Time with friends and family

Wow, I love the holidays! Well I love any time I get to hang out with people I love and care about. This holiday season I have been blessed with time with both family and friends.

Michael (my dear brother) is home from school until the 7th of January. It has been great to hang out with him and spend some time together before he goes back to the states and then Botswana.

This past week we as a family have been able to hang with all of my Alaska family, my aunt, uncle and cousins here in Wasilla and my Grandma, uncle, aunts and cousins in Eagle River. We have also been able to spend time with friends. Yesterday we spent a fun filled say with our neighbors, the Hunners. We don't get to spend near enough time with them and it was a great time of fellowship yesterday, plus amazing food and a crazy game of Guesstures (I don't know how but I got Mom to guess "larangitis"!) And tonight we went over to our dear friends the Grindles, where we enjoyed wonderful food (cooked by Michael), games (Farkle) and conversation.

My life would be so dull without these amazing people to spend time with. Friends and family bring so much color and meaning to my life, that I wouldn't know what to do without them. I love having time to hang with them and spend quality time together. I wouldn't trade that special time for anything!

Anniversary

It is amazing to think that Charlie and I have been together for a year now. We had our one year anniversary on the 30th of November and it was a great evening. After class Charlie and I got dressed up and went to a movie (New Moon), and then to Simon and Seafort's! (YUM!)

Mini-Residency

So let's see, what has gone on since I last posted in November? Here we go:

Well the week of November 16-20th, I had my mini-residency. This was a time in the my internship classroom in which I would have control of the class for a week (well almost). I have to say that leading up to this week I had a bit of a breakdown at school. I had been having a hard time keeping the class quiet. I have been assured that this is a common theme with new teachers. Well, the day of my meltdown, my mentor teacher, Julie, noticed right away and we had a little chat about what I could do to gain more control over the class. I found that when I say something, I really have to mean it and sound like I mean it, otherwise students will think it is optional (not good). With the tips that Julie gave me tucked away, I was able to go into my mini-residency with confidence and effectively teach the students throughout the week.

Since then I have been able to take on more and more responsibility in the classroom and my mentor teacher has been able to step out with confidence that I will get stuff done.

Wow I am a terrible blogger

Wow, have I really been that busy? Yes I have. It is sad, I start a blog and then barely have any time to manage it and keep it up to date. So in the posts to come, there will be updates about what has been going on in my world. I will try to recap what all has been going on in my life for the past month and a half. Let's see how I do.

Salt Dough Maps

Oh the drama! Wow what an afternoon. It all started last week when my mentor teacher Julie asked me to make salt dough so that our students could make awesome maps of Alaska. I got all excited and of course agreed. Well yesterday I went to the store with Charlie and we got everything we needed. Flour, salt and plastic wrap. I looked like I was picking up stuff to build a bomb. We also had some very sturdy boxes donated from Carrs to create the base for the maps. So we headed back to Charlie's house and I got set to work on making to dough and he cut out and painted all the bases (such a sweet guy for helping me). I made enough dough for the kids to be able to complete their project and still have some left over to take home. I have to say I was pretty excited about this project. Although I almost broke my back trying to get all the dough from my car to my classroom (the box was really heavy). But anywho, on with the story. It came time to make the maps and the kids were really excited, that is until they found out that the dough was soft and sticky. They freaked. Immediately complaints started popping up about how they couldn't do it and how their hands were getting all messy and gross. I have to say I had little sympathy for them, I worked with that dough for a good 2 hours the night before and was a sticky gooey mess. I loved it! But my kids didn't feel the same. The project took a very long time and drove me a little crazy in the process. Anyway, I have learned my lesson, make a little thicker salt dough so the students don't complain.

The Week at School Before Halloween

Oh my goodness! What a crazy week we have had! (We being my mentor teacher and myself). I have discovered fast that the week leading up to a holiday is insane. Much more so when it is a fun holiday in which kids get to dress up and eat a crazy amount of candy that make dentists cringe. Yes I am of course speaking of Halloween. This week has been a very loud one in the classroom and has exposed a new challenge for me, patience! I am being tested this week to see if this really is what I want to do. What is getting me through and what gives me encouragement is that this week will soon be over and we can send the kids home to their parents to work off the sugar high they will get at school tomorrow. I cannot say how happy I am that Halloween is on Saturday this year. We won't have to see them and try and teach them the day after the sugar high. Thank goodness. I just hope that next week settles down a bit.


As for my internship experience, I am continuing to learn a ton. We successfully went through parent teacher conferences. And I am slowly taking on more and more responsibility in the classroom. This week I taught math every day, 2 back-to-back reading lessons and 2 back-to-back health lessons. It was a very full week, but a fun one teaching wise. My mini-residency is coming up and the more practice before then the better!

It has been too long...

Oh my goodness, it has been far too long since I have posted anything. I hate to pin that on anything, but my crazy busy schedule hasn't given me much time to blog. But I just wanted to let everyone who checks this that I am still alive and surviving my internship and second to last semester of college.

I am loving my internship! I am learning so much from my mentor teacher, and I think we make a pretty good team. I learned a valuable lesson the other day. It is possible to be too enthusiastic about a lesson. I was teaching a lesson on adding by 9s and I was having a lot of fun with it. But my mentor teacher especially noticed (one of the benefits of being at this for 20 years) that the kids got a little too jazzed about the lesson and weren't focusing very well on what I was saying. So next time I am going to practice being enthusiastic, but scaling it back just a little.

I am pressing on with school, and thankfully my methods classes are going to be wrapping up soon. They are pretty intensive at the moment, but one of the benefits is that we get done sooner, and get to spend more time in the classroom at the end of the semester! YEAH FUN!

There are two other interns in my building who are a ton of fun, and who I don't get to see nearly enough of. I am downstairs on one side of the building and they are upstairs on the other. They did a great job of separating us. Well I think that is all for this post, I am doing well and am still kickin'!

Oh and here is a picture of my wig: