For All You Loyal Blog Readers

loyal |ˈloiəl|adjectivegiving or showing firm and constant support or allegiance to a person or institution:

I'm talking to you, whoever you 5 valiant readers are! This blogger website is pretty cool/informative/creepy because I can see how many people visit my page, which posts they specifically view, and even which country they are reading from. Anyway, props to you guys! You rock! Thanks for reading every day. :)

So today I skipped school. GASP! Just kidding, I didn’t really skip, I took my Praxis II test in Sioux Falls! And it went pretty well. I won’t get my scores back for 10-15 days, but I’m not feeling too nervous about it. I felt pretty prepared for the test (even though it took about 2 hours).

After my test I took the rest of the day off for traveling back and sleeping. I feel like I’m coming down with a cold of sorts. NOT OKAY.

Anyway, tomorrow my class is headed out on our field trip to the farm! I’m not as excited about it because I don’t feel great and I don’t think that standing out in the cold will help much. I’m sure that I will have plenty of stories about the trip for you tomorrow!! Stay tuned!

Until then,

Peace, love, and Emergen-C shots,

Jayna

Ps- The font came out this way from my dictionary definition, and I'm too lazy/don't know how to change it. Enjoy :) 

It’s “Mon” day!

Yes, today is a day dedicated to my roommate, Monica. I will forever remember that each Mon-day is a day all about Monica (typical ;)) But I’m okay with that. Especially since we had a great, much needed roomie talk last night (pillow talk?). It seems like we’ve all been busy running a hundred million directions (as is apparent by my other two roommates… I haven’t seen them since Saturday. No missing persons reports yet!) Tonight I’m the one disappearing again as I head to SF. Tomorrow I’m skipping school (what a rebel) to take my Praxis II test at 9 am. Once all of that lovely testing is over (3 hours worth), I will return for night class, track practice, a volleyball game, and BCU basketball moonlight madness (in that order).

Today at school went pretty well. We didn’t do much for fun, creative work. (Boring, I know. I'm saving something up for Thursday or Friday.) On Mondays we always journal, take a spelling pretest, switch books and have reading, religion, eat lunch, recess, have 45 mins of art, math, and dismiss early for professional development. Kind of monotonous, but it’s routine and fairly quick and painless (for the most part). Today has been gloomy, cold, and rainy, so we had indoor recess which is never fun. Kids don’t like staying in and we don’t get anything done over break while they are inside. It can be frustrating, but just one day a week isn’t so bad. Hopefully it’s not raining again tomorrow, although it is bound to be yucky mucky weather after all this rain….

Which is why! We have rescheduled our class field trip! For Wednesday! Which means! That I get to go with! (Can you tell I’m excited?) Our class along with the other 2^nd grade class will be visiting a family farm on Wednesday. More updates on how that turns out later. :)

That’s all for now folks,

Peace, love, and puddle jumping,

Jayna

A sly, sly fox

Sorry to disappoint, but no kid rants today. I’m sick of them. The kids are cute, but they have been so stinking naughty this week. It’s homecoming week and they have been out of sorts the whole time. I’m done. Mean teacher Jayna had to keep 5 kids in from their recess today (that's my free time too). It’s been 10 weeks and we are still reteaching behavior expectations. Cool.

I know that Friday is the favorite day of the week for most people, but it might be one of my least favorites. I am always checked out by Friday and the kids are too. Which means they are naughty (-er) and that I have to be strict  (-er). Which I hate. So Fridays are not my favorite days. I actually kind of like Mondays. Thursdays are nice too :).

Summary from the teacher lady: day 5.

Watch your mouth. Today for lunch, we had a pot luck in honor of one of the Kindergarten teachers. Naturally, when there is food, all sorts of people show up. Anyone who ever has to work in our building, even for an hour a week, is present on each pot luck day. (Imagine that.) I already mentioned that the kids have been rowdy today. That is true for the whole school. So during lunch, a few comments were made about how naughty the kids were/are. The opportunity for speaking badly of individual children’s behavior was ripe. However, one of the people who showed up for lunch today happens to be a MOTHER of one of the students. (What a sly, sly, fox with big open ears.) Luckily, nothing was said about individual students, and the parent had no insight to which kids drive the teacher NUTS. But still, the potential for a bad situation was real, and as the student teacher, I was completely unaware until after the fact. I had no idea that the random bonus woman was a mother to one of the students. So the lesson is, watch your mouth and be careful who you trust with information about your students. It has unlimited potential to backfire.

That’s all for this week folks, I’ve got big sports plans for tomorrow (including BCU, vb, xc, and fb and USD fb too!) and big study plans for Sunday (Praxis II=death).

Until Monday…

Peace, love, and interactions with people outside of 2^nd grade,

Jayna 

I can’t

Sorry in advance guys, but today’s blog is going to be lame. I’m so tired. I taught again all day today (and will be for the next 3ish weeks)! It’s going really well, but there are just not enough hours in the day to get everything done. It’s been all planning, teaching, running (after kids and around the town and track), lifting, blogging, and studying.

The highlight of today was definitely writing our pen pals. The kids were very excited. We spent all sorts of time talking about the class we are writing to. The kids were awed by the fact that the other class is in Nevada. “Is the other class gonna come visit us?” “Uhmmm, no.” We even pulled down the map to point out where Carson City is. Just as we started writing, my advisor came in to observe. All went well, and she even commented, “How long have you been doing this? It seems like it’s been a lot longer than 3 days.” I suppose no one told her that I was simply a bossy little girl who liked to play school ;)

Here’s my favorite journal entry from today. The prompt was to write a story starting with “As I was walking down the street….”

“As I was walking down the street I saw something Move. What could it be? Maybe A car. maybe A bog. Or some beer. it is you elephant good bye elphant.” (Why are there so many animals on the street? And although it’s not an animal, beer is pretty wild too.)

Welp, it’s off to bed for me. Good night and sleep sweet my faithful blog readers!

Peace, love, and tired eyes,

Jayna

Oh, so quotable.

Seriously, I’m going to be filthy rich off of the book I write with these quotes someday… thanks kids!!

In our journals today the kids were supposed to write about a place in the world that they would like to visit…

“I would like to go to paradise because paradise is a Beautiful plase. it is a sunny plase and a beach plase cool. And it is always sunny at the beach because of the sun. So you might not want to look at the sun.” (So… where exactly is paradise and can I go too? I promise not to look at the sun!)

“If I could visit any place in the world it would be China because its funny how they talk. And its weird that there not that tall. And what are all the holladays? What do anamails look like? Why is the money diffrent than ours?” (My favorite writer, the ranter. Good questions!)

“I’d like visit pennsylvaia soon. I’d like to see if Jack and Anny are rele. I wan to see if the magick tree house is rele. I want to see if I can take trip with them.” (The Magic Tree House series is a big deal in second grade. You’d be surprised how many kids wrote about visiting Pennsylvania.)

“I would like to visit new Yorke Citie becasu it is fun. New yourck cities is wird. I would play and play there. I would look arawd the playse.”  (I just love the spelling and how this boy tries so hard. He always gives a valiant effort.)

Today was also service day for our Catholic school system. As our service, my class spent about an hour making Halloween cards and decorations for a local nursing home. Here’s the aftermath (in lieu of many arts and crafts decorations).

“boo! Did that make you feel better?” (The kids don’t quite understand the concept of a nursing home. A few of them wrote “get well soon.”)

“Have a monsober Halloween.” (He told me it was like in the commercial, Monstober? Monster + October? I don’t know!)

And my personal favorite…

 “Happy Halloween! It’s ok if your old.” (This kid had drawn a picture (a very artistic picture- seriously it was good!) of headstones in a cemetery and wanted to know how to spell graveyard. I just about lost it laughing. Instead my rockstar teacher and I suggested he finish the card with, “God loves you I’m told.” That way it’s a poem? Haha)

Today on lunch duty…

Kindergartener 1, “Hey! There’s another one of you around here!”

Me, “What do you mean?”

Kindergartener 1, “There’s another girl with your face. You have the same face…”

Me, “Oh… another student?”

Kindergartener 2, “She means Mrs. Frayyeeelick!”

