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THANKSGIVING DAY, 2007

We spent the afternoon with family--those of us in Midland. Cheryl's mom, sister & her kids all at Jenny's house where Aaron could nap when he needed to. A wonderful "more healthy" meal that was tasty and much more than we needed. But we all had food to take home for leftovers for the next few days. Cheryl and Jenny plan on going shopping early tomorrow--but I will stay in my warm bed until later. The little dusting of snow is beautiful and starts us thinking of the winter to come. We all agreed on the blessing of family, and we missed those who were not there.

Another sad day in the Big 10--the toughest conference just knocked out its top contender for a national championship. Not that I am a rabid Ohio State fan (sorry, my Ohio relatives) but I would just like to see a cleanly won national championship for the conference. But it seems like the schools insist on knocking each other out of that honor. Too bad.

NEW DESKS! These are the new desks that will greet the students returning from Choir-Drama Tour. We bought these at a good price from another Christian school who does not need them anymore. We tossed about 50 secondary desks, and we are culling some elementary desks (we bought 60 of them at the same tome). These pictures are of my classroom. What a difference!

Student Statesmanship Institute came to Midland.

James Muffet, founder of SSI called me in late summer to see if SSI could come to Midland. Because there were minimum and maximum numbers needed, we teamed up with Midland Christian School and Christian Homeschool Educational Ministries (CHEM) to put this on. Most of the students (and sessions) were at MCS and the final session was at CBA.

Students were divided into two political parties (Red & Blue) then further divided into four committees. Each committee was assigned a bill to support and a bill to oppose. Study helps were supplied by SSI and the students prepared for two school days for the final (combined) legislative session. Each student gave at least one, one minute speech and all the bills were voted upon. During one of the preparatory sessions, community leaders came in to give "testimony" on the bills.

It was a SUPER experience for the kids. They learned about the legislative process, about the complexity of writing laws, about applying Christian values in a civic environment, about learning to be a team with people they did not know... and SO much more! I learned how much work students can do given high expectations, proper motivation and instruction. (Of course school cannot move at that pace on a regular basis). We go some good press in the Midland Daily News (Nov 2 issue--you can check it out on line).