Weather Warms Up, Yellow Dust from China Arrives, and RAT Continues in Full Force!

The last week of February arrived with warmer weather, BUT also with the yellow dust from China.  When we look out the windows of YISS during a time of yellow dust, it is like a heavy pollution sinking in on the city of Seoul.  We have to check the level of the dust, because when it reaches a certain level, kids are not allowed to out for lunch recess and outdoor P.E. classes.  So this week we had to become very creative with the schedule of the two gyms and multi purpose rooms in order to get our elementary kids out of their classrooms.  By Thursday, the dust was beginning to clear out and the levels were low enough for us to have outdoor recess.  I was privileged to have Grade 1 Recess Duty on Friday!  The kids were soooo excited to be outside and we had a delightful time of playing together.

The kids and staff were all excited because two major events were happening this week for the Read-A-Thon.  They were already excited because they saw the new total of minutes read with only one week to go.  The total was a little over 391,000 minutes read!  The goal in order to have Mr. Lazor and I shave our head is 555,555 minutes.  It appears they will reach it!  So long, hair!!

Wednesday was one of our most fun days of the year - Pajama and Pancake Day!  Elementary students and teachers were encouraged to come to school in their pajamas and bring their favorite stuffed animal if they wanted to.  There were times of snuggling up with a book to read while lounging in their pajamas.  Then at lunch we had one of my favorite meals: breakfast!!  When I was growing up, we often had a "breakfast" type meal for dinner and sometimes for lunch.  I loved those times.  Here is a sample tray of what the catering company had prepared for our "breakfast" lunch:

Very yummy!!

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From morning to afternoon, the kids and staff had so much fun!  I am going to let the pictures give you a little snapshot of the special day!

The pictures above show various students in the morning waiting to go to their classroom and then some at "breakfast".

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One of our wonderful Teaching Assistants, Ms. Lee,

   with a group of first grade cherubs at "breakfast"!

Fifth grade teacher, Ms. Bandy on the left with some of the fifth grade students and their stuffed "friends" at "breakfast".

KA teacher, Ms. Regnier holding one her kinder     

cherubs while five others are in the front at "breakfast".

I love this little guy from 2A!  Pranav in his jammies with two special "friends" and GGG in his jammies.  The shirt is a birthday gift from my mother on my 50th birthday!  The kids and staff loved it!  So do I! :-)

The wonderful elementary office staff:

Mr. Lazor, Mrs. Birmingham, Mrs.

Yoo (secretary) and GGG in their PJs!

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We welcomed two authors to the elementary and middle school at YISS on Thursday.  A husband and wife team, Kathleen Krull and Paul Brewer.  They did a really nice job with our students. Mrs. Krull has written around 60 non-fiction books for children and the kids really like them. Many of them are biographies with very interesting facts from her research on famous, and not so famous, people.  Here are a few of her books: Lives of the Presidents: Fame, Shame, (and What the Neighbors Thought), Lives of the Athletes: Thrills, Spills, (and What the Neighbors Thought), and many others telling about the Lives of the Musicians, Lives of the Artists, Lives of the Scientists, etc. I learned something new about the New York Yankee, Babe Ruth.  He was a home run king, but I did not know he won many contests for belching! :-)

Paul is an illustrator and author.  He has written numerous joke books in addition to a number of non fiction books, many of which center on various wars throughout history.  Paul spoke with the 2nd and 3rd grade students and they had a great time as he shared about illustrating and coming up with jokes.  He even had the kids share some of their jokes.  They loved it.

It was a great day and many children purchased some of their books and went home with an autographed copy of one of them.  Here are some pictures from the very busy day!

Here I am with author Kathleen Krull during the Authors' Visit.  She had just signed a copy of Lives of the Athletes for me.

Here is Mrs. Krull sharing with 4th and 5th grade 

students about her first book in elementary school.

It was about hairdos!  She loved hair and so she wrote 

about different hairdos. :-)  Some of her books are

                       displayed on the table.

