Hi everyone,

Forgot to mention about all those deserted houses going East from here.  Like rural Australia through the 60’s and 70’s, a lot of country people left the land because their farms were too small and prices had tumbled.  The same was true for this district.  The landscape is dotted with heaps of deserted houses and it leaves you wondering what these places looked like with kids running around and smoke coming from the chimneys etc

We had a recent visit by a chap giving a talk about ‘creatures of the night’.  The whole school went to the gym and the talk went for an hour.  It was entertaining stuff with lots of live exhibits – huge spiders, snakes, South American gheckoes, 2 inch cockroaches that crawled all over him etc.  http://ng017.k12.sd.us/creatures.htm

Recently, I was mentioning about the members of my family in Australia to my class.  I told them that I was 54 years old.  One of the students piped up and said: “My grannies 54!!!”  Teaching is very brutal at times – makes you humble.

The camera I’m using can be seen at this web site  http://www.rca.com/product/viewdetail/0,2588,PI45905,00.html

We’ve had some fun times at our local bait shop pub.  The Chairperson of the Sioux – Dwayne Big Eagle, runs it. The night we were there, he was being interviewed at the back of the bar for a documentary.  The food is fantastic – unreal fish caught in the local Missouri River, baked squash, spare ribs, buffalo burgers etc.  See attached photos to see all the hunting trophies on the wall.

Student free day tomorrow – all the teachers will be bused to Pierre: about an hour away, for an all day seminar.

Teaching continues to be fun and Kate is still getting the library in order.  We often drive a few miles out on the prairie after school and walk to the only sound of the meadowlarks in the fields.  The weather is still good – about 24 degrees each day and cool nights.  This is not a problem as we have cranked up our central heating, which keeps the whole house cozy.

Recently, we had a scare with Kate’s mum.  She was taken to hospital with a blood pressure of 250.  As you can imagine, this was quite distressing until she was stabilized and had a battery of scans done.  She is back home now but they have found a 50% blockage in one of the arteries in her brain.  She is fine at the moment, but she will need to slow down – if that’s possible.  Please pray for her.  We will be going down to the farm next weekend to see everybody.

Accelerated Math.  I have found out already that most students are fine with the usual method of teaching and practice from whiteboard demonstrations etc.  However, a small percentage of students really struggle and get left behind the group.  This is where Acclelerated Math takes over.  It is a program where the students learn at their own rate with computer generated sheets printed off.  The students fill out an answer card by colouring in the circles and the card is fed through a scanner.  It gives an instant printout of the score and which questions were correct or incorrect.  See the attachment to show student progress.  The change in the students self esteem and motivation has been very marked.

Until next time,

Kind regards,

Brian and Kate