Two Week Holidays

We're back from our break. As I've mentioned before, Australia has the same number of vacation days as we do, but they break them up differently. Ten weeks of class, then two weeks of holidays, then back to 10 weeks of class again. This continues Feb - Dec. Then six weeks of summer holiday and back to class. So, this was our third two-week break, and it came at the best time!

I prefer the school year paced this way. You are guaranteed solid 5-day weeks for 10 weeks for unit work. No 3-day weekends or in-service days interrupt the flow. On the other hand, it's a long haul, 10 straight weeks! But with the two week break, you have a full time to relax and/or travel. You return really refreshed and ready to go again.

A perfect example of my renewed patience and love for this job came Monday morning. I gave the kids a review page of subtraction after hitting fractions pretty hard (I'm on a roll!). One student looked at his math problem and drew a blank. He asked for help. He couldn't tell how to take 7 away from 12 when the problem was in vertical form, "a stack-em-up," I call it. He had no idea. Now, three weeks ago I would have been horrified, disappointed, frustrated, and incredulous. What do you mean you don't know 12 - 7?? We've been doing this for months! What's not to know? How can you just forget something as basic as that?? Haven't I taught you this 25 times???? Instead, after two weeks of family time, travel to beautiful and amazing places, I calmly smiled and said, "Have you ever seen a problem like this before?" "No." "Oh, well, read the problem to me. You can't? Okay. Let's see . . . " I found the counters, I counted with him and laid them out on his desk. I casually sat next to him until he smiled and nodded with the "a ha!" face. That's why we love holidays!

Our trip began with our oldest son, Aaron, and his fiance, Jolyn, arriving for their first visit here. We spent the weekend exploring Sydney and the Blue Mountains. From there we went to the Red Centre, in the Northern Territory, to camp at Uluru. We slept under the stars in the outback. Fantastic! We explored around the Rock, the surrounding national parks and also at Alice Springs. Our next stop was the Great Barrier Reef for a three-day snorkel trip. We swam with sea turtles, heaps of fish, and even a shark, but a non-agressive one. The coral was outstanding, and our time there was terrific. Once home we could clean up, fish some, and regroup for the next (and last) 10 weeks of school and our stay here.