The Art of The Keyboard

As I have previously mentioned, my rockstar teacher is notable for the power of her emails. Truly, she has mastered the art of the keyboard. And that talent has for sure come in handy lately. Conferences have been unusual this week (according to my teacher, parents usually aren’t like this). It seems as though we have an atypical of STUBBORN parents. One particular mother and another particular father seem to be on the warpath. Because clearly (according to them), we simply do not understand their children. We are not reaching out and differentiating in appropriate ways. There are different sides to every story and we are not getting “the correct” story. Generally, by politely and appropriately telling parents what we have noticed and observed, where we have seen progress and seen struggles, and our future expectations, my rockstar teacher and I have been appreciated and well received. I suppose someone needs to stir the pot and be a stinker about conferences. It’s good experience, just unusual and annoying. And (joy, joy) one of those parents has also been complaining to the principal and other faculty. CALM DOWN, lady.

However, whereas some parents seem a little obsessive and loony about how their children are NOT successful, it is comforting to also see parents who agree with our observations. Parents who, instead of becoming upset, become our allies. Because in reality, we are (or should be) all on the same team here. The focus should be on the student and not on one or two incidents or complaints that are blown out of proportion. The student should be the priority.  Teachers and parents need to be working together for the betterment of the child despite the individual obstacles that each child faces. Thank goodness we already have many parent allies.

In other news… this post was originally intended for yesterday, however I got busy with Coronation activities after school and didn’t have time to post it! So here is the low down on coronation (because I know you’re all dying to know!). Coronation was a fun time! My momma and grandparents came down to support, and a lot of the students came out too! But, there was one important student who wasn’t in attendance- my escort and one of the candidates for king! He is a captain of the football team and had a mandatory practice, so he was not at coronation! Although I’m going to give him a hard time, his commitment to football is admirable. :) Instead I got to awkwardly form a three-some couple with two other candidates. After showing a senior slideshow (gahhh, we are SENIORS), they announced us all up to stage and then revealed that my good friends Shaughn and Grace were our new king and queen! I’m very happy for my ex-roommate and bonus roommate (Shaughn pretty much lives in the 205!). All in all, it was a great experience and a fun night.

To wrap up today’s posts, here are some sneak peak photos into the past week! 

Homecoming Court 2013. Such a great group of friends!

My escort, at least for the Pep Rally!

Runners up with the King and Queenie :) 

We're not really a serious group. 

These two have always been some of my biggest supporters!

...And here is a picture of my classroom objectives board! It's not all fun and games, people! 

Now I'm off to celebrate my day off from school... by working on school things! It will all pay off when I'm able to celebrate and dance them night away tomorrow night! 

Until Monday... 

Peace, love, and formal occasions, 

Jayna

Ps- if you click on the photos they will enlarge so you can see them better and flip though all 6!!

A Day to Live in Infamy

That’s right folks, take note of this day. I said no to a doughnut. YOU HEARD IT HERE!! Amongst a teachers lounge filled with three boxes of birthday doughnuts, I SAID NO (thank you, of course). Making healthy(ish) life decisions, you bet… for now anyway.

In other news, it is school picture day! Today, my kids get to wear their own choice of clothes, which is adorable. They are very dressed up in clip on ties and bows and sweaters and dresses and plaid and stripes and collars and all.

In addition to the dressed up cuteness that I’m unable to fully illustrate to you all, here is the heart melting, smile-cracking journal entry that I promised (and actually remembered!). 

“My favorit Wild animal is bigfoot. Because the tv show and the beef jerky camurshl. And on one they found bigfoot and the people always make noises to see if they repli back and the pepole wher night vison gogals and they have this thing that tells them wher bigfoot is.”

Kids these days. Although our society can be backwards and ugly and wrong, there is something about the innocence of children that is still truly humbling. That is one thing that I really like about my (future) job. Even if those humbling little angels sometimes drive me bonkers.  

Tomorrow will be a day filled with parents, conferences, lesson planning, and coronation festivities! I can’t wait!

Until then…

Peace, love, and afternoon cookies (guilty!),

Jayna

^ that's me!!! 

PSL Round Two

 As you might have guessed by the title of this blog (predicting… it’s a big second grade reading skill!), I enjoyed another pumpkin spice latte this morning. But this one was significantly different (and a little less delicious). I find that my days (yesterday and today) have been comparable to the quality of my pumpkin spice lattes. Today was a little less delicious and a lot different than yesterday.

This morning I overslept my alarm. YEP, IT HAPPENED. That thing that all functioning adults fear. I clearly remember setting two alarms last night, however it was my roommate’s alarm that woke me up at 7 am. (S/o to Monica! You saved my whole life, seriously!) Now, understand that after sleeping in (so nice), I only had 25 minutes to get completely ready for school. I’m talking shower, makeup, hair, breakfast, the whole 9 yards (not so nice). I have no idea how, but I pulled it off. MAGIC. I was all done up and looking like a real teacher lady in 23 minutes flat. Act like you’re not impressed. I even impressed myself.

