~The End of the Semester~

We did a lot in the last couple weeks of school! Here's a glimpse..

Once a week, we read to the kindergardeners. Our classrooms connect so it is good to get to know our neighbors!

We were studying Australia so the boys got their faces painted like Maori warriors..

Also, once a week when possible, the 6th graders come read to us!

It was our turn to lead chapel so we told the story of the Candy Cane and kicked off the Holiday Season.

This was after the chapel... I'm on the right, in the middle of all the girlies.

When Colombians do a manger scene, they practically do the whole town! This took up about the space of 1 car in someone's garage..

The elementary put on a Christmas Musical... my girls were beautiful angels!

Some of my boys were Bucket Boys living on the streets.

All of elementary...my girls are on the left. All the pre-k and K were sheep!

The rest of my boys were Wise Men on the far right.

Except for these two who got to be Mary and Joseph.

The musical was about a Colombian family from a tribe coming to the big city of Bogota and while struggling to fit in, they discover a church where they learn about Jesus. These students learned a song in that native language. It is called Chiva'nare oiku'mu Jesus.

The Bucket Boys are the poor kids who play buckets like drums on the streets to earn money.

We studied the Rainforest all 2nd quarter...

So we finally got to show the rest of the school what we learned!

We did a total of 4 presentations. We had Kindergarden, 1st grade, 2nd grade, and 4th grade come into the rainforest and they got to hear some reports about some of the animals, smell the rain, feel the heat, taste the fruit, hear the sounds, and see a slideshow of pictures taken from the Amazon here in Colombia. At the end, they got to look around the room and see the book/magazine display and posters, and try to find as many animals as they could!

Field Day! Getting ready..

Getting into teams.. Teams consisted of 5 students, one from every grade from Pre-k to 4th.

Mrs. Pinzon and I lead a game called "Veneno" or "Poison."

Christmas celebration, and sharing of "Secret Angel" gifts

The students studied these verses, one a week, and then at the end, they were able to say the whole thing from start to finish completely memorized!

We had a great semester! Thanks for praying for us =) We hope our next semester is even better...

We have a lot to look forward to!

If you are interested in supporting me in Bogota, Colombia, you can send a check made out to RCE International (Resourcing Christian Education) at PO Box 4528, Wheaton, IL 60189. On the memo line, write Account # 11916.

You can contact me through this blog, or email me at lavigne.marissa@gmail.com.

*Blessings*

**Merry Christmas** from our family to yours =)

I just got an email from one of my 3rd graders...

The subject line reads:

thanks for not givin as homwork

	Inbox		X

This is the message:

I think that you are a very good ticher and god bless you.

Hahaha! That's precious!

Oh Colombia...

Colombia makes me laugh! For example, here in the store window in the mall, you will see banners for the Pittsburgh Steelers behind the mannequins...first of all, they don't really play North American football down here. Second of all, I don't know what the Steelers have to do with the clothes they are selling or the other Christmas decorations in the window on the other side...

Here in my apartment building, I found this that someone put on their door. Ok, it doesn't snow here, so why is there a snowman with a sign that says, "Let it Snow?" Plus, it's in English!

And the decorations at the mall are the best..hahahhaha! Here is a sheep, a drum, palm trees, and some grassy decorations. Besides these, there were gingerbread men, reindeer, snowflakes, nutcracker characters, drummer boys, and some dancing girl in a bonnet. A very eclectic display if you ask me! I never realized how much influence the US has on other countries...I think its mostly because of the movies.