Rain rain...

It almost never rains here. When it does it is cause for much excitement. If it is more than a slight drizzle for any length of time it is likely to start flooding.

This morning I woke up around 4:40 to slight rumblings mixed with the call to prayer. I listened for a little bit trying to determine if it was thunder or the street cleaner guy with his garbage can. I determined it was thunder and when I got up I noticed some lightening. Cool! I love storms! The cats were meowing (like they do every morning) so I got them some food but they wouldn't eat-- not normal. They were kinda freaked out by the storm.

We sat and watched the lightening out the window but there was no rain. We waited about 20 minutes and then it just barely rained and seemed to stop. I thought, "Wow, that was a lot of show for nothing." Then, about half an hour later and just in time for school, it started to pour.

What'sApp messages were flying- asking if we really had to go to school in this? are you going to drive? can I get a ride? In one group with people outside my school a person's apartment was flooded and someone else was without power. Still no official message from school so we headed in. Right before going in I see this on Facebook:

and Sinae sends me this: 

Great. This should be fun. I roll up my pants and head in. We were able to avoid wading through water by carefully choosing our path through the middle school to the elementary. Teachers and some students are trickling in. We are told all kinds of conflicting information- kids go to the multipurpose room, no they stay in your room with you. Half the building loses power. More kids are coming in.

This is what it looked like:

Rumors fly that the Ministry has said school is canceled so we have to cancel school and send the kids back home. This proves to be a good lesson for the 5 kids that are in my room. We had just started a lesson on researching yesterday and I had talked to them about making sure your source is credible. They all got excited thinking school was going to be canceled but I told them, until the principal says it is, we don't believe those things.

They did not cancel school and we were to try to actually teach. I had anywhere from 8-10 students. A couple students came VERY late and a couple students were picked up by older siblings after a couple of hours when the older siblings and the parents decided it was a waste of time for them to be there.

Luckily I had just taught that lesson on research and I had taught them how to look up topics on Britannica Online. I let them research whatever they wanted and then present the information to the class however they wanted. They researched flowers, sharks (two groups) and dogs. Three groups used iMovie to present and one group did a drawing and showed a video they found. I had them write words for my word wall and then we watched WALL-E. I tied WALL-E into our new unit with the central idea: Change Over Time Impacts Relationships. It was fun to see them watch it with a new lens and they were making connections, asking questions, and generally getting more out of it than they had before.

Oh-- and in their religion class the teacher was talking to them about sharing and caring for others, how other people need our help. I piped in and said I had some really good images to show them and we showed them these images. I had posted the link on Facebook earlier this week. Amazing images of the migrant workers here in Kuwait. http://www.faisalthef.com/#/friday-gathering/ In the middle of looking at these images one of my students said, "Ms. stop! I'm going to cry. Please stop!" I told him it was ok to cry and this is a really sad part of Kuwait. It was neat that he had such a strong reaction.

I'm going to end with my favorite What'sApp message of the day. This is in a group for the place that Sinae and I work at after school and where we did summer camps. Sinae posted a picture of the flooded tennis courts.