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| I love these boys! |
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| During our walk this morning |
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| Gifts from my boys |
Daniel made an Easter Bunny at school on Thursday.Really cute – and maybe a little scary 😉
They traced their own feet to make the ears and legs. I have a feeling his bunny had the longest ears in all of second grade. He may not be tall, but the boy has some big feet!
Related words
Fastlege: general practitioner
Tannlege: dentist
Legevakt: ER/emergency room/emergency services
Related to us
Daniel had his first Norwegian checkup today. Everything went well. We really like our family doctor/GP. He is patient with our bad language skills, and seems to be quite thorough. A couple of things that were interesting to us and quite different from our experience in the states:
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| They take the bus to school most mornings. They walk to the main bus terminal in our city and take one of the city buses that is designated for the school each morning. |
You mentioned that schools in Norway are excellent. Why are they excellent? What do they do differently?
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| February 2013 |
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| June 2013 |
DANIEL: You Are What You Eat; Tell Me a Story; Money, Money, Money; Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
WILLIAM: Heroes, Space Explorers, Force and Motion, Peace and Conflict
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| August 2013 |
They don’t sit at desks and read from textbooks. They typically sit in groups around tables, working with various mediums and materials that make the lessons more realistic and make the concepts stick. They use experiments, field trips, presentations and creative projects to expand and apply knowledge.
Most of the teaching is in English. They have around 5 hours of Norwegian class each week, but it’s basically teaching the same things from the current unit, but in Norwegian. So they’re building vocabulary around things they’re already learning about.
The school is culturally and racially diverse, very international. Many of the students come from international families, having one Norwegian parent, and one parent from another country.
And do the kids notice a difference in the way they are taught or how the day is structured?
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| Daniel participates in a class song at assembly |
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| Student-led spring conferences (2013) |
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| World Peace Day activities |
We are thankful that our minds were opened to the concept of making a difference for one. Thankful that our hearts were opened to James 1:27.
Our boys didn’t necessarily win the lottery when they joined our family. We didn’t have a clue what we were doing. Okay, most days we still don’t! We are flawed, far from perfect. We mess up. Often.
But we are children of a Father who forgives. And each day we are learning a deeper meaning of the word family, what it means to be forgiven, what it means to forgive, and what it means to help each other through life. We are discovering the power of striving daily to take our focus off ourselves, and place it on the One who gave the perfect example of earthly living, and the ultimate example of love and sacrifice. If we can help them to understand and embrace this, what more could we want?
The Starfish Story
A man was walking along a deserted beach at sunset. As he walked he could see a young boy in the distance, as he drew nearer he noticed that the boy kept bending down, picking something up and throwing it into the water. Time and again he kept hurling things into the ocean.
As the man approached even closer, he was able to see that the boy was picking up starfish that had been washed up on the beach and, one at a time he was throwing them back into the water.
The man asked the boy what he was doing, the boy replied,”I am throwing these washed up starfish back into the ocean, or else they will die through lack of oxygen. “But”, said the man, “You can’t possibly save them all, there are thousands on this beach, and this must be happening on hundreds of beaches along the coast. You can’t possibly make a difference.”
The boy smiled, bent down and picked up another starfish, and as he threw it back into the sea, he replied “it made a difference to that one.”
Some of our friends gave Daniel a magic set for his birthday last month. If you know Daniel, you know how perfect this gift is.Our little performer is having so much fun learning the tricks. Here is a quick video of one of the first performances by the Great Danino…
On Tuesday, we spent [a lot] of time shoveling to get the car out of the driveway, so we could take something to Daniel’s class. No junk food allowed, so I made fruit & yogurt parfaits, and they were a hit!
When we got home, Daniel opened gifts from us, as well as cards from family & friends in several different countries.
He chose homemade Hawaiian pizza for dinner.
After dinner, several friends came by to help us celebrate. Daniel got some cool books and a gift card to the local toy store. My friend also graciously helped me make a traditional Norwegian birthday cake for Daniel. And I have to say, Norwegians know what they’re doing when it comes to cakes! I had fun learning to work with marzipan to decorate it.
On top of all that, our neighbors also supplied him with his first set of langrenn skis, poles & shoes. (So thankful to have sweet friends, who also happen to have older boys with hand-me-downs!)
