How to Remember the Year

Every year I did an activity at the end of the year where students got to list their Top 5 in various categories. They chose Top 5 books we read over the year, Top 5 funny moments in class, and other categories, as you'll see below. I collected the lists from every student and compiled a class list of the memories that were voted most memorable by the students, and we announced the results on the last day of school. It was always fun to see what the students remembered. Often, the list of funny moments in class was mostly filled with memories of people falling off chairs or farting in class, but hey, they're eleven-year-olds, what do you expect? Here are some of the lists from the end of my last year, which serves as a good recap of the memories I have from teaching in 5B. I'll present them in reverse order to make it more dramatic. Some of the lists are the Top 6 because there was a tie or a close vote. Enjoy!

Top 5 Special Events of the Year:
5. Alex Johnson (My roommate's brother visited the class and answered students' questions.)
4. Submarines (We took a trip to the high school physics class to see working submarines that the seniors had built.)
3. Field Day (We had a fun day with games and contests and activities for the whole school.)
2. Simple Machines (The high school science teachers did hands-on demonstrations of pulleys, levers, inclined planes, and other simple machines.)
1. Blind School (We did a service project at a school for blind children in which our students got to befriend and serve students whose lives are very different than theirs.)

Field Day festivities

Interacting with students and teachers at the Blind School

Top 6 Projects:
6. Biography Report (Students read a book about a famous person and wrote a summary of the person's life.)
5. Native American Dioramas (Students worked in groups to create a cross-section of a Native American village. There was clay all over my classroom for weeks!)
4. Simple Machines (Groups worked together to do a problem-solving challenge using the simple machines they learned about in science class.)
3. Play Writing (Groups wrote plays and performed them for the class. There were no restrictions on genre or theme, so we had alot of spies and aliens.)
2. Cereal Box Book Report (The students read a fiction book and invented a cereal based on the book's characters or plot, with the cereal box serving as a sort of book report. The "Indgredients" told about the settings and characters, and the "Nutrition Facts" gave a summary of the book. They also included a game for the back of the box, plus a special prize inside based on the book, and a clever name and design for the cereal itself.)
1. 3-D Buildings (After learning about 3-D figures in math class, we proceeded to build a miniature city filled with rectangular prisms, cubes and pyramids, all decorated to look like the buildings for our city.)

City of 3-D Figures

Top 6 Topics We Learned About:

6. The Story of Esther (It's a very dramatic Bible story that we acted out and made really exciting.)

5. Forms of Energy (Science lessons on heat, electricity, magnetism, sound waves, and light got very energetic!)

4. First Aid (Blood and guts and broken bones! What's not to like?)

3. Taxation (Remember the classic blog post from my first year about an activity where I gave the students tickets, then taxed them for ridiculous things? Well, I did it every year, and apparently I wasn't nearly harsh enough because they voted for it to be in their most memorable topics!)

2. The Revolutionary War (Because guns and battles.)

1. 3-D Figures (Not just the city-building part, but the faces, edges, vertices, and prisms were fun to learn, too.)

Top 5 Funny Moments in Class:

5. Certain Memorable Boy Student danced in the middle of class (This wasn't just one time that he danced, it was every time he had a lot of energy, which was all the time, except when he was falling asleep.)

4. First Aid Heimlich demonstration (I'm not sure why this was remembered as a funny moment, but I gave a practical demonstration of the Heimlich maneuver, using one of the taller boys in class as an example.)

3. Pancho Villa (The notorious Mexican outlaw made a surprise appearance in our class, and the students kept talking about how he looked like their teacher...)

2. Same Certain Boy Student farted in class (Well, I guess he was either dancing, sleeping, or flatulating...)

1. "Finit" (The same Certain Boy Student makes this list three times, and yes, he really is that memorable. In this episode, he was asked to give an example of a natural resource of the New England colonies, to which he replied "finit." I know he doesn't know Latin, and I don't think he was going for the word "finite", and when we asked if he meant fish, he adamantly repeated himself, saying, "no - finit!" It'll always be a mystery what was going on in his head, especially the definition of "finit.")

Pancho Villa visits the class. (I don't see the resemblance...)

Top 6 Things Mr. Stoddard Said or Did:

6. "But" (Leave it to eleven-year-olds to giggle every time I used a common conjunction.)