That teacher is the 1^st grade teacher and although we both have brown hair, we don’t look much alike. So I laughed and winked at Kindergartener 1… and she winked right back. I can’t make this stuff up people!!

“Can I marry chicken?” Uhhhhm, no.

In science today, we made a KWL (what we Know, Want to know, and Learned) chart. The topic plants. Here's what the kids want to know. 

“Do plants ever get stomachaches?“ (No comment, just laughter at this question. So cute and innocent. Great thinking :))

“Do plants, like flowers really move when they grow? Because actually I have never seen a flower move.” (Valid, I’ve never seen it either!)

Summary from the teacher lady: day 3.

I am so behind today that I don’t even have time for a summary! I’ve got math and science lessons to plan for tomorrow, track practice to get to, and a Praxis II test (one of the tests I’m required to pass before I can become a licensed teacher) to study for!! I realized last night that I have 6 days to study for my test and 115 pages to review. Cool. If you don’t hear much from me in the next few days, that’s why.

Until later (hopefully tomorrow)…

Peace, love, and headaches,

Jayna

Ps- TOMORROW I’M FINALLY TELLING THE KIDS ABOUT OUR NEVADA PEN PALS AND I’M SO EXCITED. THAT IS ALL.

“Tunesday”

Straight from the journals and mouths of my students today…

Our journal prompt: Write about what might happen if you had hands on your legs instead of feet.

“My hands are going to be on my legs. And my legs are ging to be on my hands. And my foot is going to be on my head. And my shos would go on my hands.” (Not sure why your foot is going to be on your head, but yes, let’s go with that. Ha :))

“If you didn’t hav feet. I widt wock on my hands. I would wash my hands. It would be rle ese to klim a tree. I would be like a mance and a cliaplr. It would be eses to swim to.” (Translation: If you didn’t have feet. I would walk on my hands. I would wash my hands. It would be really easy to climb a tree. I would be like a monkey and a catepillar. It would be easy to swim too. Yes, I had her read it to me.)

“You might not be trying. You might not be flechsabl. You might not be hrdragradid. You might be tird.” (Translation: flexible, hydrated, and tired. I asked her about being dehydrated and she said, "well it would be really hard to drink water if you had to do it with hands where your feet should be." Well played my dear, you're a genius.)

“If I had my hands on my legs I would fall down. Then I would be a ailen then evrey one would scream. And your hands cant fit in your shoes then where would your feet be. And how would you run and play games and how would you wrigt and how would you sit down and how would you eat and drink that would be hard? Then how would you play basketball and football and baseball and golf and bowling and how would you read and how would anamals walk.” (This kid and his rants. His last paragraph literally had no punctuation in it at first, he just gets so excited that he started rambling. I die reading it every time... so precious.)

“If I had hands on insted of feet I would be doing a handstand. It would hert my hands. I would rech to my fingers. It would be hard to coler with feet.” (I was surprised at the number of kids who were concerned about how they could color with hands on their feet... bahaha)

“I would be crepee. Yo could say it’s a costum. You can’t woke. You can’t hooled anything.” (Halloween is on their little brains already. Sheesh.)

Also today, we read a story where a little boy (Peter) writes a letter to a girl named Amy and invites her to his birthday party. It’s a big deal because he’s worried about what all his little bro-friends will think and then the letter gets lost and all sorts of things happen. But in the end (SPOILER ALERT!) Amy comes to the birthday party and Peter is all happy and the story ends when he “makes a very special wish of his own and blows out all the candles.” So in one of my small groups (3 girls and 1 boy) I asked, “what do you think Peter’s special wish might be?” And the one dorky little boy, without hesitation grins and says, “I think he wished that when he grows up he might marry Amy.”

Needless to say, I melted. What a cutie-patootie.

Today was another long, successful, and funny day in student teaching. My students took a lot of tests, did a lot of reading, and were generally funny. I hope you enjoyed their journal entries as much as I did :).  

Summary from the teacher lady: day 2.

