August -September Newsletter

Hello everyone,

I’m sorry I didn’t write a post last month, I swear I didn’t forget was just swept away in the business of getting ready for school to start!

After 2 weeks of conferences, teacher training and rapidly putting together my classroom that will be used for 7 classes with only 1 other person helping in 3 days because we didn’t have a classroom until 3 days before school started, was crazy!

I am absolutely in love with my classroom this year. The classroom's theme is fruit, and workers' bee's because like bee's you must work hard, put in the time, and wait to get fruit. It is truly a dream come true! It's so pretty, practical and it smells Amazing! (Vanilla, apple-cinnamon fall smells)

We started school Sept 19th and are now entering our 4th week and it has been amazing thus far. Unlike last year when I was teaching 18 classes a week and then 22 by the end of the year, I am teaching only 8 this year. It's truly a blessing and I feel like I can breathe again, and can spend more time working in our cafe. I will admit I felt off for not doing so much at first but I see it as a blessing to be more intentional, creative, and thoughtful with my classes, which has filled the time up.

This year I am teaching art again, Grades 1-12, and could literally jump for joy at what we are learning and how well it is going. We are learning about my favorite art history period the Renaissance (Hello beautiful Italy paintings, sculptures, and architecture), we are also studying 1st Genisis to learn about how GOD creates and learning to create with Purpose, order, and intentionality as He did. I truly love art and have seen GOD already move as the students ask questions and the presence of the LORD literally fills the room with goosebumps, and how the students are loving their projects thus far, but I can’t believe I am saying this but my favorite class is actually my math class!

This year I am teaching grade 5 math in English and Spanish! It’s just one class for an hour every day of the week but I am learning to translate myself as I teach and everything else like our workbooks, slideshows, worksheets, etc because I have 3 non-English speaking students. It’s definitely an ongoing challenge but by GOD's grace, we are doing well. What makes math class my favorite tho is over the summer I spent a ton of time with GOD trying to come up with a way to make math fun, engaging, and something we look forward to, and still learn, and we did it! I don’t know about you but I can still remember the lessons I was taught in school that were interactive, fun, and followed a story, so my class is following the theme of Secret Agents! But we are not just any agents, we are agents of L.I.G.H.T (Love, integrity, gratitude, humility, and truth), which are our class values.

Our class is structured and still regular, we answer questions out of a textbook and have group lessons at the front of the room but our class also has an element of fun as the assignments for the lesson is taught through “missions” given by “headquarters”. For every 5 lessons, our agents are given a storyline, which is their mission.

Each day is a new day in the case of their mission and the objectives in math will help them solve the mission. After the five days are complete we do an interactive game day where we study material through hands-on learning to prepare for the test the next day. Needless to say, it is a blast. I love having the time to just spend on preparing these fun ways to learn, and I love my student's reactions, eagerness, and motivation to learn math. We are just starting to get our routines down and it’s still a bit bumpy but it's been good. This week we are solving the case of the stolen jewelry by solving missing addends and using our multiplication skills to find where it was hidden. These are pictures of the day 1 mission work, and the introduction to the story.

I am so excited about this school year and am so blessed to have your support. Thank you for being understanding and patient with me with my updates, and for all your prayers. I truly appreciate it.

Please let me know how I can pray for you.

Many Blessings,

Destiny. Schuett