5. Mexican Taco Shake (Apparently, Pancho Villa did some special move involving our favorite Certain Boy Student. I'm not sure why this is in the list for Mr. Stoddard...)

4. "Ton of Fun" (This was a joke in our math book. It wasn't even that funny, and I didn't even make the joke up. I'm pretty sure the students didn't understand this category...)

3. Pancho Villa (Okay, the students did not take this list seriously, because this is another item that definitely had nothing to do with me!)

2. Handstand (Well this one definitely was me - I can't remember what I was illustrating, but I found some application to a lesson early in the year to give me reason to do a handstand in class. The students thought it was hilarious that my face turned red.)

1. Mutant (While learning about genetics, I explained that it is hereditary to have attached or unattached earlobes, and since I have one of each [true story!] I must be... a mutant! I apparently made some sort of noise and facial expression that really brought down the house.)

Top 6 Bible Verse Videos:

(I showcased some of these in my post the other day, but here they are in countdown form!)

6. Dynamite

5. Trouble

4. Just the Way You Are

3. When I'm Gone

2. What Makes You Beautiful

1. VeggieTales

Well, there you have it, folks - the recap of my fourth year in Honduras. I hope you enjoyed getting a glimpse into the mind of a fifth-grade student, and a glimpse into my classroom. It's been good, 5B!

How to Keep a Class Pet

Hey, here's another update from my fourth year of teaching in Honduras!

Well, if you remember some of my earlier blog posts, you'll recall the memorable class pets we had over the years. Well in September last year, a staff member showed up at my classroom door. I tried to finish my lesson before going to talk to her, but she motioned me over quickly and said, "You need to talk to this student. He's got something to show you... and it's squirming." Of course I was intrigued, so I went out and found a fourth grade student outside my door with a wriggling lizard in his hands. He had found it basking on the concrete wall of the soccer field and decided to catch it and, naturally, donate it to me. I brought it into my class, found a small cage that had previously housed spiders, and welcomed it into my classroom.

Lizards, as you know, are cold-blooded, and I had learned from previous experience that a small lizard would not survive in our breezy building (rest in peace, Oreo!) So I commented to my class that I didn't think our new scaly classmate would be able to stay since we didn't have a warm enough environment.

Two days later, we still had the lizard, but I was planning to release him soon. I got a note that requested I come to the office to pick something up. Confused, I stopped by the office and found a glass terrarium and reptile habitat that had been donated by the mother of a student in my class. I took it back to the classroom and set it up. It came complete with a plug-in heated rock and fake but realistic branch for our reptilian friend's climbing enjoyment.

So we had a permanent member of our classroom who had his own habitat. We naturally needed to determine what his name would be. We took nominations from the class and voted to find a good name. Some of the suggestions were Bob, Henry, Sprinkles, and other classic fifth-grade go-to names. One student suggested the name Leafy, but I misheard, thinking the student said "wifi" pronounced "wee-fee" as some Spanish speakers tend to do. I wrote Wifi on the board, and after being corrected and adding Leafy to the list, I decided I should keep Wifi up there just for fun. Well, you can just guess the vote results, and pretty soon, Wifi (pronounced "wye-fye") was a member of the class.

Wifi enjoyed his cage and his place in our class, occasionally being picked up by me or the students. We fed him crickets and grasshoppers from the recess field and he stayed pretty happy. Later in the year, we found two more lizards and added them to the habitat, although Wifi really liked being by himself. (It is worth noting that after two months of cohabitation, I released the two newer lizards to give Wifi his solitude, and I discovered some tiny lizards hiding under the woodchips that I definitely didn't put in there... you draw the conclusions on that one...)

Wifi remained healthy throughout the whole school year, securing the record for my longest-lasting class pet of all my years of teaching. He did not meet the same demise as previous scaly companions (awww, Oreo! Too soon...), and I was able to have a final farewell for our fond friend as I cleaned out 5B for the last time. I'm sure there's some sort of sentimental metaphor I could make for the lizard and my years as a teacher... something about scales... or cold-blooded... 

How to Memorize Philippians

Every year that I taught in Honduras, the students were required to memorize verses from the book of Philippians each week. Over the course of the fifth grade year, they would memorize nearly the entire book. During my second and third year teaching, I took the sections of verses and paired them with well-known songs to make them easier to memorize. The tunes I used come from pop songs, kids songs, worship songs, and various other sources.

