed to spray myself clean with it!  How am I supposed to dry?  I am unsure of the procedure, so I am now carrying my own toilet paper when we go out in public. It seems the men have toilet paper. 

Safety was a big part of our adventure.  We had to go thru 2 safety checks when coming back to our community.  Everyone's ID was checked and underneath the bus was also checked.  Security is taken very seriously here.  We didn't mind waiting while this was done.  It is nice to know we live in a very safe place.