earthquake drill, Lark on the Move

Okay this is going to be another quick one because I am super tired. If I don’t fall asleep while writing, we’re going to call that a win. At this point, it’s not feeling promising.

Our classroom, so nice and serene before the kid tornado came through

I’m going to echo what I said yesterday because it’s been another one of those days where time just flies by. When I think about the morning and what else I did today, it feels like it was decades ago. So we have the longest days and the shortest days all at the same time.

Classroom chaos. We don’t have nearly enough space for working and storing all of this stuff.

We only had one class again today because we cancelled with Vanessa’s kids for the afternoon. We had Ingrid’s C4 class in the morning, and this was their first day working on their models. To make things a little harder for these kids, since they’re the oldest, we had them draw a plan of their building as well. It was good because it got them really thinking about what the function of the building is, what spaces it needs to fill that function, and try to lay things out in a way that makes sense.

We had an earthquake drill during the day, and all of the kids had to go outside and stand in the “S” circles (the seismic safe zones that buildings here are required to have.. they also have to have the circles physically drawn on the ground with a big “S” inside which often looks a little tacky, especially in the historic part of the city)

After lunch, I went into model building mode. That’s my happy place. Modeling was my favorite thing to do in school, and I was devastated when I realized that my physical modeling skills would be practically never used again. Let me tell you, it’s heartbreaking when you realize that your favorite part of school is not useful in the real world. This is only kind of the real world, so hooray! My skills were put to good use! I made an example building to help the kids get a sense of what we’re expecting form them. My model isn’t perfect (because I forced myself to move more quickly than I would have if I was going for perfection), but I’m happy about how it turned out! And it only took me way longer that it should have to get it done.

My castle, xxx hours later. Made from all recycled materials- a cereal box, the box from a tea kettle, a box from a light, and a whole pile of paper scraps.

The rest of the day was a blur. I finished my model, helped Julie get beds ready for the team that’s coming tomorrow night, learned about how Vanessa has been cataloging the library books so that I can teach the team how to do it next week, learned how to “vinifan” (the brand that they use to cover the kids’ notebooks with plastic to help protect them), and who even knows what else. By the time I stopped moving and ate dinner, it was 8:30PM.

At this rate, it’s only a matter of time until I get sick. Fingers crossed my immune system doesn’t fail me. There’s no time to be sick right now!