Let’s fast forward to school. Today our whole school (PreK-2) went on a field trip to our rival college (do I sound bitter?) to watch a play. The play was Little Red Riding Hood. It was cute, and the kids really enjoyed it, but holy wow that theater was MADNESS. It was packed with classes from PreK-4^th grade. At some points the audience involvement got completely out of control. It was like the PreK kids thought the play was an episode of Dora The Explorer and they had to awkwardly shout out all the answers (HE’S THE BIG BAD WOLF!!) Cute at first, but mostly just annoying. And it seemed that some of the teachers had absolutely no control of their classes, and that kind of management does not fly with me. I’d rather be a strict teacher with tough classroom management and her sanity than work any other way.

After the play this morning, our whole day was weird because it was not a normal schedule. Luckily, the time flew by. However, I told you (for some unknown reason) it was just a strange day. I was in a very weird mood. There are points (I assume in everyone’s lives, but especially in mine) where I just can’t. I can’t. It’s not really that I crack, or have a major public meltdown or anything, but I just get upset and worked up about all the stupid little things that compound into a huge to-do list/mess. Being over involved and under-rested leaves me busy and annoyed and generally frustrated with all aspects of my life. So today was one of those days.

Fortunately, it was nothing that a phone call from my dad and a good workout couldn’t fix. I even got a follow up phone call from daddy just to say, “Hey, I thought I’d call and check if you still need to be on a suicide watch.” Ha! It really wasn’t that bad, but if you know me and the girls in my family, you know that days like this in life are generally dramatic. Fortunately they are happening less and less. Except maybe not for my sister Baby Dingus, she’s just starting those years. (Hiiiiighschoooool.)

And now, for your entertainment, more samples of my student work (straight from their daily journals). This is the stuff that never fails to make me smile. I hope it will make you smile too.

Today’s journal prompt was, “Write at least 3 sentences about a wild animal that you would like to have as a pet.”

“I want a lizard. I would play with him. I would name him lethrhed. We would have fun! I would feed him. I like his name.” (Usually it’s like pulling teeth to get this particular student writing, but he has one heck of a creative bone, so I was glad to hear about the lizard. Even though I could never say that name.)

“I would have a bear. I do not know what to feed her. I do not know what to call it.” (Well, it looks like you don’t know much except for the fact that you want a female momma bear as a pet. Not so sure about that one. That might work out, but mayyyybe not.)

“I would like a raccoon. I would like a snakes. A tiger to that has a loge tale. a walres I say!” (I say go for it, I say. So cute.)

There were also two HILARIOUS entries about big foot that I dare not attempt to replicate because I could NOT do them justice. I’m so sorry that I forgot them!! Maybe I will remember to include them tomorrow… no promises though (I’m a scatter-brained almost teacher lady)!

Well, it’s looking a lot like bedtime to me.

Until tomorrow…

Peace, love, and pet walruses,

Jayna

Monday Morning Lingo

PSL. Pumpkin Spice Latte. What a perfect start to my Monday morning. Pumpkin spice is my favorite fall drink! I was feeling just like a trendy teacher lady as I strode into elementary school (at 7:43- 2 minutes early, as always) sporting a new maxi skirt (so comfortable... thanks mom!), a scarf, and a GIANT (venti? I’m no good at this Starbucks thing) cup of PSL. Yum. All I needed was an oversize pair of sunglasses and paparazzi to be considered celebrity status. :) Joking. Mostly.

This weekend was awesome and relaxing. Just what I needed. I spent all of Friday night on my futon (it’s heavenly, I swear). Saturday I got up early (by choice!) and went to a centergy class at the Y. Centergy is a form of group yoga. I’ve been a few times before, and it’s always a great hour to stretch and do something different. After centergy, I had a much needed hair appointment/date with my fellow teacher lady friend Morgan. A couple of hours, a trim, and cheap color (only $18!) later, I headed back to school just in time to catch the BCU volleyball team in action. It was fun to cheer on my friends, even though we cut ourselves a tough loss. I capped off Saturday night with a nap, hour of rollerblading, and some 205 bonding. Sunday morning I was up early again to help cantor at a local parish. It went very well! I will be helping out with cantoring at that parish about once a month from now on (easy enough, and it seemed like a good thing to volunteer for). I felt like the people were very appreciative.