Well, in my fourth year teaching, I took the project to the next level and made all the songs into videos and posted them on YouTube. It was a huge project that took time each week (and consequently hindered my blog-writing last year), but I had a great time with it, and despite my mediocre singing abilities and inferior recording equipment, I think the end result is pretty good!

So take a look at the Philippians Verse Songs project, and you might be able to memorize some verses while you're at it!

Below is the YouTube playlist. You can watch each video sequentially, or use the forward and back buttons to skip ahead to different videos (but why would you want to skip any??)

If you don't want to watch all the videos, here are some favorites:

Here's a link to the YouTube channel so you can choose the vids you want to watch!

PHILIPPIANS VERSE SONGS
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEx1AkaGlxfKgBg1oBm6wQg/videos

Honduran Presidential Election: What You Need to Know

You need to know what’s been going on in Honduras. I’m usually not one to care much about politics, but this is important because Honduras is currently a very violent country, plagued with corruption and instability. The new leader could change that trend.

I can’t vote, but the safety and future of my community and school are at stake, so I care about the results. I’ll give you a simplified version of what’s going on and how it applies to me. Before I tell you who the candidates are and who won, we need a little lesson in recent history...

In 2009, Honduras had a president named Manuel Zelaya (you’re going to want to remember these names). When Zelaya started to change his political views while in office, other politicians got nervous. Eventually, Zelaya tried to rewrite the constitution, giving himself the opportunity for more terms as president and more power in that office. These are trademark moves of a soon-to-be dictator, so the military and government kicked him out of the country, in what was called a coup by other nations including the US.

So Zelaya and his wife Xiomara left the country, and after an interim presidency, a guy named Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo was elected democratically. Lobo had been a strong supporter of saying adios to Zelaya.

Mel: "Don't you adios me, hombre!"

Pepe: "I'm El Jefe now, comprende?"

Fast forward to now. Lobo’s term is over and it’s time for another election. Just so you know, there are many political parties in Honduras, but the country has been mainly dominated by the National Party (conservative) and the Liberal Party (still pretty conservative by US standards, despite the name). But wait – new for this year’s election, we see the emergence of another party, the Liberdad y Refundación party, which is actually liberal. (The name means Liberty and Refoundation, and is also referred to as the Libre party, meaning simply free)

Sidenote: other party names include the Democratic Unification party, the Christian Democratic Party of Honduras, the Innovation and Unity party, the Frente Amplio Político Electoral en Resistencia (the Wide Political Front for Electoral Resistance), the Patriotic Alliance party, and my personal favorite, the Anti-Corruption party.

Now, to the main candidates. First, from the National Party, we have Juan Orlando Hernández, who is currently the President of the National Congress (think Speaker of the House). He was another big supporter of President Zelaya’s departure from the country a few years ago. That’s significant because the other major candidate is Xiomara Castro de Zelaya. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because she is the wife of said ex-president Zelaya who got kicked out in 2009 (I told you you’d need to remember the names...)

Juan: He looks like he's ready for a Muppets sing-along

Xiomara: Hispanic Liza Minnelli?

Juan Orlando’s main platform involves security and safety of Honduran citizens. He thinks the current police force is not doing a good job and that the solution is to create a military police force and give them a lot of power and position them in public places all over the country.

Xiomara’s main platform involves the security and safety of Honduran citizens, but her ideas involve social programs and getting the bad guys off the streets. Either person in the presidency would mean changes to the patterns of violence in this country, hopefully.

The government of Honduras has a pretty stinky record for honest politics, but there is honestly hope for this election. People are nervous that Juan Orlando would try to seize too much power through the military police, and they are nervous that Xiomara would try to seize too much power by either rewriting the constitution like her husband, or by finding away to give her husband power again.

"...more like hasta luego..."

The results: After yesterday’s election, the two main candidates both claim to have won the presidency. The official results have not been completed, but both parties think they have won. They also both seem ready to protest the results when they are released. Remember the whole “I demand a recount!” thing in the States in 2000? Well, it’s pretty much guaranteed to happen here in the next few days. So it’ll be  some time before we know for sure who the winner is.

Best strategy: follow this guy's lead

As non-citizen and Christians, our community tries to support the people we serve, meaning the students. It gets interesting because some of the students’ parents are officials in some of the political parties, and some students are close relatives of the presidential candidates. As a church, we pray for God to use the situation and have His will no matter the outcome. We also take precautions like not leaving our safe community on days like today when there might be protests or violence.

