What do you think?

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Summer Treasure–Serving Others

For many of us, especially you second and third graders, summer is a stretch of time with fewer routine obligations.  One of the treasures it offers is a chance to use that time to serve others.  Next year’s Bible curriculum theme is A Servant’s Heart, so we will be taking a closer look at your spiritual gifts and how you might use them to serve.

I just returned from a week of girls camp at Camp Maranatha.  My hope was that my mouth, my hands, my feet, my whole self would be used by God to demonstrate to these young ladies a bit of what our great Savior is like.

There are so many ways to serve.  Look around you.  Is there an elderly person who needs a hand with their yard?  Could your family or Sunday School class sing at a nursing home?  Could you use your art ability to make cards of encouragement?  Could you read aloud to a younger sibling to give your mom a quiet moment?  How about helping at home with a cheerful heart?  Don’t forget your toolbox of ways to share the Gospel with others, which can be used everywhere.

I challenge you this summer to really see the needs of others and then do something about those needs.  Leave a comment about your serving adventure!

Find out more about Maranatha Ministries.

See the slideshow about our week of camp.

 

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Drip, Drop

Meet Mr. Barry Draper–

teacher, photographer, world explorer, thinker, water steward, biologist, wonderer, and more!

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Mr. Draper joined us for NH RiverDay, and Mr. and Mrs. Draper shared details of their visit to a rain forest during our environment unit last year.  What a conversation they have started with DES students!

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Well, wise use of water happens to be one of Mr. Draper’s dearest concerns, so what would you like to ask him?   After reading about the dual-flush toilets, do you have questions about what YOU can do to conserve clean water?  What have you found out so far?  Leave a comment for Mr. Draper, and I’m sure he’ll respond.


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Also, check out Mr. Draper’s blog.  Do you notice the watery theme?  His latest post on loons especially grabbed me.  All of my town of Andover is anxiously waiting for our Highland Lake loonlings to hatch later this month.  I hope I’ll be swimming with the loons during my morning swims by August!  Rarely can you examine loons as closely as you can through  Mr. Draper’s telephoto lens.


Being on the Edge

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What?

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And here, to complete your tour of the Plymouth Writing Project at Plymouth State University is a picture of my dorm room’s toilet.  Seriously?  Miss Blessing, that is TMI!  TMI!

Do you notice anything unusual?  Do you wonder why it is different from most of the toilets we’ve seen before?  I wondered!  The first day I arrived, I looked up several websites all about it because I had never seen a dual-flush toilet before.

Check it out.

http://home.howstuffworks.com/dual-flush-toilet.htm

And here is a description of some of the changes they made to the design when they created this building.

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Math lovers, how could you estimate how many gallons of water one of these toilets saves a year if they’ve reduced their water use by 30% (averaged together with low flow showers)?  Or for the 347 students who live here, how many gallons this whole building saves?  What other information would you need to find out to solve this problem?  Could you find some of that information on the internet?  Some of it by estimating?  (Ask your adult first about supervising your searches or look closely at the above website.)  Put your estimates in a comment!

I wonder what ideas you have that might make a positive change for the future.  Somebody thought up this toilet design, and you might be the designer of the next good stewardship idea.  Write a comment about your thoughts.

Did you ever think that one of your teachers would be writing a post about . . . . toilets?  Don’t say I never surprised you.

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What Advice Do You Have?

Calling all my old students! We thought it would be really interesting to hear YOUR thoughts.

You range in age from ten to about thirty now. Some of you are still in junior high or high school, some are in college, and some are pursuing careers or parenthood. You include nurses, teachers, farmers, writers, horse trainers, business leaders, veterinarians-to-be, and more. Would you believe that you are all over the world as well? I know that some of you are located in a variety of places including Korea, South Carolina, out West, and even the Amazon. I miss seeing you every day, but I rejoice in who you are and celebrate your dreams come true just the same as when you were in my class.

So . . . what would you say to my current students? What’s something you know now that you wish you knew when you were in third or fourth grade? How have you used what you learned? How is technology involved in your life now? Are our blogging projects going to benefit us in our future endeavors? What’s your funniest memory of what we did and learned together? We welcome your comments! Give us some words of wisdom or humor. You have always been and always will be some of my favorite people to listen to and learn from!