Whatever comes...

This week, I had the stomach bug on Monday. I am so thankful for the teachers who helped me out so I could do a whole lot of sitting during the day. A wonderful room parent basically ran my afternoon party...such a blessing! That afternoon, I went to bed at 3:45 pm, watched a few episodes of the Office, and didn't really get out of bed till 6am the next morning. I couldn't get a sub for Tuesday, but thankfully my fever broke and the day went relatively well. Just a scuffle between two of my kids at the Nutcracker and complaints that my homework passes I gave out weren't unlimited, but we had so many candy canes, it didn't make a difference.

Tuesday afternoon brought with it the realization that both of our cars needed hundreds of dollars worth of repairs, and Wednesday brought a busted dryer.

But today brought the peace of the Lord that whatever comes, we shall endure.

This year, I have learned that His purposes for me are so very good. Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. Nothing. The peace that brings is immeasurable, and this Christmas, I'm so thankful.

Contentment

This week has been a whirlwind of change. We had a dance teacher use my room for three days out of the week, so my class was nomadic (shoulda taught them that word) on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On Tuesday and Thursday, we would spend time clearing a space for the dance teacher and then putting our desks back together.

I am not a person who is crazy about routine. I like a bit of change. But I also know, as a person who cannot focus on anything, that changes in routine make my head a jumbled mess of to-do list items that I can't quite seem to remember. Little things just did not get accomplished this week, and I am going to have to be ok with that.

All in all, I'm very proud of my kids. They never complained about moving around this week. The change in routine for them, however, made them...rambunctious, to say the least. I felt like I spent a lot of the week herding cattle. Do any other teachers feel that way?

But I'm thankful for this class. They are a bunch of very funny, very friendly kids. I had this moment this evening with Joel. We decided to watch Psych in the bedroom and make a dinner of salt and vinegar chips and ginger molasses cookies, and I realized that things are okay. We live in an extremely comfortable house, especially now that we have heat for the first time in 2 years :). We really like each other. We're sending out a super cute Christmas card. I have some extra money to replace my Target jeans that have a hole in them. I get to sleep in tomorrow. Seriously, can it get any better? I am blessed.

A first time for everything

I am normally not a greeting card kind of person, but when I found out that Shutterfly is doing this promo of 50 free Christmas cards, I couldn't pass it up! I think this is a pretty sweet deal, and I wanted to pass this promotion to y'all.

This evening (on the anniversary of our engagement:) we got all dressed up AFTER the gym. The hubs was so helpful in posing for cheesy pictures, and I loved it. We even wore matchy outfits. We are not so photogenic but we came out with some cute pictures, and Shutterfly has some templates that will hopefully make our pictures better! I'm really excited to send out Christmas cards that show us in all our coordinated outfit flory. I am so hoping these cards end up sticking to a fridge near you. When you go to sneak some leftover pumpkin pie this holiday season, our smiling faces will be greeting you warmly.

Here are some of my favorite choices:







How cute are these?

If I were you, I'd head on over to Shutterfly and take advantage of these cute cards.
You can browse photo card templates here, regular Christmas cards here, or New Year's invitations here.
There are hundreds of choices, so make sure you set aside some time for browsing.

A pay-off

A few weeks ago, our IRT told us in a meeting that kids need to see things 5-7 times before they actually retain the information. While I know repetition is so important, this number has stuck with me since then.

Enter my most recent "AHA" moment in teaching.

The problem: The majority of my students could not figure out, from a word problem, how to divide. For example, I would give them this word problem: Maria has 36 pieces of candy. She wants to give them to 9 friends. If she gives each friend the same amount, how many pieces of candy will each friend receive?

They had a lot of trouble figuring out the operation, and then writing the division number sentence correctly. Mostly, they would just quit when they saw a word problem.