Thanks for reading and educating yourself about the situation. Please stay updated, let me know what you think about the fun times in Honduras, and also please pray for the safety of everyone in this country, and for the next leader to rule with responsibility, honesty, and integrity, rather than following the current pattern of corruption, selfishness, and lies.

 Here's an article (in English) about the whole situation, written by someone who actually knows about all this political stuff: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-center-for-constitutional-rights/keep-a-close-eye-on-hondu_b_4324409.html

If the election were based on mustaches, Mauricio VIlleda would win.

Epic Easter, Part 2

...So we left off with me and the crew getting in a small van and traveling from Belize City to the northern part of Guatemala. (If you're confused, check out Part 1)

Our main goal was to visit the Mayan ruins of Tikal, but they are pretty removed from civilization, so we needed to find a place to stay. We decided on a small town called Flores, which happens to be on an island in a lake. It was pretty sweet.

The next day (which happened to be my birthday) we got up early and took a bus to the Mayan ruins. First, it is rare for most Americans to be in a place that has existed for thousands of years. Second, it's amazing to see the ruins of s civilization that at one time was so powerful and who thought they were the greatest in the world, and now they have nothing to show for it except some epic ruins

Out of the jungle emerges... GIANT
RUIN CITY... and Dan

Click the picture to see it larger

Watch out for ledges.

People lived here once. Like twelve
centuries ago.

After the ruins it was time to migrate again, this time on an overnight bus to Antigua, Guatemala. Now, if you remember my Easter week last year, it included a day in Comayagua. In both cities, there are large celebrations and parades during Semana Santa/Holy Week. Like Comayagua, people in Antigua set up big murals on the streets the night before the parades. The murals are meticulously constructed with colored sawdust. As the parades come through the city, they walk straight through the sawdust, scattering the colors all around. It's weird, captivating, and confusing all at once.

The famous arch of Antigua

Actor portraying an important angry guy

Construction of the alfombras

Did I mention the volcano
overlooking Antigua?

The whole city was set up like a
street fair, which means awesome food!

Did I mention street food?

Of course, we had some adventures, including hostel-finding extravaganzas, staying at the "Jungle Party" hostel, meeting a random Aussie guy who loved to talk, midnight roadside bathroom breaks with no bathroom, and more! Traveling in Central America is always unpredictable and exciting!

If you want t hear more about the trip, leave a comment or email me at DDStoddard11@gmail.com or hang out with me this summer when I'm back in the states!

Epic Easter, Part 1

As promised, it is time for the story of Dan's Epic Easter!
This year we had a basic framework of a trip planned with several goals along the way and not much else as far as detail-planning goes.
The cast of characters was similar to our Nicaragua trip from last year, with me and Will and Brittany, except this time Susie was busy traipsing around Eastern Europe so we replaced her with Leslie. Like the Nicaragua trip, our priorities were going places and doing cool stuff rather than comfort and personal hygiene.

When we started we had a bus ticket to a city in Northern Honduras and a bus ticket from Antigua, Guatemala back to Tegucigalpa at the end of the week. Everything in between was open-ended and adventurous!

We ended up going on a large bus to the Guatemalan border, after which we got on a boat and crossed the little inlet over to Southern Belize. At this point we had been traveling all day, and we just weren't ready to stop yet. So we got on a bus that used to be a school bus found a second life as cheap public transportation. We made it to Belize City and stayed the night.
The next morning, upon finding that we had already done everything to do in Belize City by walking around for twenty minutes, we got on another boat and ended up on a small island called Caye Caulker.

So Part 1 of our journey took place on the island. Now, before you go imagining Spanish-speaking hispanic-looking people like a National Geographic photo from Guatemala or something, stop - erase that image and instead think of Jamaica. That's basically what the island was like, complete with African-looking people with the "ya, mon!" accent and plenty of Bob Marley. Not exactly what we expected! Everyone spoke English (well, heavily-accented, sometimes-barely-understandable, but still English).

We stayed at the Chinatown hotel and pretty much relaxed and took advantage of the location. One of the best decisions we made was to rent bikes and ride all around the island. It was super calm and very interesting to see various ways of life even within the same small little island.

We also went on a boat trip an got to do some snorkeling, which involved swimming with sharks and rays and turtles, you know - no big deal. I don't think the sharks were about to chomp on any humans, and thankfully we didn't find out if we were right.

