September 20, 2009

Another beautiful, sunny, cool day. We met Brian, Christelle and Max at the Apple Festival across the road from Kents Hill School.

They gave us a tour of the campus, where we saw the century-and-a-half-old buildings,

and Brian's classroom. Christelle and Brian repainted the room, added curtains, polished old brass door knobs, and made the room very French-friendly. Brian has a "Smart Board" which is a huge screen displaying internet access, and can be manipulated by direct contact on the screen. He displays his lessons, and has students do French exercises directly from the board. It is an amazing teaching tool - one that I would love to have had in my classrooms so many years ago. Brian is fortunate to have students that are very interested in French, small classes, and a very supportive academic community.

Here is the incredible indoor athletic facility. It includes this Olympic-size ice rink, a basketball court, and a fully equipped weight/workout room.

And we took a walk with "Red", the dog of good friend Will Rhem. Christelle told us there were over a dozen dogs of staff families on campus, plus lots of children. A couple of the kids are in Max's first-grade classroom at Readfield Elementary School.

Max came home to our campsite, with us.  He rode his bicycle, played at least two hours of badminton,

helped Papi Tom build a fire, and roasted marshmallows.

When his parents arrived with pizza, we all had dinner around the campfire. Max found the Big Dipper, and located the Little Dipper and its North Star. The younger Beards left to traverse the country roads back to Kents Hill, but we will see them when we can this coming week. Twenty French exchange students have arrived to spend 10 days at the school, and Brian is in charge of them, so he will be quite involved with that. Tomorrow we will pick Max up at his elementary school, and bring him back to "camp" with us, and just enjoy him as much as possible while we have this opportunity.