Monday, August 26, 2013

Hello friends, family, and blog creepers of all ages!


Welcome to my blog where I will be discussing, reminiscing, and reporting about life and (mostly) student teaching! I will try to post every few days, but since I’m starting a little late, this is going to be a long post to sum up the past two weeks!

Summer this year seemed shorter than ever! I lived on campus and spent my time at 6 am workouts, working for the YMCA summer camp, planning and working freshman orientations, playing co-ed slowpitch softball, and bonding with my roommates- three very fun girls! As of August 12th, my summer ended and I started student teaching! I am placed in a 2nd grade room at a Catholic school, and so far things are going very well. Today was the start of my third week (out of fifteen.) Here are some things that happened in the first two weeks!

The first week of school included 3 days (M, T, W) of inservice. During these days, we met as a district and also as a school. My school is technically split into two sites. My building holds grades preK-2 and the other building holds 3-8. Anyway, the first few days of school were very informative and interesting. I met all of schoolteachers and faculty and helped to set up our classroom for the year… not that there was a lot to set up! My cooperating teacher has been teaching 2nd grade at my school for the past 25 years, so she was already set up and fairly prepared for the year. (Yep, she’s a rockstar.)

Tuesday night (8/14) was my first chance to meet the students at the school open house. They all seemed a little nervous and excited to be in a new classroom and to see who would be their classmates for the year. They were also surprised to meet me! It was a cool experience to be able to meet the students and their families before school actually began. My favorite part of meeting the students was seeing what they wore to open house. I felt that their outfits showed some of each student’s personality (they wear uniforms- so stinking cute.)

Thursday and Friday were long first days of school as we spent a lot of time going through rules and handbooks. Observing for those two days was not very much fun, but hopefully such experience will be helpful for when I start my own classroom next year!

Last week (8/19- 8/23) was the first full week of school! Monday flew by as the class got accustomed to their new routine. It was much more fun for me because I got to be a little more hands on with taking attendance (baby steps, but still fun!) I also participated in our early dismissal and professional development, which felt a lot like a college class with all of the other teachers. On Tuesday, we had an early dismissal because of heat. Our building has window air conditioners in the classrooms, but the hallways and cafĂ©-gym-atorium (the gym where they hold lunch, PE, and school assemblies) are not air-conditioned and they are HOT and HUMID. On Wednesday, I jumped right into faculty participation by serving as cantor at school mass. Thursday was my first experience with afternoon recess duty. I also experienced a bit of young blossoming love as I watched one of my girls attempt to pass her phone number written on a small piece of paper to one of the boys. So cute, but not quite appropriate for school. On Friday, I taught my first official lesson… in Spanish. My teacher had an open time slot on Friday afternoons, and I have been approved to teach Spanish lessons during that time. I’m calling it Fiesta Fridays. The first lesson was a review of numbers 1-10 (singing Uno, Dos, y Tres Amigos) and a new lesson about colors. The kids all really seem to enjoy Spanish. They get a chance to babble their new Spanish words, talk to each other, and learn something completely new J I’m ecstatic about Fiesta Fridays!

Although I didn’t teach much over the week, I was pretty exhausted. However, I made time sure to attend the first volleyball games on Friday night. The team played very well and won in 3 games! It was bittersweet for me to be there watching and not playing, but I’m very proud of my girls. They will always be teammates and good friends to me.

Saturday and Sunday were all about sparkle! The incoming freshmen moved in on Friday, so on Saturday my group of fearless PALs (orientation leaders) and our faculty advisors bussed all the freshmen to Charger Camp. Charger Camp is a time for all of the freshmen to get to know each other and their PALs through team building activities and fellowship held at a YMCA camp along Lake Okoboji. As an PAL coordinator, Charger Camp was a little more stressful than it has been in the past, but I definitely enjoyed my time spent there. I think it was the best Charger Camp yet and I met some great incoming students. I’m super excited to get the new school year started at BCU!

Now (finally) we are all caught up to today! Yippee! Today is one of the hottest days of the summer (97 and huuuuumid), and so we will be letting school out early again. This is good and bad news… bad because I miss out on teaching Religion (my first subject J) but great news since I caught a cold this weekend- I’m taking advantage of this extra time off to get some sleep!

Until next time…
Peace, love, and sharpened pencils,
Jayna