Snow!

It snowed today.  Actual stick to the ground, looks like a snow globe, snow!!  I was just as excited as my Kinder!  It reminded me of Colorado snow!  It was great to look out the window and see this "beautifulness" floating down from the sky.  Then the realization set in that I did not have to drive in it and this absolute joy increased (as did the smile on my face)!

I have recess duty this week and I quickly realized that the child within me wanted to play in the snow so the 3rd - 5th graders were probably the same way!  So, since I have compassion, I decided to let the kids not only play in the snow but (gasp here) throw snowballs.  The snow is more like a powdery snow so tightly packed snowballs were certainly not a concern!!  I told the kids that they could play in the snow and throw snowballs in the field but the blacktop area is a "no snowball zone!"  The shrieked with joy when they heard me say this!  We had a great time!

I took my students out to catch snowflakes and then look at them through a magnifying glass.  They were so cute and they were so excited to participate in this crazy but fun activity their teacher was now telling them to do!  They are getting used to doing crazy things all in the name of learning! 

Ice skates

I have finally gotten ice skates!!  I had to get figure skates since my feet are small.  We had trouble finding hockey skates that were not children's in my size!  Thank you John and Kelli for the Christmas money to purchase the skates!!!  The Danube (Donau) has frozen so we are using our skates a lot!!  It is so much fun!  We figured that since we are taking our students skating four times this year it would be most cost effective to have our own skates.  It is a good stress reliever and fellowship time to just be out there on the huge river and skate until either your heart's content or you feet simply get tired! 

The Physics of Sound

So, we've started a new unit in Science called the Physics of Sound.  My students LOVE it.  It is a lot of fun to learn through experiments.  I'm sure it helps that their teacher is just as excited as they are!  Today we were using our sound discriminating skills to try and remember how 8 objects sounded when they were tossed (lightly mind you) into the sound chamber.  After this was established, they had to give each object a corresponding letter and then try to have their partner figure out the secret word they were trying to spell.  I bet you know where I am going with this!!!  We had a few miscommunications and funny moments about the fact that they had to choose actual words to have their partner guess!!  At one point I walked by Stephanie and Uendjipa as Uendjipa exclaimed, "Your word is . . . TOLPAN!!!??"  I said, "What??!" and it was then that Stephanie realized that she had to spell actual words and not make her own up!

If Grandpa Wiggins owned a fabric store this is what it would look like. . .

Carrie and I recently went to a fabric store (more like a warehouse) to find fabric for two wall hangings and then we went back to get some buttons to put on one of these wall hangings.  On this second visit, Carrie and I decided to to take pictures of this store.  It is large and everything seems to be a bit disheveled!  Carrie said that if her Grandpa owned a fabric store rather than a rock shop this exactly what the store would look like!  Even though it is a little overwhelming, everything is wonderfully priced and you can find some pretty good quilting fabric if you are willing to search!

Fabric Anyone?  Choose carefully.  There are many more aisles just like this!

One wall-o-buttons!

Zippers anyone??

Frohes Neues Jahr!

Happy New Year everyone!  It is hard to believe that it is 2009 and I celebrated it's entrance here in Vienna, Austria!  Carrie, Melissa, Whitney, Cindi, and me all went downtown to see for ourselves what it is all about.  It was fun but frigid!  I hear rumor that it was -5 Celsius.  It was also quite loud as everyone, and I mean everyone, was setting off fireworks.  We walked from Stephansdom, to the Graben, and finally to the Rathaus where we actually watched the clock strike midnight.  We were even able to hear the huge bell from Stephansdom ring.  It was great!  

It wasn't as dangerous as everyone was telling us it would be.  If you're smart and keep your eyes open you are fine.  New Year's celebrations here remind me of Independence Day celebrations in the States with the Vienna Waltz added in!  All in all it was fun and I am glad that we went.  Once again, Happy New Year.  Throughout this year, may you grow closer to God and fully believe that He loves you with an everlasting love!  Blessings!

I went to Hungary on Tuesday!

It seems hard to believe, I even giggle every time I say it, but I went to Hungary for dinner on Tuesday!  It was fun.  There was a group of 9 of us from school.  We went there to get a cheap steak dinner, fellowship, and go to a store called Tesco (it is kind of like a Super Kmart but was described to me as like  a Super Wal-Mart).  Hungary is about 1 hour away from Vienna.  So it certainly wasn't difficult to get there.  The restaurant we ate at was called Papa Joe's (not to be confused with Papa John's which doesn't exist here!)  It was decorated in a western theme so I took some pictures.

The sunset on the way there!  It was beautiful.  It's hard to believe that I took this picture through a car window!

We didn't eat at the bar but I thought the stools were creative.  What do you think?

I thought Trent would like this picture!

I thought this old sewing machine was quite interesting!

Ferocious Lions??

Carrie and I are cat sitting for another teacher while he is in the States for Christmas break.  We are excited to do this but were a bit concerned about what we signed up for when we received the e-mail of instructions.  It was long and it told us many helpful things but I was wondering if we were cat sitting for cats or if were sitting for ferocious lions.  When we went today the picture below is what we found.  We were able to hold these really scared cats and they even ate out of our hands.  They are cute and we will enjoy feeding and petting them but I hope they start to calm down a bit so we can hold them for longer periods of time without them having little kitty heartattacks!

The Rescue Service

We walked out of our apartment to find four ambulances, two fire trucks, and one police car blocking the road.  I'm not sure what was going on but I said a prayer for those involved.  It seemed calm but odd that there were so many rescue vehicles involved.  I also thought that the ambulances look interesting so here is a picture of what the ambulances looked like.

