Books!

So I’ve mentioned reading Dr. Seuss to our students lately and it’s going great.  We haven’t exactly installed it as a weekly thing but it’s a process of course.  I love to see the cool third graders not want to join the circle and then get absorbed by the cool pictures and reading out loud the minute they do.  It got me to remember how great story-time is.  Plus, scanning for pages with vocabulary we’re showing for the first time in a Dr. Seuss book is incredibly easy.  And since the stories are so scattered there’s no need for sequence and we can just pick and choose applicable pages.  

Talking to Jess yesterday we marveled at how awesome the world of Dr. Seuss is and I realized that sending books overseas is way too expensive to ask of my friends in family so I’ve been waiting patiently for someone to come and visit me and just bring a suitcase worth of books.  But today I figured I’d start in country.  So in between classes I e-mailed my boss for advice on organizations in country he might know of that donates books.   Then, I got a call and text from the Peace Corps Regional TEFL Advisor for Latin America and the Pacific Islands who gave me tons of great advice.

Allegra explained that USPS has an international M-Bag that ships media mail for relatively inexpensive overseas.  Finding that this program was actually continued after it had been discontinued for several years I am now super pumped to bring books to my schools!  I’m hoping that Dad will run the book drive for me.  Basically, we’re looking for English learning books.  Kids’ books are great, and easy and young-teenage novels as well.  And Spanish books are welcomed too!  Preferably lightly used and not out-dated.  We’re not looking for outdated computer manuals or anything.  

I’m so excited and have literally just been planning this for about two hours so it’s in the very beginning steps but I’m hoping all of you help out!  

Going for a walk now in the rain because if not I’ll never exercise!  Three days now of cold rain in the afternoon – Rainy season in Costa Rica Woot!