Ostriches!

From Amanda

Today was an eventful day for several reasons.

Today was my class's first field trip with me and today was my first field trip as a teacher! :-D

I heard the 2/3 teacher talking a few weeks ago about going to an ostrich farm outside the city. I immediately asked if my class could go as well; it has nothing to do with anything we are doing in class but I really wanted to see the ostriches!

So this morning K through 6th went downstairs all bundled up and... waited for a van to get there for an hour. Two of the vans were there on time but one was a good hour late (and he lied about bad traffic and his gas tank was empty so ...). But this was fun in its own way. Three of my girls would hug/grab me and run away giggling so I bear hugged the three of them together. We also all gave up and ate our lunches on the buses to save time. One of my students had his appendix removed Saturday morning and (this is a Russia thing) he was in the hospital until yesterday but he was able to come as well which was a blessing!

So we rode out to the farm and could see the ostriches right away. We held down the fort until the tour guide arrived by keeping the little ones back from the fence. One of our teachers was up by the fence taking pictures and a K girl asked why he could. I told her because he was an adult and when she was an adult she could tell kids to stay and then go look at the ostriches, but that she had a few years to wait. She seemed perfectly content and happy with this answer! :-)

In the meantime, two of my Korean girls were carrying each other and I managed to get the most adorable picture ever!

As you can see it was cold and rainy but we had fun none the less.

I also got a picture of some of my 4th and 5th class...

And my 6th grade class...

Note that there is someone popping up behind the pink hat! Two of the boys joined us from other places as well and one did not come; my class is 10 students.

So the tour guide came and we learned about ostriches!

Facts about ostriches:

• They do fine in the snow here! They grow an extra layer of fat and they will lay in the snow.
• They sleep in shifts so that someone is always on the look out.
• They are impossible to train because they have a memory span of 5 minutes.
• Their brains are as big as their eyes.
• Some people believe they are related to dinosaurs.
• They can run as fast as 70 km per hour!

We also saw 2 month old babies...

And turkeys! One of them grabbed one of our teachers!

We also saw and petted a reindeer. She was very friendly and really wanted to be petted!

Finally we fed the ostriches! I only fed one once because they would wait for you to put the food down and snatch it out of your fingers!

All in all a great field trip!

This last thing is comepletely unrelated but we have talked about how deep the subways are and shown no pictures. This is because you are not supposed to take pictures of the subway. Apparently it is a matter of national security... But there was one night last weekend where there was only one person behind us and no guards around so we took a picture!!!!!!!!!!!

so here is something to give you an idea of how deep the subways are!