My Classroom!

     A week ago, I arrived in Provo and was able to see my classroom for the first time. When I approached my room, I saw: 

The sign outside my classroom door. 

My first thought was "Wow! It's for real! I'm officially a third grade teacher!" I walked in my room to find it empty which was slightly shocking to me because the last time I saw it, it was being used as a 4th grade room. 

I figured I'd better get to work. I unpacked the 8 boxes I had shipped out from home and started decorating. I spent about 15 hours putting up the decorations and then I decided to start on what was actually "inside" my classroom- that is all the paperwork. I spent the next 15 hours going through all the papers that had been left behind and organizing them into system that worked for me. After 3 days of long hours and hard work, I decided that my room was done. Since then, I've realized I still have things to do. For instance, I had to go buy all the school supplies I needed for my students. I also needed to make copies of my class money and other procedures.

Overall, it's still a work in progress, but I'm feeling much better about it. Here are some pictures of how the room turned out. 

right side of the room, word walls and computers

back of the room- guided reading, vocabulary on the walls, and supply area

back of the room

The outside of my room- left side

class library- reading area

the outside of my room- right side

Looking at the front of the room from the entrance

my desk at the front of the room

left side of my room

closeup of student desk- we are an eMINTS classroom

WELCOME THIRD GRADERS!

 

Hey! I'm a teacher!

   It's been quite a while since I've last posted. School has been incredibly busy as I've been finishing up my senior year. Since I last posted, I took another semester and taught a month in a 5th grade classroom. I absolutely loved it all. The students were so great and the teacher was amazing! I learned and grew so much in her classroom. About a week ago, I interviewed for an internship for the fall and I got it! I will teaching third grade starting in August. I'm grateful for this chance I have been given to touch the lives of these students.
 

Thankful

As Thankgiving time rolls around, I am reminded of all the things I am grateful for. In my 1st grade class, I am helping the students make a thankful turkey of the things they are grateful for. I thought would list mine too.

(it will look something like this...)

I'm thankful for a loving family who's always supported me and has my back.

I'm thankful for extended family out in Utah who feed me, let me hang at their house, spend holidays with them, and most important love me.

I'm thankful for letters from my best friend on her mission, who always brings a smile to my face. 

I'm thankful for good friends who I don't see all the time, but I randomly run into.

I'm grateful for all the good samaritans in this world, who take a second to practice random acts of kindness that they don't know are noticed. 

I'm grateful for good bishops of wards, who get to know every member and make everyone feel included and important. 

I'm grateful for my chance to have a good education and learn to be a teacher.

I'm grateful for my job that allows me to earn a little money, but more importantly see a lot of people I wouldn't normally see and become friends with a large group of people.

I'm grateful for understanding teachers and people who help you feel you can succeed even when its hard.

I'm grateful for my chance to learn from and work with 1st graders this year. They are the sweetest. 

Halloween!

             I love Halloween! Dressing up, costumes, the taste of candy corn, trick or treaters at your door... the list goes on and on. I think as a little kid the excitement of Halloween revolved around the candy and how much I would get. I'm sure it's the same for almost any child. I loved to dump out my spoils at the end of the night and trade with my siblings for what I thought was the best stuff. My parents would sit with us and mooch off our candy.. and we would let them.. unless they took our favorite. 

           As I got older, I received the responsibility of taking my three younger brothers trick or treating. This was always so much fun. I enjoyed seeing the excitement on their faces which was almost as much fun as if I were trick or treating myself. I loved going trick or treating with them. I also loved to stand at the door and hand out candy to all the little kids who came along. 

Halloween excitement started again once I started college. My roommate freshman year loved Halloween and insisted that we go to the Halloween dance. I didn't know what to be, and didn't really want to go, but she loved it so much, so we went together.. and we had a BLAST! My costume - tickled pink. 

Jess as Mad Cow Disease and Me as "Tickled Pink"

          Sophomore year after realizing how much fun it was to dress up and go to dances, I decided to try again. That year I was a poodle skirt girl. My roommate was cloud nine. 

            Last year, I spent Halloween with my roommate and her family in Monticello, and we took her little brothers trick or treating for Halloween. Once again I realized how much fun Halloween is to a child, and I think I had more fun than they did. This year, my roommate is on a mission, but I know how much Halloween means to her and has come to mean to me. My roommates and I decided to be the cereal icons. We hit up D.I. and Michaels for some colored duct tape and t-shirts, and put together our costumes. They were super easy and cheap but fun and ended up looking great. We had a great time. 

