My friend over here at http://budapestbyrequest.wordpress.com/ is teaching at a school in Budapest (as you can tell from the title of her blog). Miss Stobbe and I were in the same PYP at TWU and are both far from home right now, teaching! We first met when we were SOS leaders for the first-year university students at school. Diana is famous for her hilarious stories and witnessing/ being part of very random things. People love Diana. She is just someone others gravitate to- seriously, who wouldn't?
So it turns out Diana has been teaching her class how to write letters. The kids are loving it! Diana sent an email out to her list of friends and family members asking if 20 people would want to receive a little letter from one of her students. I jumped on this! Firstly, I'd love a little letter. I love seeing kids print and hearing what they have to say. Seconly, I thought it'd be so neat for Brook and Abbie to see and receive a letter with me. So, last Monday we received our letter and were pretty stoked
(it arrived on my birthday- how cool is that?).
Here is our letter!
Hope Miss Lilla doesn't mind that we are sharing her letter (and that I'm sharing it with you)!
Diana requested that if we say "yes" to receiving a letter from one of her students, that we would also agree to send a letter back. So, the girls and I each wrote a letter back to our new pen-pal friend. This is a neat time in the school year where you can do something big like this and feel a sense of accomplishment for completing a big project. There's something special too about doing a meaningful piece of written work that isn't just put in the recycling, but is actually going to someone else to be received and read. I was pretty excited that our penpal was a 7 year old girl and Abbie and Brook are 6. Here's a picture of the girls with their finished letters.
Nice work, Brook! I'm so proud of how they are reading and writing. Typical of kids this age, once they figure out how letters work together to formulate words, they just take off with reading and it actually becomes quite fun for them to sounds words out. I love this exact spot in their development because the learning is really their own. Although learning individual letter sounds is okay, a whole new realm of possibilities is opened up when children realize that letters work together to create words. I find there is so much wonder in this whole learning experience. They feel such a sense of satisfaction reading on their own and it's a great privilege to be part of this new thing with them.
I love the details Abbie added to her picture. You girls have this creativity within you that I don't know if I'll ever have in the same way. As you always say, "You're *ARTISTS!*"
Today was the big day we made a trip to the post office to mail our letters. This was a first experience for me here-- tackling the post office. I was all prepped about where it was and the details of what to do when I got there. I had to walk by there yesterday to ensure it would all run smoothly today and Yes, it did. For this I'm grateful. Another thing to add to the things I've "conqured" here. We took the minibus to the street where the post office is. We walked up the hill and ran into the Thursday market set up en route to our destination. "Couldn't go over it, couldn't go under it, had to go through it." Although I secretly wanted to spend more time there, I told the girls our priority was getting this letter mailed (priority is a pretty big word for two 6 year olds). Turns out the post office was a breeze. I'm so sorry I can't post a picture. I took two great ones on our way there today; however, I forgot to put the memory card in my camera, so now they're just on my camera and I don't know how to get them off. Anyway, I'm so glad we did the whole process- we received a letter, we wrote our letters back, we addressed the envelope and then we brought it to the post office. There's just something to me about seeing something through- seeing it through to completion.
After we did stop at the market and they each picked out something small. Then we went to the store and they each got a special chocolate treat. After I took them to my house, which they hadn't been to before. They were too cute, with questions like, "What do you do at home in the evenings?" and comments like, "Oh you really have a great house, Miss Victoria. I love it. And what a nice upstairs and balcony. It's fun exploring this place." Too cute. Seriously!
I hope that as the weather gets nicer, we will be able to have some more special outings together. I hope I can spend some quality time with each of the kids in this kind of way.
I'd encourage you to be intentional about seeing something through- seeing it through to completion.
For me, some of those things are:
Reading the book of Joshua and sticking with my goal of training to run 10km.
~see it through~
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