Hey–now that I have your attention, let me take a minute to tell you all about something new and great that started in our room today:

We are now officially a part of Southwest Airline’s Adopt-a-Pilot program!  Marcus Smith, a pilot and a 5th grade parent, came to visit us for the first time today.  Over the next few weeks, he is going to work with us, both in person and via Skype as we learn about all sorts of topics related to math, science, and communication arts.

The purpose of today’s visit was really just for us to meet him and build a foundation for the program.  First up, meet Mr. Smith:

He told us about his journey to his current job, and we found out about how he had wanted to fly since he was in high school.  He told us about his time in the military, and even showed us some uniforms he’s worn in his past “lives.”

After the introduction, he asked us a question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  We went around the room and told our names and the answer to that question.  I heard answers ranging from teacher and veterinarian to dermatologist and architect.  Stay tuned this week for more on this topic–I hope to share videos or blog posts later!

Throughout the rest of the lesson, we watched a video or two about flight (he was a pilot, after all!) and talked about goal setting.  He shared a great acronym with us to remember as we work toward those goals.  It’s based on the word FLIGHT (which makes sense, right?):

As we go through this program (and beyond that, I hope), we’ll keep coming back to these qualities.

We really enjoyed today and are looking forward to next week when he comes back to teach us more!  A few more pics before I’m done:

One of the things we’ll do each week in between visits is figure out how many miles he’s flying.  We’re hoping to find out if he can fly the equivalent of the distance around the world before we’re done with our program–that’s almost 25,000 miles!

We’re excited to see what’s to come! 🙂