The solution: For 5 straight days, I gave my whole class a division word problem for morning work. They couldn't go on to the next assignment until they had correctly solved the word problem. That means that I had a conference with each individual kid every single day on their problem solving skills. Morning work has been taking forever!

The pay-off: All but TWO of my kids passed the multiplication/division test last week!
Bonus: This was a two-day week, so it was not worth anything to begin a new math objective. Therefore, we gave our classes 4 pretty difficult word problems that reviewed all of the math objectives we've been learning this quarter (not just division). They were all Thanksgiving themed, so it wasn't all boring :) I had an intervention teacher in my room on Monday during math, and at the end, she commented how my students were really attacking the word problems. NONE of my kids got visibly frustrated, even when they had to spend the whole period on one problem.

The lesson: Morning work should be taking about 30 minutes, and up until this point, I've been pretty strict about this schedule. But since I decided to spend as much time as it took until they "got it", my kids were able to apply problem solving strategies to really difficult word problems, which is something they weren't willing to do before.

Sick day

There's been a fatigue-inducing cold swirling around our house this week, so I'm home sick for the day. My plans for today at school were to make landforms with play-doh, use Google Earth, have a good family meeting...but colds always settle in my throat, and yesterday I just lost my voice. It's pretty tough to manage kids without a voice. That and a tummy ache were enough for me to take the day off. I'm so glad I did, although I always feel a twinge of guilt when I take the day off. But... I got to sleep for a whole 10 hours. What an amazing feeling!

I'm just really hoping I can go out for a couple of hours tonight for Cornhuskin'! Tomorrow is a big day: the magnet fair, a friend in town for the weekend, and Meredith's birthday! Praying that I can shake this dumb cold and get back to busy-ness :)

A very lazy weekend

I am terrible about taking pictures. Sorry guys. Maybe when I have kids, I'll have something cute to photograph. But my adventures are rarely worthy of a picture. So you just get the written synopsis.

A recap of life lately:

We went to the fair...twice.
This is THE LIST of food that we ate (together). We also always include bites of food, regardless of whether or not we bought the food ourselves. Thankful for friends that share :)

Day 1:
-Hand dipped corn dogs
-Fried pecan pie
-Fried honey bun
-Pizza
-Farmer's Market biscuit
-Ribbon fries
-Red velvet candy apple
-Funnel cake
-The Krispy Kreme burger (no regrets)

Day 2:
-Roasted corn
-Fried oreos
-Bloomin' onion
-Fried cookie dough
-Apple pie candy apple
-Kettle corn
-NC State ice cream

Needless to say, we do not ride the rides. Not only are we a bit scared of things assembled in a week that hurtle you into the air, but our tummies hurt enough after all that food.

In school, the quarter just ended. Sorry for all the assessments, kids. I'm pretty proud of myself this year-half of my conferences are already scheduled and all my grades are finished! Unfortunately, I couldn't log in to type my report cards this weekend, so I'll have to work extra hard at work this week to finish them. I also started a word work program I've been meaning to start for 2 years! FINALLY :)

This weekend, we started off by watching Hocus Pocus with some friends (thanks, Kornegays!) Scary movies and I do not get along. I used to try to watch them with friends, but in the past couple of years I've realized that it's just not worth it for me. I am generally disturbed by trying to be entertained by evil things, not to mention the fact that I'm jumpy for days after watching a scary movie. So I'm thankful for friends that are willing to watch a old kids movie on Halloween!

Yesterday we visited the farmer's market, ate a delicious meal from Whole Foods (and then regretted how ridiculously expensive it was) and I baked some lemon-pistachio cookies. We spent the rest of the day sleeping or lounging. Man, was it nice.

Today, I returned to helping out in the nursery! It's been a few months since I've been in the nursery, and of course it made me have some baby fever. Thankfully, I can satisfy that with holding some super cute babies a couple of times a month :)

I'm excited about:
1) my favorite unit to teach starting this week!
2) the holidays are right around the corner
3) I can wear my boots consistently.

Hitting a Wall

Well, it's October 8. I started school on August 17. I genuinely enjoy this class. Really, I do. But today, I hit a wall. Lack of sleep + tummyache this afternoon may have contributed a bit to this. Regardless, I'm thankful for a relaxing evening with the hubs. I am also so thankful that I don't have to go through these days alone. I need to be reminded that the Lord knows the day I'll have before I have it, and He's in control of even the little things. When I'm tired and weak, He is so strong.

Today, my class made compost bags. (I drove 25 minutes to Bayleaf U.S.A., a live bait shop, to but 132 night crawlers. I met the nicest store owner in the world. He's the kind of person that would make me want to take up fishing, just so I could frequent the store.) Anyway, I took my class outside in this beautiful weather to make compost bags with huge, wiggly worms. It took my whole morning, a bust because I ran out of time for writing, and I had an awesome lesson prepared. Eek.

I am no longer a rookie teacher. I'm a couple of years in, and I actually have files for each unit. I have gotten to the point where I'm reflecting and changing things. That part is really exciting. I like making my own decisions in the classroom as to what I want to do.
I've also realized I'm a big picture kind of teacher. I know where I want my students to go and what I want them to understand, but I have trouble figuring out how to get them there. So this year I've tried to make each mini-lesson extremely explicit and to informally assess more often along the way.
Today, this was why I hit the wall. I assessed on a couple of objectives in the past couple of days. I had my students predict what would happen to the grass in the compost bags. Half couldn't do it. We took a quiz. Most bombed. I went through an EOG prep about poetry. Near-disaster. Maybe the problem was that it was Friday, or that it was 85 degrees in my classroom, or that I assessed too early or too much. But I almost cried. We ended the day with a family meeting where I discussed:
1) Which problems can be solved on our own (My pencil broke. Where do I put this pushpin? Do we have homework on Friday? I found a piece of paper on the floor.)
2) Is what I'm saying helpful or important? (It's hot in here. Why is it so hot in here? The window's open and now it's loud.)
3) Hygiene. (We don't pick our noses in third grade. We wash our hands everytime we use the bathroom.)

I read one of my favorite picture books, Smoky Night by Eve Bunting. I love Eve Bunting. She writes these amazing picture books that I literally would read to a high school class if I could. They delve into very deep issues, like the L.A. riots, war, immigration, and homelessness. The books always end in hope, and for some of my kids, that's a big deal. The issues raised in her books are not all foreign to my students, and for some hit much closer to home that a book about a birthday party. I wish you could listen in on the discussions I have with kids. I love how it clicks when they find the symbol for hope in each book, like the bird in Fly Away Home or the fish in Gleam and Glow.

I also read Dreams by Langston Hughes. It was pretty tough for my low-readers, but the higher readers ate it up. They really understand, as well as a third grader can, the metaphors for dreams. It was awesome to hear them talk about their goals in life.

Again, sometimes I get too "big picture." I have to remember that they're only 8. But hearing them get really excited about something that isn't Diary of a Wimpy Kid is too wonderful to pass up.

On the home front, things are wonderful. We've been through some things recently and especially in the past couple of weeks that I thought could have driven us apart. But instead, praise the Lord, they have united us. We discovered how on the same page we were about a lot of things, and I am exceedingly grateful for that.

Sadly, tonight we couldn't go to see my beloved Avett Brothers. Way too expensive. So we consoled ourselves with a trip to Target for some necessary odds and ends and a dinner at Wendy's. Oh, domesticity. The best part is that neither of us are upset about this. On a Friday, there's nothing better than a carefree evening of no responsibility and complete lounging.

(And now, I am unbelievably thankful to Christie, who was fortunate enough to attend the Avett Brothers, and who just called me during one of my favorite songs ever.)

Please listen. I hope your heart melts like mine does. It makes me want to go back in time and change the month of my wedding.