Family Night with the Olson Family

Two big things today:

1. I taught my first “official” lesson today! It was just a guided reading lesson with six students, and I didn’t do much planning for it (Mrs. Eka asked me to do it when I arrived this morning), but it was a lesson nonetheless and I loved it! The students read a book about how magnets are used, and then they used magnetic letters to spell out words they found in the book. We then took pictures of their words and tomorrow we’ll glue them into their literacy books. It was a fun lesson, but reminded me of the various levels of the class. I took the highest reading group for this, but even in this group there is variance in their levels. Two of the six easily read through the book, two did ok, and then two struggled with a lot of it. It sure will be interesting to figure out how to best help each of these students progress in their reading and comprehension skills!
2. I am just so happy right now, because we spent the evening with the Olson family from church. Dallas and Angela have six kids: Faust (15), Aiden (13), Kayla (11), Zion (6), Vanz (4), and Izrael (3), and every single one of them is wonderful. From the second we walked into their house, I felt at home. Each of the children were so friendly and loved asking us lots and lots of questions. It was fun because they actually went to the States in 2008, so they had quite strong opinions about lots of foods and different American things. For example, Aiden thinks American Doritos are wayyyy better than New Zealand Doritos, but New Zealand’s ginger beer is wayyy better than American’s root beer. They all were a hoot! We had a delicious dinner and dessert, and then the kids were in charge of Family Home Evening—so cute. One of the best parts of the night was when Vanz did the haka for us. I was not expecting the intensity he did it with—he got so into it and it made it even more entertaining. We also played Boggle, to which I am proud to say, Faust and I beat everyone by a long shot. We ended up with 72 points (after 3 rounds), while the closest team only have 37 points! We definitely were the Boggle champions, and we loved it! It was so wonderful to be in a home with a family so similar to mine. They said they’ll have us over again soon, and we are already looking forward to it!