Welcome back!

There is nothing like the energy on the first day of school. It was so nice to come to work this morning and see all the eager students pouring into the buildings! It's an exciting day for us teachers too, as the school year stretches ahead of us, ripe with possibility...

In our school library we have two very fun books that talk about what school is like in different parts of the world and this seemed like a fitting day to feature them:

Ellen Jackson's It's Back to School We Go! focuses on the first day of school in various countries around the world. Did you know that in Kazakhstan it is the custom for children to bring flowers for their teachers on the first day of school? Or that in Kenya the school year runs from January to November and children attend school 6 days per week?

Margriet Ruurs' My School in the Rain Forest looks at a variety of unusual schools in different countries, such as a floating school in Cambodia where children travel to and from school in boats, an online school in Egypt with students of a variety of nationalities, and a school run over the radio in the Australian Outback!