Thanksgiving Break

Ahhh, finally. Thanksgiving break. The long awaited, hopefully relaxing, break is here. I think every teacher and aide at school deserves this break. We have worked our tails off moving and adjusting to our new place and it has been quite a wild ride. All the craziness has made me thankful for some "unusual" things that a person generally doesn't express gratitude for.

1. I am so thankful that Diane (my principal) is who she is. She's had so much life and school experience that she could probably handle any situation that comes her way. Plus, I love the fact that I can sit in her office and she can tell me to pray about a problem I'm having and be totally comfortable with that.

2. I am thankful for the parents who have supported me through the trial of the Spanish teacher resigning. Those parents are my life savers and they have been so patient and understanding. Believe me, not all the parents have been this way.

3. I'm glad that I have Elaine, Amy, and Peggy to be my support system. Technically, Peggy is the newest "newbie" of the group, but she has been in education a lot longer than me.

4. I'm thankful for a functional, new, happy classroom. No need for further explanation.

So, there you have it. Despite the stresses and woes that come with teaching, I am so happy that I teach at Timpanogos Elementary but also equally grateful for the breaks that come along. People wonder how we do it sometimes...well, I secretly think it's the breaks that contirbute to our sanity. But that's just my opinion.

Wow, this required too much thinking!

Saw this on my Aunt's website and thought I would do it too. Enjoy.

8 things I'm obsessed with right now:
1. 1st grade (though not by choice sometimes)
2. Facebook
3. Kory
4. the nephew
5. Settlers of Catan: Cities and Knights
6. helping my students progress
7. shoes
8. I guess clothing in general!

8 words or phrases I use daily:
1. Get your homework folders and put them in your book boxes.
2. How do we walk in the halls?
3. Oh, I love_________'s folded arms!
4. Hi sweetie!
5. I love you!
6. I'm a sleepyhead.
7. Quickly, please.
8. You get a tickle!

8 T.V. shows I love to watch:
1. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
2. What Not to Wear
3. BYU football
4. First
5. grade
6. takes
7. all my
8. time!

8 Things I did yesterday:
1. taught 1st grade
2. ate FREE lunch from Sam's Club
3. kissed my husband
4. graded papers
5. slept
6. went on a date
7. watched BYU men's basketball
8. checked my email

8 of my favorite places to eat:
1. Zupa's
2. Cafe Rio
3. Red Robin (I highly recommend the cheese sticks)
4. California Pizza Kitchen
5. at the kitchen table
6. Tucanos
7. Lupe's (in Oregon)
8. the in-law's

8 Things I'm looking forward to:
1. Thanksgiving break
2. Christmas break
3. Jon Schmidt concert in December
4. making our family of two bigger someday
5. Kory going to grad school
6. Not having to worry about substitute plans for the other class
7. Hawaii in July
8. seeing the progress of my students when May rolls around

8 Things on my wish list:
1. a house
2. an IKEA house
3. a kitten
4. a baby
5. a piano (yeah, I think big!)
6. no more spiders in my apartment
7. happy first graders
8. Kory in Grad school

8 People I tag:
1. I’m
2. not
3. gonna
4. name
5. names.
6. Play
7. or
8. not.

The video is a little dark and I don't know if you can see Jase very well, but he's in his "stunk" costume. He was too cute!

Music

I love music. There's a playlist on my iPod that I have created that's pretty much awesome in my opinon. But, there is one song that I'm completely in love with. It's called "If That Were Me" by Melanie C. Two years ago, Kory and I went to BYU's Ballroom Dance show and 4 dancers from the tour team did a Rumba to that song. They did it again as well last year when we went. I was completely touched, not only by their dancing, but by the song itself which speaks of a homeless person and people's reactions to homeless people on the streets. Melanie sings of how fortunate she is, but seems almost ashamed because this homeless person doesn't even have a place to live. It's interesting and I love that song, a lot. It not only makes me want to get into ballroom dancing again, it makes me think. When a song does that, it's a good song.

My craziness

Well, I suppose I'll write a quick entry before I head out to school. I got a call from my principal on Sunday evening. I had a feeling I knew what it was about, especially since I couldn't log in to the Spanish teacher's grade entry report to do report cards. Both the Spanish teacher and I have two log-ins since we teach two groups. In a nutshell, Diane (the principal) told me that Sonia resigned on Friday for personal reasons and that I needed to make the substitute plans for her sub on Monday. Part of the reason for her resignation was not passing a test that all teachers have to take (including me) in order to be "highly qualified." Diane can't employ us if we are not highly qualified. I have to take the test before my third year of teaching is over. So I still have another year and half.

Sub plans? Generally not a big deal. I wasn't stressing out too much even though Sonia's schedule was very different from mine. So I did what I could on Sunday evening and figured I could get the rest in place on Monday morning. Boy, was I making a overstatement! I went into Sonia's room yesterday morning and there was NOTHING! No files with work for the students, no homework folders, no plan book, NOTHING! Panic mode set in at that point. I only had things for the substitute to do math and for the kids to write in their journals; but what were they going to write?? Not a clue! So, I just made up stuff in English for the kids to work on and the freaking substitute didn't even follow the plans I made AT ALL! He's substituted before and he totally creeps me out. I was angry at Sonia for taking everything off the walls and taking student's names off the desks and cubbies. Literally the room looked sterile! Ugh! She even took the crayons so I had to give the sub my "lost and found" crayons. Yeah, I was totally exhausted by the end of the day because I had to keep up with my plans and the substitute plans. Plus, parent-teacher conferences are on Thursday and I have to do grades but i can't log into the other class's grades and Sonia has my math tests still in her possession. Yeah, this week is going to be crazy. I have to make sub plans for the whole week. Yay. That's my craziness.

School pics-cont'd

So, since I can't figure out for the life of me how to arrange several pictures on my blog, you're getting another post for my new classroom pictures. Look how much space there is!! AND OUTSIDE WINDOWS! The whiteboard on the left in the picture with the two whiteboards will soon be removed and replaced with an interactive whiteboard called Promethean Board. The kids can interact with it and it's a VERY fun toy! I'm looking forward to having one. Most of the pictures show what my room looked like before I tackled the unpacking and arranging job. The other two show my room all nice and ready for kidlets. Can I just say I love all the SPACE??? and no orange carpet or brown wall! Yahoo!

School pics

Well, here's my old classroom. Check out the lovely orange carpet and brownish-orange wall. The picture with me is what my classroom looked like after the movers cleared out everything. It was dark in the school because it was like 8:30 at night and Kory and I were packing up a couple of last minute things into my car. The yellow paper is covering two windows that looked into the library!! No outside windows or doors in my old classroom.