What in the World has Miss Roth been up to? (School Edition)

Photo from Acacia International School

Oh, Acacia. A single blog post can't begin to do it justice. I do love our school. And my, how it's grown. This past fall at the senior school has been a blast. I'm going to attempt to give you a little taste of what has happened over the last few months. Here is goes...


Fifth grade started the year in a unit all about myths from around the world. I got to read some excellent spin-off myths they created about Paul Bunyan taking three steps across the Atlantic to have a ski holiday in Switzerland, Aesop's fables that incorporated velociraptors, and journal entries written from the perspective of Don Quixote's horse, Rocinante. I also got to introduce a new generation to the beauty of Wishbone while we were reading Don Quixote.

Photo from Acacia International School

This picture isn't in my classroom, but it is the fifth grade. I've made it my own personal mission in class to make sure no student leaves my class pecking at a keyboard like a chicken. They have been working hard to improve their typing on our Chromebooks.

 Sixth grade started with a Greek unit, meaning loads of mythology, and then the epic journey of Odysseus. These pictures are from the day that we attempted to recreate a day at the Greek theater. Hence the masks. They got to choose a myth for their group to act out, complete with costumes, chorus, and loads of silliness. Some of them had to improvise a bit. You can see one of the boys playing the maiden of the story in the picture above, and a white-board-drawn extra in the picture below. Quite creative, these students.

In the sixth grade class we also did a short unit on Edgar Allan Poe before Christmas. We wrapped up with "The Raven," in all it's haunting, dreary glory. Instead of attempting to do it justice with my own voice, I thought it'd be best left to the professionals. With the help of that beautiful thing we call YouTube, I found a reading done by Christopher Lee. So I told the class, "Christopher Lee, who you might know as Sarumon, is going to read the poem." Instantly about five of them shout out, "Miss Roth, you know him!" No children, I can't say that I do. But he does have a gorgeous voice for reading Poe, and he was kind enough to put it on the internet. Thank you, kind sir. You gave a bunch of twelve-year-olds living in the heart of Africa a deeper appreciation for some classic poetry.


Again, this photo isn't from inside my classroom, obviously, but it is the 7th and 8th grade class. These guys worked really hard this fall on a autobiography unit, studying voice. They read Anne Frank, Helen Keller, Benjamin Franklin, and speeches from FDR and Churchill. I also had the privilege of reading their own autobiographical writing that they did in class. I'm telling you, these students have interesting lives. Most of them have lived in at least a handful of different countries and have loads of interesting stories, and they're only 13!

Photo from Acacia International School

We read The Giver by Lois Lowry next, which I absolutely love. If you've never read it, consider this my shameless plug, wholeheartedly endorsing it. It was an excellent book to teach, and started some really thought provoking discussion. 

The picture, though, is from the end of the volley ball unit in PE. The 7/8th class challenged the staff to a game. It was quite fun, and we teachers whooped them pretty solidly.

Photo from Acacia International School

Just recently, the last day before holidays, I thought the students were going to have their revenge. They challenged us to a staff versus student soccer game. I was much more worried about that one, especially since it was rumored that I was going to play keeper, and the students were threatening to take all kinds of shots at me. In the end, though, our teaching staff played quite well. I didn't have to play keeper, and really all I accomplished was tripping one of the students so he sprawled out onto the grass, in true footballer theatrics. Good fun.

After school during the last term I helped out with the photography and sewing clubs. These two fourth graders were working on creating interesting portraits one week in photography club. There are loads of other great pictures from the photography club students on Acacia's facebook page. Check it out! Sewing club helped to make all the bright silly costumes for the Christmas play, which I'll get to in a minute.

 During the fall I got to attend a reading conference. Beyond merely being informative, it also increased my pedagogy reading list exponentially.

And, speaking of reading, we've still been molding our library at Acacia. I've been weeding out some of the lesser gems, like these bits of bound rubbish. I usually find them during library time when the sixth grade boys are throwing them at each other, daring someone to check it out. Although the average literary merit of the books in our library is significantly improved when I pull these from the shelf, there's something in me that can't throw away a book. Even a rubbish book. Which means I have a rapidly increasing library of ridiculous books at my own home. 

But, now for the most significant thing from the last term, aside from my normal classroom teaching. THE CHRISTMAS PLAY! So great. So much work, but so great. 

Kudos to sewing club for that great Christmas tie, middle of the top row.
Photo from Acacia International School

We did a Seussified version of the classic Dickens Christmas Carol, which was loads a fun, with terrible rhymes, stupid jokes, and more bright colored hair than I ever thought we'd have in one place. So much wig hair has been shed in my classroom, I don't know if I'll ever be rid of it all. But that's beside the point. 

Anxiously waiting to go on stage.

Although our school is small, we have an outstanding amount of theatrical talent represented in our student body. Elianna Tuggy played the Scrooge, and did a fantastic job hamming it up. The three ghosts were three of my fifth grade girls, and they also did a wonderful job. The ghost of Christmas present is in one of the photos, dressed like a gift. Get it? I know, groan. The play of full of puns like that. 

Photo from Acacia International School

All of the actors did a fantastic job and worked really hard, and I had some excellent stage hands that took care of all the prop moving. Although it required more work than any other single event I've ever done at Acacia, and despite the fact that two days before the performance our rehearsal was so bad it basically gave me an ulcer, in the end it all came together. The audience seemed to love it, and the students were proud of their work. I would call it a success. 

Photo from Acacia International School

Ghost of Christmas PresentPhoto from Acacia International School

Jason made all our great 2D cartoon props in beautiful Seussy style.
Photo from Acacia International School

Instead of chains, "Jackie" Marley had a "yucktastic" outfit.
Photo from Acacia International School

The final show stopper was a school-wide song that they had practiced like crazy. It sounded great, not to mention they looked fantastic in all the bright colors. The end of a successful performance like that was such an incredible feeling. 

I hope that gives you at least a little taste of what my job is like here in Uganda. Wonderful school, fantastic staff, lovely students. 

And some days my desk may look like every imaginable school supply has been breading all over it.


Some days the power may go out in the middle of a meticulously planned power-point based lesson.


Some days, after a long hard week and while grading late into the evening on a Friday, I might find half a mustache left over from last year's play and decide that the only thing to do is try it on and send a selfie to my sisters.


And although all those things may happen, I very much love what I get to do here at Acacia. I wouldn't trade it for anything. 

What in the world has Anne been up to?

It's Christmas vacation time! That means I can finally blog again. So, let me briefly catch you up on what I've been up to. This is the non-school edition. School post to come soon.

Way back in September I entered my second quarter...second quarter century, that is. To say it bluntly, I turned 25. This was celebrated with a pedicure with friends and I chose purple. You know, "when I'm old I will wear purple," and all of that. It was a lovely day.

Also, towards the end of September we added the lovely Miss Karen. Richard, our math teacher at the senior school, and Karen got married on September 29, and we had a reception at school to celebrate. These two are an absolutely lovely couple, and we are so blessed to have them in our school community.

This is utterly random, and a little gross, but at some point this fall I discovered this little friend. It was hanging out in my garage. But it didn't look like this when I first met it. It was entirely encrusted with little bug nuggets. I'm not sure if they were pieces of dead bugs, or half developed offspring, but it was disgusting. It looked like a walking wad of bug bits. Upon further investigation I discovered this rather interesting insect. Still don't know what the heck it is. Ideas?

Over our October break, my housemate and I went out to the mountains in eastern Uganda to a place called Sipi Falls. It was a beautiful spot with cool mountain air and beautiful falls. 

I drove, and my poor little almost-twenty-year-old Rav4 took quite a beating when we took a wrong turn and decided to connect back to the main road via a "short-cut." The above picture is actually a section of road that felt like a paved four lane highway in comparison to some of the more treacherous stretches. During those stretches we were too busy hanging on with white knuckles of fear. Some parts of the "road" were worse than any dirt biking bmx track I've ever seen. Nonetheless, we arrives at our destination eventually, shaken but not broken.

 This was the view from our cabin's front porch. Stunning scenery. Although it was chilly at night, we had beautiful sunny weather during the day.

While there we went on a fantastic morning hike through the mountainside. It was quite muddy from all the recent rain, but that meant the four falls were impressively powerful. Our guide was excellent, the setting beautiful, and we only fell in the mud a time or two. 

Photo credit to Becky Nilsen 

Photo credit to Becky Nilsen

After a full morning scampering around on mud tracks, boulders, and ladders, we  were pretty beat. A chill afternoon coffee tour was in order. Our guide from the mornings adventure took us to his little family plot were he showed us the process of coffee making, from cherry to cup. His sweet family also let us hang out with them when it started raining, and we ending up just chatting with them for most of the afternoon, while drinking excellent coffee, of course. 

Other random things:

I opened pumpkin hunting season with some pumpkin baked goods. 

A super friendly sunflower bloomed in my front yard.

During our periodic torrential downpours, the corner of our back garden will flood.
Then the sun came out in full force, and this funny bird decided on a bath in our puddle.
Uganda is well known for all it's birds.  

Next up, what I've been up to at school. Here's a teaser...