I swam with those. I'm not sure why.

Is this how the pros do it? Are there pros in this activity? Can I be one?

We also spent some time on the beach and exploring the island by foot, including some awesome seafood, great pizza, and a whole bunch more pictures, which can be seen here:

Google album

We left Belize and headed for Guatemala, which will be the topic of Epic Easter Part 2! Stay tuned for the continuing saga!

Manly Mustache March 2: Maniler, Mustachier, and Marchier!

Hello World, the blog is back! I've got some good entries planned, including the epic account of my Semana Santa (Easter break) travels around central America.

Before that, it's time for the sequel to last year's Mustache March!!
In Honduras, Fathers' Day is in the middle of March, so we had a program for all the dads and then invited them to come visit the classroom and have a manly breakfast party with the class.

Sometimes on of the moms designs the door for the month, but I take pride in my March doors. Here's this year's installment:

Click on the picture to see it larger

During the program I had the distinct honor of accompanying the Pre-K and Kindergarteners for a song. They sang "All I Really Need" by Raffi, and I played along on ukulele! It was super fun and I gained a few dozen pint-sized fans!

 The dads came back to the classroom and we had a breakfast party, mustache style! I sported one of my fake 'staches and the kids made their own out of paper for themselves and their dads. Only two dads had real live facial hair, the others were taped on (try to spot the authentic follicles in the pic above!)

The students enjoyed having their dads in the class... and who doesn't love a good 'stache!? (except apparently the girl on the right...)

 For the door project I added a picture of one of my school's bus drivers, who, as you can see, has quite an impressive bigote grande:

Also in March, I got to help at a missionary retreat nearby. The missionary families went to seminars and hung out at the retreat center and they were nice enough to let their kids hang out with us. We played some games and did crafts and basically had a mini summer camp weekend. It was awesome.

So there's a short review of the month of March. And in answer to your question - no, it will not be three months before my next blog post! You still need to hear about my adventures in Belize and Guatemala! And I moved into a new house, which calls for a video tour! All that on the way in the next few weeks...

Lesson 4: How to Reach Out

Franklin's favorite part of the gift was the deodorant.

 Contrary to popular belief, my life in Honduras is not a mission trip all the time. But occasionally we get a chance to reach out to the community and do a project to help impact people in need. Before Christmas, some of the staff of our school took donated boxes of supplies to another school that ministers to children and families in a very poor area outside Tegucigalpa. This small village is situated right by the city's largest dump, and the people make their living by picking valuable materials out of all the trash. The school's ministry is to offer free education to the kids to help them break the cycle of poverty and accomplish something better than the generations before them.
 So the teachers chose names of students who go to the school and filled shoeboxes with toys, treats, and important items. I chose the names of two boys who are close to the ages of my students. After I had bought the items to put in the boxes, I thought I'd include my students and let them wrap the boxes however they wanted (including my students? pawning off work to someone else? you be the judge.)
 Many people have done Operation Christmas Child boxes or something similar - this project was even more rewarding because I got to go to the school and deliver the boxes myself. We had some treats for the kids, and Santa even showed up (and he looked alot like my friend Harold...) It was a great time to show love to some of the kids who don't get enough of it.

Carlos enjoyed my students' wrapping job

 The kids waited patiently for the names to be called so they could go receive their box. They then waited until everyone had a gift before they could open it (certainly more patience than most American kids have at Christmas time!)
They even sat still while listening to Harold give the gospel message and explain why gifts are more than just fun things white people can give to kids at Christmas time.
I was sitting with a little guy with a great big smile who was one of the last ones called. When he finally went up to get his gift, he came trotting back with an even bigger smile and a duffle bag that said Messiah College on it (not brought by me) I made sure to get a few pictures with my new buddy and his bag from my alma mater (and who knows, maybe his future alma mater...)

Fifth Grade classroom (yes, that's the whole room)

We also took a tour of the school, which was quite humbling. We can wish for more chairs or Smartboards in our classrooms, but seeing how grateful these kids are for their education and seeing their classrooms that seem so minimal, it makes us appreciate what we have even more.

So after lots of smiles and appreciations and a chance for Harold/Santa to explain the reason why gringos come give stuff to kids, we went back to our side of the mountain and retained some of that appreciation as we got to see another side to the Season of Giving.