Monday, November 18, 2013

Downhill Slide.

Well folks, it’s that time already. I’m literally in countdown mode (7 more days) until I’m done with student teaching. Tonight I will be printing, hole punching, labeling, and organizing all of the work I’ve done for the hard copy of my student teaching portfolio. It’s crazy to think that years (literally YEARS) of work have gone into this project. (and it’s so close to being over!) Yippee! One more night of dedication and then my education classes will be over. (“Until you start your masters” in the words of my advisor… gahh.)

So it’s smooth sailing just teaching reading block until Friday. Plus I get to go to the other location (our school is split sites) and observe in 3rd and 4th grade. It should be pretty cool to work with some more of the upper elementary kids.

Other than school, today is a very special day for my roommate Monica. (The one that I failed miserably at keeping names off the blog with.) It’s her birthday! So in her honor, here’s a special thank you and birthday shout out! Thank you for being such a great friend to me for the past 4 years. You’ve always been there to snuggle (sometimes forcibly so), to talk to, to borrow clothes from, to support me, and (most importantly) to laugh with. You've been a huge influence on my college years. Even though I know you’re so excited for graduation and where life will take you afterward, I’m really looking forward to enjoying these last 6 months of college together. LOVE YOU!


Obviously, not much has changed. 

That’s all for today. Until tomorrow…
Peace, love, and giggles,

Jayna

Friday, November 15, 2013

Pessimistic

 Have you ever woken up one day and thought to yourself, “Self, today is not such a good day”? Today was one of those days. For those of you who know me, this is definitely not my style. I’m more of the eternal annoying optimist…. But that was just not the case today. Wrong side of the bed? Maybe. But I was determined to go to school and shake it off. However, one of my kids today was simply obnoxious. There is no other word for it. The secretary and another teacher reprimanded him before he even got in the room at 8 am. He just bothered me. He didn’t want to work. He talked back. I gave him 5 minutes and tried to ignore him. But this nonsense went on almost all day. Even when he wasn’t talking, he was doing something annoying like pulling up his pant leg to check out his knee. (Like, WHAT are you doing?!) I’m not saying that I let an 8 year old ruin my day, but he definitely didn’t make it any better. Gah. TGIF.

On that note, it’s time to go shake off the day with a long run and a (hopefully fun, relaxing) weekend.

I’ll leave you with some adorable things found in my kids’ journals today…

 “I like my family because they care about me. I love my family when they love me not hayte me. But every budy knows there just doing there jobe as a parint. I love my family because they chere me up wine ever i’m sad.” (Someone definitely got a talking to at home. Kids don’t just come up with this stuff on their own!)

“icksdid” (Excited. Enough said.)

Until Monday…
Peace, love, and feeling blahhhh,

Jayna

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Just a-workin away…

Today the kids finished up the final pieces of their ITBS. Yippee! That means tomorrow will be a normal day of school! The testing is over! I will have things to do tomorrow! I spent today just a-workin away on silly little things. Organizing my desk (for when I have to pack it up in 2 weeks), making copies for next week, taking down bulletin boards, doing (a little bit of… I’m so unmotivated) my lesson plan summaries for my electronic portfolio, and things of the like.

Even though it’s been a little boring, it’s been a great day.

The kids are (mostly) good. Lunch time was filled (literally 20 minutes worth) with laughter. There was coffee and cookies in the lounge this morning! And Mrs. Davis left a little early today so I got to cover and actually teach (head teacher lady status) for the afternoon. Yippee!

It’s exciting to be wrapping up and getting back to real life, even if the impending (doom?) reality of real life is mostly unknown after this semester. I suppose that’s the thrilling part. And it will be nice to catch up with my friends. I realized today that I haven’t really talked to my best friend in over a month. Granted she is full teacher lady status and 1500 miles away, but still! It will be awesome to be back in the loop again. Sorry to all of you that I’ve been neglecting (I swear it wasn’t purposeful)!

I can’t think of a better way to welcome myself back to the real world than by surrounding myself by friends and family over Thanksgiving break! You know who you are! Let’s get together please J.

And with those plans made, I bid you adieu.

Until tomorrow…
Peace, love, and the final countdown (ten days),

Jayna

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Wed(nes)day

Today one of my students came in over the moon excited, waving around a sheet of lined paper. She proudly handed it over to my teacher proclaiming, “I got a letter from Mary!” She was so excited because she has been chosen to play Mary in the Christmas concert and last night Mary (ya know, the Mother of God) wrote her a nice little note about how well she will do. It was adorable and she was so proud.