The best part of my weekend was Sunday afternoon. My momma came down to visit! She spent some time bonding in the 205 (it’s a lovely place, seriously) and then took me out shopping. Our main objective (teacher lingo) was to find a homecoming dress (we did!!!), but we also found some new teacher clothes and other school things (college and elementary). Honestly, we could have done anything at all and I would have been ecstatic. I needed some Jayna-Momma-bonding-time. (Love you Ma :))

A close second to the best part of my weekend was the annual education club pizza and bingo night. We had a great turn out! About 30 students came! (Last year I think we had about 10.) I realize that I’m incredibly dorky for being so stinking excited about the turnout to an ed club meeting, but I’m going to embrace that dorkyness. I love when people are involved!!! I think it makes everything better and keeps the students more informed about what they are paying THOUSANDS of dollars to learn about (education). Plus more people= more friends, and who doesn’t like friends?!

Okay, now that you’re all caught up on the weekend, let’s look ahead on this week! It’s conferences week. Which means that I’m spending 8-6 at school today. Tomorrow our class is attending a play (FIELD TRIP!!) and then Wednesday will be our last day with students. Thursday will be a day dedicated to working in our classrooms and conferences. Conferences should be an interesting experience. My rockstar teacher is arguably a pro at dealing with/talking to parents. Her ability to compose perfectly worded emails is admirable and I’m excited to experience some parent interaction firsthand.

Already though, I have to say that my favorite part of conferences (thus far) is that the kids are all on their BEST behavior because they know that we are talking to their parents. It rocks, even though I know it won’t last.

By the way, pep rally tonight!!! GO CHARGERS!!

Peace, love, and Charger Power,

Jayna

Late Night Thoughts. Friday Edition.

This one is for you, Mom! I wasn't going to blog tonight, but I decided that I should take a few minutes to write about my day for all of my oh-so-faithful readers. (love ya'll!)

Today was finally Friday, my favorite day of the week! It went very well. I spent a lot of time planning this morning and sending out emails concerning homecoming festivities and the upcoming Education Club event where we will be discussing the mentoring program that I recently blogged about (see "It's Happening... It's Happening"). So that was pretty productive.

This afternoon I taught religion, took the kids to p.e., taught them new math games as a review (post test) day. They learned "race to 50", an addition game, and "race from 20," a subtraction game. I found one game online and made the other myself. I printed the game boards, made up the rules, found game pieces and dice for the students to use and it worked! They played in groups of three for a half an hour and loved it. Pretty slick. After math we had Fiesta Friday and a Spanish lesson about palabras de conversación. The kids learned how to say hi, how are you, what's your name, my name is... and a few other similar phrases. They are always very involved in Spanish, and while some of it is still over their heads, I LOVE that they enjoy and look forward to lessons each Friday. It's good stuff.

After school today I had track practice and a nice school café dinner with a couple friends that I haven't talked to in a while! It was good to catch up. After dinner I returned to my room and may or may not (you caught me) have been laying on the futon in our living room ever since. Four (isn) hours. Shoot, if this is what Friday night adulthood is like, I'm not sure that I'm prepared. I might just start failing out of classes so that I can stay in college longer.... Oh who am I kidding, I can't afford that :P

Tonight, as a special treat, I will include some photos of what I've been up to! Enjoy!

This is the display of our Social Studies Community Helper Project. Each child wrote about a community helper they would like to be when they grow up. They did a darn great job of writing neatly and had some great illustrations! It's up just in time for conferences next week!

A picture of some of my boys playing Race to 50. They were working so hard on writing correct number sentences on their score cards while having fun playing the game. (See what I did there?! Tricky teacher!)

This is a picture of me helping to cantor at school mass! Thanks to another sneaky teacher for snapping a photo!!

Here is one of the pictures that I submitted for the homecoming royalty slideshow. My personality shines though pretty prominently, I think :) 

Until next week... 

Peace, love, and that one Rebecca Black song, 

Jayna

Late Night Thoughts. Thursday Edition.

"I suck at blogging."
"School was long today."
"Whyyyyyy am I still awake?"
"Mom is gonnna kill me for not blogging this week..."
"I really need to get my hair done."
"I am so excited to be on BCU's homecoming royalty!"
"I am actually really, really excited because I like every single person on court and it's going to be really fun!!!"
"Yeah, my hair definitely needs to be done before next week."
"I can't believe I'm a senior!!!" <-- Happy/excited
"I can't believe I'm a senior!!" <-- Sad/distraught/confused
"My roommates look homeless."
"I love my roommates."
"Where is Monica?" (roomie missing!!)
"What am I going to wear tomorrow?"
"Can I wear colored jeans to school??" (Gonna do it.)
"Gosh my kids were sassy today."
"I really like this eye shadow."
"Why am I still awake."
"I miss Dingus. And La Reg. And SouthDakotaDeb and SouthDakotaDan."
"NO EYE TWITCH TODAY!!!"
"My lessons are going really well!!"
"Where are all these rolly polly bugs coming from?"
"Are they falling from the ceiling?"
"...I should really go to bed."
"I'm actually going to be a real teacher lady. I can totally do this."
"I don't know if I can actually do this."
"HOW/WHY do people do this?!"
"Thank God we have conferences next week and only have 3 days with kids..."
"HOLY CRAP- we have conferences next week."
"My bed looks comfy."
"I'm gonna go to my bed.... Goodnight!!!"