Here are some of the books that Mrs. Krull's husband, Paul Brewer, has either written or co-written with Kathleen or illustrated!

A group of second graders listening to Mr. Brewer!

Here Mr. Brewer is asking second graders to tell a joke. This is my buddy, Sigge, telling his favorite joke.  Paul loved it!

Our elementary librarian, Ms. Creecy, 

Mr. Brewer and GGG at the close of

      one of the sessions with grade 3.

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I would value your prayers as I continue to work feverishly on Quarter Four After School Activities.  We have two more weeks of Quarter 3 activities and then we have a week of Spring Break and then start back up the first week in April with Quarter 4 activities.  It has been especially busy getting everything accomplished since we have had a number of teachers out with sickness and some taking their personal days.  Our 2B teacher, Mr. Bennett and his wife Kelly, the middle school assistant principal, are also missing since they are in China completing the adoption of a little Chinese girl, Zoey.  We are excited for them!  They have to be in China over 2 weeks.  Our full time substitute is subbing for Mr. Bennett so when any other teacher is absent, one of the elementary administrators needs to go in and sub as well as continue current responsibilities.  Thanks for praying.

A highlight last Saturday for some of the members of our Elementary Chess Club (After School Activity) was participation in a large Chess Tournament at one of the international schools south of Seoul.  We had about 12 of our elementary ASA Chess Club travel with some of our middle school and high school students to this tournament to compete against students from five other schools in Korea.  One of our high school students came in 5th place in the HS division.  Joshua Kim, a YISS middle school student, came in second with a strong showing in the middle school division.  BUT the big news is that out of 56 elementary students two of our elementary students placed #1 and #2 in the elementary division!! Pictures of the winners and some of the games are below:

Above are the three big winners for YISS at the recent

Chess Tournament.  From the left: Joshua Kim, 8th

grade; Dhanush Senthil, 2nd place winner from 

4th grade; and Max Huh, 1st place winner from

               3rd grade!  Congratulations!!!

Above are some of our elementary students who participated in the tournament. Max Huh is the boy at the front right as he wins one of his five straight wins!

Above are some more of our YISS students at the

Chess tournament!                        

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I am going to include some pictures from five of our after school activities that are going on now in Quarter Three.  I love going around each day to see our elementary cherubs involved in some excellent learning activities while having lots of fun and interaction.

Our YISS Elementary Girls' Basketball Club for Quarter Three with their coaches, Mr. Lazor and Mr. Resende.  They will be participating in an Elementary Basketball Jamboree on March 8!

This is the Sports (Kinder - 2) ASA in Quarter Three!

They learn many sports and have so much fun with the

                          two instructors.

Mrs. Franck works with some of our 4th and 5th grade students in an ASA called Puppet Ministry. They work on skits for our elementary Chapels and OASIS assembly.

Above is Master Kim, the instructor for our ASA,

 Taekwondo! Our elementary participants are joined 

for the picture with three MS students in the back. 

Scratch Computer 202 ASA.  They are learning all sorts of awesome things about programming!

   Another picture of one of the instructors working 

with one of our fourth grade students on his program!

     The kids love Scratch Computer 101 and 202!

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Some of you have been praying for my wonderful friend and former SYME student, Jin Seok. He came to Seoul last Friday for a first interview with the Korea National Tax Service for a possible internship that could lead to a full time job using his translation and interpretation skills.  Last week he was discouraged with his interview.  We spent some time talking and praying, and earlier this week Jin Seok texted me that he was asked to have a second interview on Wednesday at 11:00 AM.  Friday evening he called me to inform me that he was accepted for the internship and begins on Monday!  Please pray for him as he is a bit nervous.  Pray that God will make it clear to him if this is the position he should have full time after his 2-month internship.

Thank you very much for continuing to pray for me.  I appreciate your encouragement, love, notes, prayer, and support.  Please enjoy a wonderful month of March!  Wow, is it really March already?

Love, Gregg