The morning proceeded in it’s adorableness with our journal prompt: Write about a brand new animal! Make up a name, how it looks, what it eats, and where it lives.

“If I could make up a animal it would be a fluffy animal. Its name would be fluffy like the one of the bored. It could be rainbow and every other coler. It would eat cookies, ice cream sundaes, markers, and chalk boreds. There sometimes vises but they won’t hurt you. “ (Sometimes vicious huh?)

“My brand new pet is a jaguar. His name is Heven. He lives in the jungle with me. Because he is very nice. My brand new pet is a golden rechreever. His name is Jesus. He lives in Canada with me. Because he is very, very nice. It has brown fur.” (I’m digging the biblical names.)

“My animal is a flying mandog. It looks like a man and a dog and it haves wings. It likes all canis of foods. My animal lives evrewhere. It travels by flying. And never give the flying mandog a jalepenos or he will thro up fire.” (Not sure what throwing up fire has to do with anything, but thanks for the info!)

“My animal live’s in the wood’s. I look’s like it has knife’s on it’s back. I look’s like a monkey and has rotin teeth. It’s a rotten knife! Monkey!” (Uhm, what?)

‘It is half dog and half cat. It lives in a tree in a hole. It love’s to go by the moon. It’s a very fun time to play with dog half cat. You would be feling good today. If I would like it you will to. It eats animals. Its name is dot.” (Catdog!! Maybe that cartoon is a little too outdated… oops!)

“It would have 3 heads on it with shorp teeth. It would eat sharks and it can swim it can breth fire. It will have 2 wengs. It lives in a cave on a mantin way up high in the mantin.” (Not sure what it is, but I want one!)

“It is small. It has know teeth. It’s name is bubbolls. It lives in a lake. It has a tail. It has fins. It has small eye’s. He is green.” (Bubbolls sounds like quite the animal.)

“My animal is a flying cat. It is called a fliger. It looks like this it looks like a tiger but smaller and it has wigs like an angle. It eats grass and lilys. And it lives in Florida.” (Fliger= liger 2.0)

“This is what I am going to mixie up a chaeda and a bull. This is the werd name is cheebull. I’t is a frenley anaimale. I’t gets the things that you and me.” (Oh, the spelling.)

“My animal is going to have a cat tale and frog lages. It eat’s pizza. It has a cat head. It will be named the catfrog. It lives in the sea. It also eat’s bugs.” (Gross.)

“If I could make a brand new animal. It would be called a helper man. It helps you with stuff he cooks for you to. I has 10 arms and 8 legs. It would have two heads. And three eyes it moves as fast as a spieder its legs are sticky. It does all your chores for you. Its made from money so you can get money.” (Sounds like the Ranter is a little bit lazy…. )

“Its’ a mix of a bunny and a frog. I call it bugs. it has the tugue of a frog. And the body of a bunny.” (Bugs bunny?!)

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading blurbs of my kid’s journals. I think reading their journals and tapping into their little brains is going to be the part that I miss the most!

Speaking of… this student teaching being on the downhill slide is pretty awesome because I’m less busy. But it’s also pretty awful because I’m less busy. I am already planning next week and things for my class in the back of the room. There is noootttthhhhing to do. I’ll let you know if/when I ever get out alive with my sanity. Stay tuned.

Until tomorrow…
Peace, love, and time to kill,

Jayna

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Busy (ish) Day

Okay it was a busy day, just not really from a teaching standpoint. Today we journaled, took about an hour and a half of ITBS tests, and I taught some religion. After that we had lunch, music, library and computer (I plan computer), and math. That’s it. As you can imagine, I didn’t do much. Except for computer… I did retest the kids on STAR. (It’s part of AR and our reading curriculum. Basically it tests for the students’ most appropriate reading level (on a grade level scale).) Anyway, I am SO excited because my kids have shown a lot of improvement in the past month. Ya know, the time that I’ve been teaching! People, I’m talking bringing kids up by half a grade level. THAT’S FANTASTIC.  It pretty much made my entire day… which is saying something because it’s been a long day. Hence why I’m posting now.

After school today, I attended my glorious student teaching class. You know, the one that meets for one hour a week and can totally suck your entire soul because you realize again that you are still a real college kid and you actually have to accomplish things (like papers- yuck) outside of your classroom. Anyway, today in class I realized that next Tuesday (7 days) EVERYTHING is due. All the papers, the electronic piece, the whole nine yards. Cool.

