i have been working with our students, especially the morning class, on being polite and using good manners. simple things like please, thank you, raising their hands, asking permission before doing something, and other things like that don't quite come naturally to them. that's okay, but there's not reason not to improve on that!
today the kids did a great job of being polite. we were having snack and after someone said thank you for about the 3rd time without being reminded, i told everyone how proud i was of them and how much i loved to hear them speak with pleases and thank yous. then marcos goes yes and thank you to God, too, in the sky! for our lives and for snack. HA! precious.

gym class has required some extra planning time because of the makeup of our class. we've got three 6 year olds who would run for hours if they could, and 4 boys in wheelchairs who can't move themselves around very quickly. i've been looking at adaptive pe websites and getting a lot of good ideas, but between my spanish and their attention spans, things don't always work out as well as i hope. today we played catch, and each kid who wasn't in a wheelchair paired up with someone who was in a wheelchair. it was so simple - everyone knows how to play catch - but they had so much fun! i was encouraged and glad to see that they enjoyed playing together like this.

for science today, we outlined our bodies on butcher paper but ran out before everyone got a chance to get their body traced. it was okay because that activity will definitely need some better explanation the next time we do it :)

tonight becky and i went to ted and renie's - they invited us over for a bible study/devo kind of thing. it was really nice to be able to sit down and talk with them and pray together. we're in the middle of building a new house for all of the boys at gabriel house, and ted said that in 2 weeks a group is coming down to completely finish the house. if they're not able to finish it, they're going to leave all the materials for us to do it ourselves. this will be awesome, because then we can move our school inside, just in time for the colder weather! the house where the boys live now will become our classroom and a physical therapy room, and the boys will live next to the kitchen in their new house. can't wait!