Party Time!

It's Christmas break! We had a great party with the help of 4 parents, a sister, and a cousin who came in to help us out. They helped us play BINGO, make ornaments, decorate a a gift bag, and paint ornaments. We had WAY too much food with 3 kinds of cookies, popcorn, pretzels, juices, and candy canes. I did think ahead enough to give each kid a ziploc bag to take home all the extra goodies I knew they wouldn't be able to eat. With the help of the parents, I was able to enjoy the party and would have taken pictures if my camera hadn't died after the first snow. This one will just have to live forever in my memory. Now it's time for a break from school and lots of time with family both here in Champaign and Avon. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to You!!

Thinking Ahead

I'm mostly making this post for my own benefit so that I will remember where I've been and how far I've come. If you want to quit reading, I totally understand.

Planning is definitely my biggest challenge in teaching. I get tired of planning and sometimes my lessons fail miserably as a result. I want to be better but sometimes lack the motivation to step up my game and do a better job. Lots of things then trickle down from this because 5 year olds need a lot of planning and preparation. You can't just throw something at them and expect them to be able to do it. That's when things get wildly out of control very fast. Trust me. I know. Anyway, this isn't about something that went wrong. It's actually about something that went right. A few weeks ago we tried to do math with Skittles. Graphing, sorting, counting, etc. It was a disaster. It made me very leery of trying to do jelly beans this last week. I didn't even want to try it. BUT good teachers are resourceful. And thieves. We see what other teachers are doing and we do it to because if it works for them it might work for me. So instead of just giving each kid a scoop of jelly beans and then trying to do 3 separate worksheets without them rolling around, being eaten, or getting lost, I put 12 jellybeans in a little baggie for each student. Rule was that they couldn't open the bag until I said. It was amazing. We counted AND graphed without losing a single one. As an added bonus everyone stayed in their seats and didn't start running around like crazy hooligans. Then, I checked their work, allowed them to open the bag to sort and eat them after I checked it again. If they didn't want to eat them, they could easily take them home. It worked like a charm and I have regained my faith in fun activities. 10 minutes spent counting and putting jelly beans in a bag saved my day.

When you are student teaching, you have to think ahead. You are forced to write lesson plans and think through every possible scenario because you want to impress and you want things to go well. It's too easy to get lazy when that pressure isn't there anymore. Easy to think you are going to have it under control when experience says no way. It's where the rubber meets the road. Lots of work to do.

Catch Up

We had our first snow day of 2010-2011 today, and while it seems like a little bit of a waste so close to Christmas break, I've surely enjoyed it anyway. I finished most of my Christmas cards, caught up on TV and sleep, and crossed off a few Christmas presents from the list. The weather was just downright nasty last night with whiteout conditions and 35 mph winds causing -15 degree temperatures. Even the town schools cancelled last night before 8 so you know how bad it must have been. Today is sunny, windy, and cold but the roads are being cleared and I'm sure we'll go back to school tomorrow. 7 more days until break!

The second day of the conference was a good one. I did spend some money on books and knick knacks but with the school covering the cost of the conference I had some cash burning a whole in my pocket. When I got back, the heat in my room was not fixed. They tried to fix it on Wednesday but the piece they had was also broken so they had to order a new one. We had class in the cafeteria, computer lab, library, and finally the social workers room on Thursday and Friday. The workers said they would be back to fix it on Friday but were a no show by 4 o'clock. I seriously hope they were able to fix it Saturday because I consider it a distinct possibility that the pipes for the bathroom could have frozen last night and today if it wasn't fixed. I guess I'll find out tomorrow. It was quite the week being displaced from our usual classroom and unfortunately a wasted one academically. At this point, I'm just anxious to get to break and then start over in January. I plan on pretty much treating it like Day 1. I think it's the best mindset to have and the best way to get the class back on track. It's been a rough 2 months of challenging behaviors, a rushed schedule, and uncertain expectations for the end of the quarter grades. I think the time off will do everyone some good to refocus and reconnect to what is important. More on this later.

Jingle Run, Snow, & Kindergarten Conference

The good news is that my toe is actually not broken. Jammed pretty good but less than a week later it only slightly hurts when I bend it-so definitely not broken. I was actually able to run/walk in a 5K on Sunday which I may or may not ever do again. A group of friends talked me into it and with no training in 9 inches of snow I finished in 39 minutes. Nothing to brag about and I haven't been this sore since high school volleyball my senior year. There was a lot irony in the fact that the run was for arthritis that made me feel like I had it the next day. I told someone as we started that if I was going to do something that I hated so much, like running, it was a good thing we had 9 inches of snow to cheer me up about it. Also I was wearing a sweet elf outfit. Check out Facebook for the pictures.

Yes, I may have already mentioned it once or twice but it snowed on Friday night and Saturday. Enough that we probably would have had a snow day if it was a school night. I think the Champaign totals were between 7-9 inches and it was BEAUTIFUL! I didn't have anywhere to go so I stayed in and watched it turn CU into a winter wonderland. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!

Currently, I am sitting in a Hilton hotel at the Illinois Conference for Kindergarten Teachers. Day 1 was good with new ideas and fun presenters. Hopefully, tomorrow is as good and then there will only be 3 days left and 2 weeks before Christmas break. I'm a little bit relieved to be away from the classroom for a few days but dubious of how the kids will be with a sub. The sub I thought I was going to have was really good but I found out today that they shuffled people this morning and she didn't end up in my room. I'm not really sure what this means but hopefully not terrible things. The only email I got about the day was that I picked a good day to be away because my brand new geothermal unit is not working and is quite possibly blowing out cold air. The secretary wanted to know where my lunch tickets were because she didn't want to have to be in my room for more than a few minutes looking for them. She guessed it to be about 50 in there. Maybe everybody was spending so much time shaking and being frozen that they didn't have any extra energy to misbehave. Hehe. (My evil plan has unfolded perfectly! Just kidding but it would have been brilliant if I had done it on purpose.)

Backfire

In an attempt to send myself to ISS, I kicked a door. And, probably broke my toe. Or least that's what it feels like. This is my life.

And why was I trying to send myself to ISS you ask? There was a fight in my room on Monday. Two kids trying to rip each other's heads off.

Is it Christmas break yet??