The hardest part of student teaching is the timing. It generally takes my students way (WAY) longer to do things than I imagine. Possibly because we always review things and spend what seems like ridiculous amounts of time reviewing and practicing general social skills, expectations, and classroom management things. (That’s the key to being a strict and effective teacher lady, I’m convinced.) Possibly because I sometimes forget that they are still just little kids. Innocent little 7 and 8 year old who take time to do things like read and think and work. Timing will come with more practice, but today it seemed like I was always running about 4 minutes behind ;).  More updates on that as time progresses.

Until tomorrow…

Peace, love, and quotes that I will someday write a hilarious book with,

Jayna

You Are What You Eat

 … and I am a sweetie. ;)

This semester of student teaching has truly been a testament to the adage “you are what you eat.” The amount that I eat, sleep, and workout has drastically changed in the past few weeks. For those of you who don’t know, I have one of the biggest cases of sweet tooth syndrome, possibly ever. And it seems like every.single.day. in elementary school is someone’s birthday. I’m not sure how that’s even possible, considering there are only about 115 students/teachers/faculty total in my school. It’s like cookies and cupcakes and other sugary things magically appear on my desk every afternoon. I can’t do it. I love stupid sugary things, but then I’m not hungry for actual food. And with track starting to pick up at the height of student teaching, it’s catching up to me. My body feels like BLEHH.

In regards to sleep, I really am making an effort at getting more. I’ve upped my normal sleep schedule from 6 hours every night to about 8ish hours. It’s awesome. Although I still wake up after 6 hours of sleep… it’s like my body is saying, “get up self! It’s time for the day!” And to that I say, “NO! MORE SLEEPS!” It’s wonderful.

Again, with regards to working out, I have to repeat that I have never been more mentally tired in my collegiate career. However, this is a HUGE difference from being physically exhausted, which I have been many, many, manyyyyy times. I’m still adjusting to handling the differences in exhaustion. It’s just time to realize that I can’t do all of the things, although I’m very (SUPER) reluctant to accept that. I do a lot of things still. It’s just hard to accept that I can’t do everything 110% right meow the way that I would like to. Instead, track training is taking somewhat of a backseat because I am facing the fact that right now education and an internship via student teaching is a more worthwhile investment (not to mention I’m paying thousands of dollars to do it!).

And now, because you’re all dying to know, my first day of teaching everything all day long was… good :). Nothing super great, nothing super bad. Most of this is a result of the fact that elementary school is constant madness filled with meetings, assemblies, adjusted schedules and things of the like. So today was a good start. I’m sure that things will only get better as I become more comfortable and as (hopefully!) my teacher finds more things to do in the back of the class! Right now she seems (and must be) so bored! So naturally, she finds things to do and goes a little crazy sometimes when the kids aren’t paying attention. She still today would correct their behaviors, but I’m not too worried about it. I’ve got a few weeks to handle everything! I can’t wait :)

Other exciting things… blurb style.

• I am in the process of setting up a pen pal program for my kids. It should be pretty cool! They will be writing to another class in… wait for it… Nevada. That’s right folks, the Katerina-Jayna friendship strikes again in yet another stroke of genius! I hope our kids get as excited about this project as we are!

• I ran my first track work out of the season today and it was hard. Enough said.

• I just brought all my winter clothes back to school! It has been a brisk few days, and I’m excited to break out more sweater options. Not to mention that it should aid in my quest to not be an outfit repeater. I’m going 9 weeks strong people!!

• I put up a new bulletin board! I’m on yet another quest to drill sight words into my students’ brains and so I’ve created this beaut. The plan is to leave the board up for the month of October and make it progressively more creepy by adding spider webs and Halloween words such. Yippee!!! I’ll try and remember to record the progress for ya’ll!

• Finally, tonight I met again with a couple faculty advisors tonight! We discussed another meeting about the education mentoring program! I’m very excited! We are planning a get together/cookie party/information panel/breeze shooting adventure for Sunday, October 20^th. (If you happen to be a BC Ed major, look for my charming (annoying) emails soon!)

• If your name is Cheyann and you creep my blog every night, prepare for a super special shout out in look of some ed major/transfer student help! :) Also, it was super nice to see you this morning!

Aaaaand on that note, I’m off to do some teacher lady planning.

Until tomorrow,

Peace, love, and overexcitement,

Jayna