Just Your Average Thursday

2 weeks full teaching down, 2 (ish) to go.

Today was literally just your average Thursday. It was awesome. Seriously, it’s so nice to get back into the swing of things. Part of being a teacher lady (apart from being flexible) is living for the structure and schedules. (It’s that liiiiiittle bit of my type A personality.)

Anyway, you may ask yourself, “Self. Just what is this crazy Jayna semi-teacher-lady even teaching those darn kids?” Well folks. Here it is, a glimpse into what we did at school today.

Thursday Oct 16

·      Journal

·      Show and Tell

·      Finish Farm Pictures

·      Guidance- bathroom break

·      Reading work

o   Read with partner

o   Read to self

o   Word work proofreading with spelling words

o   Read at the table with Miss Specht

·      Lunch

·      Religion- Ch. 4 Prayers of Celebration, Praise and Thanks

·      Science- review parts of a plant (roots, stem, leaves, flower)

·      PE

·      Math- Estimation

·      Cherry Pie Spelling game

·      Afternoon recess

·      Dismissal

This is what the kids made for their science review today...

And here’s another sneak peak into our journaling today. The kids reflected on their farm trip.

“My favorite part at the farm was the hayride. Because I got to sit in the front the tires look like there going fast. But you are going slow but it looks like your going fast. I almost fell off because when he swiched gears my body went forward and it was fun going on the corn because it was a litille bumpe and I liked it when it tillted because it kind moved you to the right and the left.”

… and now, a bonus blip into my personal life.

Here’s what my room looked like earlier tonight.

MY LIFE IS A DISASTER.

Just kidding, it’s pretty neat actually. Just not in the organizational way.

Well loyal readers, I’m out until tomorrow.

Peace, love, and surprise visitors,

Jayna

Ps- Have fun wondering who the surprise visitor is :) 

E-i-e-i-oooo

As in oooo-h my goodness field trips are a lot of work. Our farm trip today consisted of 31 2^nd grade students and (luckily) 4 teachers. It was finally a nice, sunny day and I think that the kids really enjoyed the trip. We got to see roosters, chickens, goats, cows, bean and cornfields, and a large garden. I was on photo patrol with the ipad, documenting our experience (naturally). Our presenter (part-time farmer, Mr. S.) was fantastic. The kids were fairly well behaved and I think they learned a lot. They all got to eat lunch on the lawn, take a hayrack ride, watch the combine go through the cornfield, and pick their own ear of corn. All in all, it was a very fun day. Although I didn’t teach much (like at all), I’m glad we all had fun :)

Here are some of the memories we captured!

Watching the combine was really cool, even for the teachers. 

Da corn is diiiissss tall! (9ish feet)

One of the kids helped out by snapping this one of the teachers eating lunch! I'm blessed to have such great experienced teachers and role models.

This rooster was rowdy, he squawked the whole time. The class dissolved into giggles. 

Our class photo! Minus two. One boy was sick, and I think another was cut out of the picture :/

Until tomorrow... 

Peace, love, and muddy shoes,

Jayna

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.