The Toddler House "Pets"

This morning we headed to the toddler house to chop vegetables, serve breakfast, do dishes and then I hung laundry with Vilma.  When morning chores were done, Alina & I headed to the school to ask Karen about teaching reading.  Karen & her husband Mike are staff members here.  I believe she said she's visited a few times and in December they decided to move here for an undetermined amount of time.  She initially said they came from Georgia, but in talking to her more, we found out that her daughter lives in Little Chute and Mike worked for Neenah Foundry for 30 years before they moved to Georgia.  Small world!!!

Karen has a handful of students who are not able to read at all.  I decided that she should send those students my way and we'd work through the alphabet and beginning sounds over the next couple of weeks, rather than have them sit and listen to others read right now when they are not even recognizing the sounds letters make.  Alina & I were busy with students all morning, and since school lets out for lunch after the toddlers have already eaten their lunches, we had to head to the tienda to eat.  Hamburgers were on the menu today!

After our lunch break, we headed back to the room because Alina wanted to pump up all of the balls that she had received at her birthday party from her friends for donations to the children down here.  We opened the donations suitcase and as she pumped up the soccer balls, Alina did end up breaking one needed, but we were thankful for the extra packs of needles that Amelia & my dad had sent.  I laid out the shoes and other items on the open lower bunk bed.  When it came to pumping up the basketballs, I took over since Alina's arm was quite tired by that point.

As we were heading back to the Toddler House for the afternoon, I noticed movement in the Toddler yard...in looking closer, I saw a big iguana.  I really wanted a picture, but every step I took to get closer to it, the iguana would start to run.  Then I saw more movement, and more!  There were FOUR iguanas in the play yard!  I got a couple of pictures, but you'll have to look closely to see them.

Iguana on the cement in front of the lower right corner of the green wall

Iguana in the grass below the center of the purple wall

While at the toddler house, we played with the children, fed them supper, did dishes, gave the kiddos their night-time showers and then Alina played with a few on the trampoline.  As I was finishing up, Karla came over to ask me if I could take one of the babies from the Baby House to the clinic.  He fell in the bathroom and cut his chin open & most likely needed a couple of stitches.  I was brought over to the baby house and introduced to little Osman, who seemed very calm.  The entire walk to the clinic was a walk of calmness and cuddles, but when he laid down on the clinic table...it was another story.  I had to hold his body down while Carelia held his head up so that LaShawn could stitch his chin.  Man to young children have a lot of strength when a needle is coming at them!  But I figure that any kids who were in the near vicinity of the clinic and heard little Osman's screams will most likely decide that they don't need to go to the clinic any time soon.

After bringing Osman back to his house, I headed to the big girls house to spend some time with Michell.  Little by little, she is coming out of her shell & chatting with me.  This once 'mysterious' little girl who would just stare at me and watch everything I did with minimal talking is surprising me more & more each year!  I met her first when she was 8 years old.  She's now 14.  What a blessing she is!

When Michell had to get inside her house for the night, I headed to Karen & Mike's house because Karen had mentioned a book that she had for beginning readers called 'Nacho'.  I'll be looking through this book over the weekend to see how I can incorporate it into what I am doing with the children in reading on Tuesday & Thursday mornings.