A Week of Many Lasts

We've done a lot of things this week for the last time:
1. My last day with my second grade class was on Wednesday.

This class will always have a special place in my heart, you can tell we have some goof balls :)

Most of all, I will miss my wonderful teacher!  For some reason I think there's some rule that you shouldn't release the grade and teacher's name as well as pictures, so we'll leave her nameless but as a Christmas present she gave me this awesome book:

 

This is a wonderful Christmas story about a family who cannot afford presents, food, or heating for their home on Christmas day but a kind act of service and attention to the promptings of the Spirit brought this family so much joy on Christmas morning.  

My teacher gave me this book because the mother in the story is her grandmother and the baby sleeping, above, is her mother - so it is very dear to her heart.

2. Last day of classes...forever...kind of

           Thursday was the last day of classes for the semester.  But for me, since I'll be student teaching next semester, it really was like the LAST DAY OF CLASSES FOREVER! (except that I'm going to be a teacher so that kind of contradicts itself)  And...I'll have a capstone class once every two weeks next semester but I don't think that really counts since there's not a "midterm", "final", and all that jazz. Anyway, I am happy to say that Thursday around 11 felt wonderful, exhilarating, stress free! 

3. Last time hosting a Student Activities Board event and staff meeting :( 

Acoustic Explosion, BYU's Got Talent, Halloween Spooktacular...good times!  I'll be a little too busy next semester with student teaching, so I'm letting myself go but my awesome boss is inviting me to be his "advisor" aka get paid to come watch events and help figure out what went well, what needs to change.  So, I'll still get a couple hours of work in/week hopefully!
P.S. If you haven't heard Caleb Blood's music before, you are seriously missing out.  If you follow that link, my favorite song is "Lovely Obsession".  I've been so fortunate to see some AWESOME talent at BYU through my wonderful job :)

 

We've luckily been able to take a get-away trip to Idaho for the long weekend, starting Thursday night :)  I've been a busy bee here making some really cute gifts for my sister-in-law Heather, who is about to have a baby any day now!  However, I can't post any pics on here yet because she will see them ;)

Merry Finals and Happy Holidays!

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I know I said I would write about my school experiences every day but...I didn't realize how unrealistic that is now that I'm in the thick of things so it might be more of a once a week thing.
Besides, this week was H A R D. 

Earlier on Wednesday the other 2nd grade teacher came in and told me that one of her girls who comes to our class to math told her that I was a great math teacher.  You can imagine that warmed my heart, but I didn't get my hopes up too much.  I have to say, I dread teaching math almost every day because it takes a lot of creativity to turn these ideas from abstract to concrete for this low math group.

Just when I feel like I am getting the hang of things, something else comes to humble me: like "using data from a chart".  Having to teach it, anyway.  I had to teach about using clues to figure out a number such as "It is less than 40, it is greater than 36, it is an even number, which number is it?".  Easy right? Not so much.  The program wanted them to figure out which numbers to first ELIMINATE in order to find the right answer.  Well, this means that they had to read the clue, figure out what the opposite of the clue was, and cross those numbers out.  Low math group also tends to equal low reading group (not always, but a lot of them). So it was all just very abstract for them and to TOP IT ALL OFF, my teacher left for the last half of the day to take her son to the empty sea, I mean the MTC :)  (One of the kids wrote that their teacher went to "the empty sea" in their journals!)  So me and the substitute were both coming up with every way we could think of to teach these poor kids and the rest of the day was complete chaos.  Sub days = bad days.

 photo courtesy: amazon.com

But the kids are doing state reports and I can't believe how stinkin smart they are - researching in 2nd grade.  I don't remember doing that. I have two little girls that love telling me everything they find about Pennsylvania. My teacher also had me read them some awesome books about the country and states, like "Scrambled States" and "America the Beautiful" which has absolutely beautiful illustrations.

photo courtesy: Chris Gall

And on another note, our stake is putting on a Money Wise Workshop (a three-session workshop) with volunteers from the Marriott School of Management - Devin and I went to the first session tonight and although a lot of it was common sense stuff that we've already heard, it DID make us feel like we need to be more aware of how much money is coming in, and not just how much is going out, but what unnecessary things are we spending on?
    Namely, eating out and little things that seem really cheap when making one purchase but adds up when it becomes regular.  However, if you've seen where we live...we're doing pretty well at living below our means, haha. Pin It

Sundial

The students are writing a story about the sun, so my teacher had them MAKE sundials today, they were so cool and super easy for the kids to do!

(photo courtesy of: members.shaw.ca)

After the kids wrote the numbers on their plate, they took them outside as a class and each kid stuck theirs into the ground and placed it so the shadow fell at the correct time (we used skewers or craft sticks).  They went out two hours later and were AMAZED that the shadow had changed and it really showed what time it was - awesome, huh?  This took almost no time at all for them to make. 

Other things on the mind:
-We're going to Idaho on Friday!
-My birthday's in a week
-Devin's cracking down on some job possibilities...............

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Praticum!

Define - Practicum: Spend time in a real elementary school, plan some lessons, observe some lessons, teach some lessons, don't wear jeans.
For some reason my teachers haven't really felt like telling us exactly what to expect when going into the schools, so this is the only real definition I can give you.

What I do know, however, is that starting on Monday (until the end of Fall semester) I get to go to a 2nd grade classroom every week on Mon Tues Wed for the whole school day.  The first couple days I get to just sit back and observe, but after that I guess I'm gunna jump right in...I'll teach at least 8 lessons (that I know of) over the course of the next 7ish weeks and whatever else my mentor teacher wants me to do.

With that being said, I'm sure there will be lots to share. Things I don't want to forget. Things I'm learning, hilarious things kids say, how elementary school is so different from when I went, etc. So I'm making it a goal to write something every day. the good and the bad. So, on the right hand side of my blog there will be a little link titled "My Other Life" where I will post these experiences. 

My teacher's last words to us today were this (as she poured the ingredients into a bowl):

Cohort Recipe for Success

• Take care of your life (LIFE cereal)
• Be yourself...we're all a little nutty, let your talents shine (mixed nuts)
• Stay grounded in what you've learned (granola...not sure why)
• Grin and bear the difficulties (raisins...because no one likes raisins, haha)
• Savor the sweet things (M&Ms!)
• The bread of life, stay spiritually strong and true to yourself (pretzels)

And that's the goal...wish me luck!

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