Peace, love, and sleep sweet,
Jayna

It’s happening… it’s happening…

It happened. (I hope you all read that as the Bridesmaid’s movie quote!) It happened. I skipped a day of blogging. LORD HAVE MERCY. Just kidding. I was just so busy being a teacher lady yesterday, then I had class, and then I passed the heck out. Literally, I napped for an hour and a half last night. The tiredness continues, along with nail biting, the added bonus of an eye twitch, dreams about losing my teeth (true life), and an addiction to caffeinated tea and coffee. It’s pretty cool actually. (Another Bridesmaid’s quote :))

FAQ

How’s student teaching going? (I get this question about 6.48 million times a day.)

Student teaching is going well. I really like my rockstar teacher. There is a great atmosphere at my school. All of the teachers are very friendly, helpful, and supportive of me- which rocks. My kids are all pretty good. Yes, they can be HUGE stinkers, but they are 7 and 8, so that is expected. We are dealing with their individual attitudes, strengths, and weaknesses, and getting to know each of them on a more personal level. They are learning. I think they are loving it (and me) as much as I am loving it (and them). I’m becoming more and more comfortable teaching with each lesson… it will only be another two weeks-ish before I teach full time. Crazy.

Where have you been? Why do I never see you?

School. Or track. Or horizontal on my couch, futon, or bed in the 205. Those are pretty much the places that I can be found these days. It’s not that I’m super busy working on lesson plans (usually), or that I don’t want to see people, but I am so. stinking. tired. that even if I’m awake, I’m not down to run all over campus, frolicking as the social butterfly that I typically am. Sorry guys. Feel free to stop on over (205 Bax!) and visit anytime. I would love to see you. For those of you at home, I hope to possibly make an appearance in good ole’ Y-town this weekend. But if not, I might not be home until the first weekend in October. Again, if you make it out my way, please let me know!!!

Can we hang out sometime soon?

Yes. Duh. Hit me up. Preferably on the weekends. Or stop by. Or, come December, I will have about two weeks to kill doing absolutely nothing (when I finish student teaching and before winter break). Deal? Deal. 

How is track going?

It’s fall track. It’s kind of ehh. I worked out allllll summer long, so only having fall practices 3 days a week is not a huge deal. Basically we are just getting ready for season by lifting. Which is funny because I have been lifting all summer, and am consequently much stronger than the rest of the fall track girls. Like, I lift with the boys. I love that. Hopefully all of my off-season work will show and pay off when we are finally in season (January-May). I’d like to run some real fast 400s and 800s, please.

So what’s new? How’s your life?

My life is great. I’ve had a lot of fun with my roommates this year! :) (Although my room is MUCH more quiet since I lived with Kat the past 2 years!!) They are the people that I see the most and a great group of girls!! I am very glad that I live on campus too, because I’m surrounded by good friends. It’s nice that I can wander down the hall and chat with friends or hang out with my neighbs. (College rocks, honestly.) I am currently rocking the single every single day lifestyle. Honestly, I’m not sure that I have time for any committed relationships right meow. Not playing volleyball (as much as I miss it) has been bittersweet, heavy on the sweet side. My life is just a little less complicated, way less of a time commitment, less drama, less emotional and physical exhaustion (at least from sports). Plus a super added bonus is that I have free weekends. People: understand that this hasn’t happened in YEARS. I have free weekends to do whatever I want. And I want to support the BCU Chargers!! I’ve been to games, and matches, and all sorts of events. I’m going to live up my last year as much as possible.

What else is going on?

There is really only one other thing going on that I’m excited about. I usually have about one good idea a year (kidding), and here is my idea. I’m attempting to get some sort of mentoring program set up at BCU within the realm of education. There are general college mentors available through the school, but the people that I would like to target are aspiring teachers who are sophomores and juniors, partnered with seniors as mentors. These professional mentors would be available to answer burning education major questions. Such as, “so, what is this class about?” “how many hours do I need to observe?” “what is PDS like?” “how does student teaching work?” Hopefully, this idea will all pan out and be beneficial to students. Maybe it could even branch out to other majors like nursing and business? The possibilities are endless. I’ll keep ya updated.

Until next time…

Peace, love, and movie quotes,

Jayna