Christmas in Germany

Carrie and I went to Germany for Christmas.  Our friend, the Elementary ELL teacher, is from Germany.  Her parents are church planters in Mannheim so they invited some of the other teachers to Germany for Christmas.  It was so much fun to see Mannheim, Rothenburg, and Heidelburg.  We also rested which was a highlight for me!  Thank you for inviting us Leslie.  I had a marvelous time with you and your family!

Rothenburg

Heidelburg

The castle in Heidelburg

The view from the gardens surrounding the castle in Heidelburg

Carrie, me, and Leslie on our way to Mannheim via the Frankfurt airport

3rd Grade Gingerbread Houses/Christmas Party

 I'm not a big party person (I know surprise, surprise, right?).  So, I usually try to plan fun activities to do with my students around most holidays.  At Christmas time we make gingerbread houses out of graham crackers.  Since moving to Austria I am always trying to figure out how to do some of the same things here.  I appealed to my student's parents for supplies and they pulled through.  We had a grand time making these houses.  Most of my students had never made a gingerbread house before but they did know what they were because we had been reading about them.  It was interesting to teach my kids how to make something that most stateside kids usually know how to do.  Here are some pictures of their masterpieces. Aren't they absoluetly breathtaking?!

Christmas Markets

It is fun to celebreate Christmas here in Vienna.  Even without the snow you have the cold temperatures and CHRISTMAS MARKETS!!!  These Christmas Markets certainly put you in the Christmas mood.  I love to just walk around them and take it all in!  There is so much to see and smell and a lot of people to simply bump into!  Carrie, Cindi and I went to many of the markets together.  We simply walked around taking them all in.  I don't know if I can choose a favorite one but we did go to seven (if I'm counting right) her in Wien.  Here are some pictures.  I didn't take very many but enjoy the ones that I did take!

A Field trip to the Rathaus

Here are some pictures from the First and Third grade trips to the Rathaus for a Christmas craft.  The first graders made candles and the third graders painted pillowcases.  We had a lot of fun for just 3 Euro!

 

 

The little elves are hard at work. . .

I read The Legend of the Christmas Stocking to my kids today. They really enjoyed listening to the story and they fully understood the concept of St. Nicholas! It was a lot of fun. I then had my kids sew fabric together to make their own stockings. I was a bit fearful that I was going to have a mini revolt on my hands with my boys but they loved it as well! We'll finish them tomorrow but here are a few pictures that show the little elves hard at work.

The 12 Days of Christmas

Carrie and I have a tradition with our friend Jennifer; every year at Christmas we give 12 little/thoughtful presents for 12 days before Christmas. This year Carrie and I thought it was not going to happen since we are so far away and we weren't able to plan it out on our end. Well, we were quite surprised to find boxes that were delivered to school and inside were wrapped presents for the 12 days of Christmas! We are so excited! So, here is day one. We laughed pretty hard to open a miniature knitting/crocheting/sewing kit! Thanks Jennifer, Becky, and Bonnie. It was very creative!

U-bahn

So every once in a while our yearly U-bahn pass is checked by U-bahn officials. To date we've been checked for our passes 5 times while walking home. Today we were checked on the actual U-bahn (this is a 1st for us). It was interesting. The man was dressed in all black and showed us his ID and then asked us to see our tickets. Well, he was speaking German so we assumed that he was asking us for our passes. A new adventure everyday here! Let me tell you!

A Map of the U-bahn routes

This is a street you can take after getting off of the U-bahn at the Aderklaaer Straβe U1 stop.

Dr. Pepper

We found Dr. Pepper at a restaurant here in Vienna. I was so excited! This restaurant was kind of like Chipotle or Qdoba (if you know what this is!). Jennifer. . . I'm sure you will be the most excited about this blog post! Here's the picture to prove we found it! Interestingly enough the writing on the bottle is all in English.

A Blizzard

A blizzard of snowflakes occurred today in my classroom. It was so much fun! The High School art and math teacher volunteered to share with the elementary kids (one classroom at a time) how to make a proper 6-pointed/sided snowflake. They started with a PowerPoint that told all about different types of snowflakes and then it discussed two people who are famous for taking photographs of snowflakes. As a class we've been reading through "Snowflake Bentley." It is a book about a man who loves snow and devotes his life to capturing snowflakes with a camera. So it was great for them to hear about the same person we had been discussing!

After the PowerPoint my kids learned how to cut a snowflake. You should have heard the ohh's and ahh's. It was great and my kids were such eager learners! Their thank you notes were even very heartfelt but hilarious! Here are a few pictures of some of their snowflake masterpieces.

They wanted to make it snow.

Elementary Christmas Concert

The Elementary Christmas Concert was this evening. I was nervous for this but knew it would be a grand time. Primary through 2nd grade sang first. They did a wonderful job! I was quite impressed with how well they sang and held their notes. It is always cute to see the little ones. At the beginning of the concert one of the Primary kids decided it was time to stretch before singing. How cute was that!! To top it off he was front row center! My favorite song they sang was Happy Birthday Jesus! It was so precious. There's something about little voices singing that song. It certainly touches your heart.

Then the 3rd through 5th grade had their turn. They also did a wonderful job! I was so proud of my kids. They remembered their verse (Luke 2:1-7) and made me so proud. I smiled from ear to ear! This group also sang four songs. Wow, that is a lot but they handled it with the grace I would expect older children to have. Can I say that I am proud of them again?

Here are a few pictures and a video of the 3rd - 5th graders singing. I'll see if I can get a video of the Primary - 2nd graders singing as well. Enjoy!

Carrie and I have siblings and here is a picture of them in their Christmas best (Indian Style!)