Me as "Buzz" the Honeynut Cheerios Honeybee

Me as Buzz and Lexi as Tony the Tiger (Frosted Flakes)

The group - missing Lisa ( Lexi as Tony the Tiger, Katy as Lucky from Lucky Charms, Me as Buzz from Honeynut Cheerios, Stasia as the Quaker Oats guy, and Julia as Captain from Captain Crunch. 

Lessons Learned

   Last night I had an incredible experience. I went with my friend Kaitlin and a couple guys to a living facility for people with mental and physical disabilities. Another friend of mine, Jess, suggested that we go because her friend goes every week and invited new people along. When we first arrived, I was a little nervous because I wasn't sure what to do. We walked in and were greeted with big hugs and kisses. Everyone loves her friend  and they all ran up to them to say hello. As I watched her friend hug them, rub their backs, pay attention to them, and talk to them, I couldn't help but smile. Other BYU students also came and were greeted the same. I watched as they taught them how to play cards, how to play the piano, how to dunk, and listened to stories. I couldn't help but think that I was seeing a little piece of what the pure love of Christ looks like.  That night I got the best hugs, the biggest  and sincerest smiles, and I learned what love is. We stayed and I listened to stories, talked about Halloween costumes, put together puzzles, and played with them. I feel like I learned so much from them and they have so much to offer that I think is often overlooked. I hope to go again and learn more from them.

Health 101

  This semester I've often been left feeling quite overwhelmed. It's weird to think that in just 2 short weeks I will be out at Spring Creek Elementary teaching cute little 1st graders. Weird... and scary. Classes are trying their best to prepare us with every detail of lesson planning, how to's, and everything you need to know to teach...in just a month in a half. Needless to say its a lot in a little time. However, I would like to say something about my health class.
   My teacher is Cougar Hall. Funny right? He claims it has nothing to do with BYU though. The first day of class we walked in and he told us he'd try to memorize our names, but that before that, we'd all be "girlfriend",  or "sister". Of course he said he didn't mean anything by this because his wife is his favorite and she is "Sister Hottypants" :).
  Mr. Hall's goal for the class is to help us see how to implement health in a REALISTIC way. He teaches us to teach the functional knowledge that kids need to know. (For instance - do 1st graders really need to know that smoking kills? NO, then they're going to go home thinking their mom is going to die because she smokes. Also, do 10th graders really need to learn the food pyramid for the 8th time? As he stated what are they going to do with it? Flip it, twist it? Teach them how to implement it! )  Most teachers in the elementary level do not implement health because they feel they don't have the time. He teaches us how to implement health with simple ideas like having the kids get up and stretch for 30 seconds, giving a 10 minute lesson every Friday, etc.
  The most important thing he does though is that he teaches us not just about health, not just about teaching, but about life. I have learned so many valuable lessons from him. He takes the time to tell stories about his experiences and teaches us what we can learn from them. Some of my favorite things he's said are :
  "Don't focus on what you can't do, focus on what you can do"
  "You don't need to be THE best, you need to be YOUR best."
Last week, we talked about how sometimes we can't make everything right for students, and we need to give them a new perspective instead. Helping them gain resiliance and a new perspective helps them do that. If you've never seen Boundin from Pixar, you should watch it. It's a great clip we watched in class. We also talked about a boy named  Patrick Henry Hughes who sees his disabilities as abilities, and his teacher who told him what needed to happen and then made it happen.
  So here's a shout out to Mr. Hall, for not only teaching me how to teach health, but way more than that, teaching me the important lessons of life. Thank you!

Knoebels!

Another thing we ended up getting to do as a family was go to Knoebels Amusement Park. We used to go every year when I was little because my dad's work had a day there. I haven't been back though since I was 12 or so. So we decided that if we could go somewhere this summer it would be to Knoebels. We had a lot of fun. Here are my favorite pictures of the day! 

This is where Scott is telling me "I'm a better driver than Emily!" The truth actually though is that Scott caused a 4 boat pile up by swerving back and forth :)

Emily and I on the sky ride 

a great picture of Dad, Mom, and Scott after the skloosh ride

another great one of Scott's excitement after the flume