Happy Independence Day!

Every year, I look forward to the Fourth of July -- it's one of my favorite days of the summer.  The only problem this year is that I'm in Australia.  I tried my best to compensate for this: I drew a picture of an American flag to hang up on the LE white board, along with a large red, white, and blue Fourth of July greeting.  And I had a hot dog for lunch!  That's about as patriotic as I could be for the day...

 

Desperate to feel like a true American

Fourth of July (or lack thereof) aside though, today was actually a really good day.  I started off with Maria's RE class, where the boys were working on their term assignments and I wandered around to help them out.  They're lucky I'm not the one grading them -- I'd like to push them  a bit harder than Maria does, but I suppose it's all good experience.  After RE, I went to the year 4 class.  They're a really fun lot -- a bit crazy though.  At one point, the teacher left the room and asked me to watch over the class.  That was a bit intimidating -- no one killed anyone else though, so I suppose that was a success! 

When I left the year 4's, I saw my year 2's out on the playground so I went over to see them.  They started asking me to play tag with them and before I knew it, I was "it."  The boys were all chanting "TJ's It, throw him in the bin!"  I chased them around for about 10 minutes, and it was wicked fun.  I was always It though; as soon as I tagged someone, they'd just tag me right back and run away.  I was scheduled to go to the year 12 class after that, but I didn't particularly feel like it (I popped in for a second, but then left and went right back to the year 2's).  That always seems to be a good choice.  I helped them out with math for a bit, then played around with them for their free time.  

When it came time for lunch, Tommy didn't seem to want to leave me, so I took him along back to the office for Games Club.  He was so excited!  He kept asking, "Am I really allowed to go with you there?" and then was thrilled when we got there and he saw the cupboard full of games.  We built a marble obstacle course, and he talked my ear off the whole time.  Very fun!  Once we went back to his class, he didn't leave my side the whole time.  The boys were working in the computer room, and every time another boy called my name, Tommy wasn't far behind.  At the end of the day (after racing back to the classroom with Tommy holding onto my hand), we saw his brother Anton, who's in the year 5 class.  Talking with the both of them was really great -- they remind me a lot of me and my brother, with the older calmer one and the younger crazy one.  That must be why I like them so much!

Such a fun kid!

After school, I went into the city with Teigan.  I want to make a little American souvenir for all my primary school kids and attach an American penny to it.  We searched all over the city for somewhere to get American change, but they all said they don't handle coins.  I'm going to call up a few places tomorrow to see what I can manage -- who knew finding a penny could be so hard!