A New Job and Start

So I have accepted a part time teaching job at Highland Park Elementary. It was a hard decision but after thinking about it and all the work I have put in to become a teacher I decided that it was a good choice. I now have my foot in the door and although I will have to find something else to make up the difference I am starting on my career and there is no looking back.

LICENSED

So the day fiinally came when all my hard work paid off. I am not officially a licensed teacher. This was a great accomplishment. I have been working toward this for a long time. Now I just need to get a job and then I will be doing what I love for the rest of my life. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Loss

Today my grandfather passed away and I have a wierd feeling inside of me. It is not sadness that he is gone but sadness for my grandmother as I worry how she will survive without her life partner. I feel like she will lose a part of herself and although we have not been close for sometime because of issues I have had with my grandfather I want her to know that I am here for her and I will try now more than ever to make time for her. It is not that I did not want to spend time with her before but just the fact that life has a way of keeping you busy and making time for people is hard. I will try harder now to make time for the people in my life that mean the most, friends, family and those around me who make me a better person. Here is to many more days, months and years with those that I love.
Me

Crafty

So for thanksgiving this year the teacher inside me started to bloom and I made turkeys. Not only did I make 36 for my students and favorite staff at Highland Park I also decided to make enough for my family and my boyfriends family.

Here is a picture! They were a hit and the kids and my family loved them. They were eaten much faster than I imagined.

The end is near!

I can not believe thatI have been doing my student teaching for 3 months. It has gone by so fast. I have loved every second. I am going to miss my class so much. I have signed up to be a sub and hope that when I am not studying and working I can be in the classroom. I have also titled myself the class mom so I hope that I can volunteer and keep up with the students. I also want to observe in some other classrooms to get some new ideas and see how other teachers conduct their classes.
I will post more on the last weeks of school and the unit I taught this weekend.
YEAH!

Pictures

These are the masks the students made when we talked about masks. They are each so different.

These are the words that we put on the leaves for our bulletin board. They tell all the reasons the leaves change color in the fall. I love this bulletin board.

Teaching

I started teaching full time at the begining of October. This included planning everything and being the teacher all day. The first week was a little overwhelming because I was not exactly sure what to plan but it got easier and easier as the weeks went on. The first day I taught was October 5th. It was the start of fire safety week so for our theme center which we do on Monday I had the students do different kinds of fire safety activites. Ond of the activities they did was make these fire dogs. Some of them made them sitting while others attached their heads so that they were standing. Along with the dogs we also did fire prints with paint and clear wrap. That was fun and the kids loved being able to play with the paint. They read and colored a comic strip and they worked on a fire sort which was made up of hot, not or silly pictures which they sorted into categories.

The rest of the week went along as normal with the exception of parent volunteers started in ocotber so that was fun incorporating them into the centers. It allows us to do more challanging centers because the parents can help but at the same time if the parents do not show up you have to change everything. The thing I have learned is to be flexible. Things come up all the time during the day and you must be able to change with out any problem.

With October also being the start of fall we were able to start talking about leaves and their colors changing. We did some leaf prints and talked about what makes the leaves change. This became our bulletin board. We also in art did leaf prints which they pushed into clay and then glazed. They really enjoyed them.

The next week was Columbus Day and the students did a bunch of activities to learn about the importance of October 12th. They made maps, created Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria boats, a time line of Christopher Columbus's life and read a scholastic reading with some questions they answered. The rest of the week was again pretty normal, math, spelling, reading, writing, science. All the basics.

Friday October 16th the school had their fall fundraiser. They did a Jog-a-Thon. It was so much fun to see the kids out their running. They ran laps. They had gathered funds the previous week from family and neighbors and then they were entered into a raffle based on the amount of money they collected. We were outside for an hour with 20 min of warm up, 20 min of running laps, and 20 min of cool down. During the laps they got a stamp for each lap they completed and then they got a raffle ticket for every stamp. I did not run with the kids but I did stand out by one of the cones to make sure they were running in the right place and jump and scream and dance to keep them encouraged.

For the cool down 24 hour fitness had a few people there the help them stretch their muscles and then they had bananas, water and bread which were all donated by local places. The students also received medals and free passes to classic so it was all in all a fun time. The school ended up raising $10,000 which is like 3 times more then they have ever raised because most of the time they are having to pay for the products they were selling and only getting a percentage of the earnings but this time they were able to keep it all. The funds go towards Red Ribbon week, Teacher appreciation and hands on science.

Through out this month I have had 2 mor observations and I could not be happier with the results. I have been told multiple times that I do not need to improve on anything, that I know what I am doing and that I am fun to watch. I guess that means that I have found my place and can not wait to be actually teaching in a class of my own. I am planning on becoming a sub so that I can still teach while I am working on my masters and finishing up schoool. It will give me an in in the class also.

Well this post has been long and I have covered a lot so I will try and do better on my last few weeks of teaching and keep you all informed. I start my unit the beginning of Novemeber so I will have more to share then. Looking forward to Halloween week along with Red Ribbon week so I will take pictures and post them for all to see...

Thanks for all the support!