After class, I did not pass go, did not collect $500, but proceeded straight to track practice. At the dome. Sprint workout (1x500, 8x150). Immediately afterward, I (a BCU basketball insider and charger spirit extraordinaire) attended the girl’s basketball (we lost) and boy’s basketball (we WON!) games. Which leads me to the here and now where I sit on my couch with my sola amiga Monica, listening to Jason Aldean Pandora, and thinking about all the things that I should be doing while contemplating going to bed. I’m thinking one half hour of work, followed by some well-deserved and much needed sleep time.

Until tomorrow…
Peace, love, and sweet baby angel dreams,

Jayna

Monday, November 11, 2013

Confusion.

Have you ever seen the look of confusion on a second grader’s face? Have you ever seen 17 of those looks at once? I have (Mean girls reference anyone?)! Today, we started Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) and my rockstar teacher also began teaching math again. Which means that she taught for most of today. Testing this morning was okay for the kids because really, I’m not sure that I’m comfortable (or even allowed to be) proctoring a standardized test and it wasn’t a lesson. But this afternoon, we came back from art and the kids were all looking back and forth between my teacher and myself. They couldn’t decide what was happening because I wasn’t in the front of the room ready to teach like normal. It was so stinking cute. And sad. I’m giving subjects back already for goodness sakes!

The first subject to go is math. Math first because we are just getting into money and time. While I’m comfortable teaching money and time, the requirements between our math book and our standards do not align. I would rather give math back now than chance wasting important learning time on a subject and standards that I’m not totally comfortable teaching. So there’s that. Over the next 12 days (that’s all I have left!). I will begin giving back science, religion, spelling, reading, and journaling (probably in that order). And then, (November 25th) I will have my final student teacher evaluation meeting, my electronic portfolio (complete with written examples of my work, a video clip, a final reflection on student teaching, and my own (5 PAGE) philosophy of education) will be complete, and November 27th will be my LAST DAY.

Craziness. I can remember the day that I sat at my desk (in the back corner of the room, behind a shelf haha) and realized, oh crap. I’m doing this all semester. The whole time. Every. Single. Day. (That was a scary thought.) And now looking back… it all went so fast. Wahh.


I will keep you updated on how I feel about all this being done with teaching stuff… although really, this is only the beginning. :) Kinda cool actually!

Now speaking of math, I totally forgot that I had taken a picture of this gem from last week's math test. The question was to answer with position (using an ordinal number). Here's the result. 

I almost wanted to give it to him. 

Until tomorrow…
Peace, love, and crafty answers, 
Jayna

Saturday, November 9, 2013

Happy Saturday!


It's yet another special Saturday treat (in blog form). Mostly because I didn't blog yesterday. (I'M SORRY!) This blogging nonsense is awesome (for you and for me.) It's somewhat therapeutic and also informative... but it does take time. And time management has not always been my best quality. But since I love ya'll so much, I'm going to fill ya in on what happened yesterday!

School went well... yesterday was my last day of full teaching. Crazy! I didn't even realize it until last night. But next week the kids take the ITBS (Iowa Test of Basic Skills) tests and so half of our time will be devoted to that. Plus my rockstar teacher is going to start teaching math again because we are studying money and time. Technically, the kids are not required to learn everything about money and time anymore (not sure why that seems like a good idea). But it's not in the standards and therefore there is not a lot of bonus time for it. I suppose we'll see how not (fully) teaching time or money works out when we have financially illiterate kids who also can't read an analog clock. Soooo yeah.

I can't remember anything specific about yesterday that was super awesome, and nothing was super bad either... except for one student. The one who (constantly) wants attention. He is a strange kid. Very immature, very controlling, pretty smart, but very annoying. He's been a tough one to deal with. Yesterday he was in trouble quite a few times for not participating and also for telling his partner during one activity that he was "clueless". I just about lost it when he said that. So my teacher and I gave this particular student an ultimatum. Because he is the one who choses whether or not to participate and what type of attitude he will have, HE is the one who will determine where he sits in class. If he makes good decisions to participate and pay attention then he gets to stay in his desk and work with the other students. If not, he (without warnings) will be sent to a desk in the back of the room that has a wooden divider/cubicle thing around the top so that he is isolated from the rest of the class. I know that it probably sounds crazy and harsh, but #1. it's not entirely my idea and #2. nothing else is working. There is no way that this student is going to "win" and continually be allowed to do whatever he pleases during class. I'll let ya know how that one goes too.

Now that I think about it, we did have one other not-so-good incident involving one of my students calling another student "a big stupid nerd and dumbo" or something like that. The student who was did the name calling (ironically enough) is always the one who claims to be bullied. It's ridiculous. I hate "bullying". The word, the concept, the whole nine yards. A lot of that stuff shouldn't happen anyway, so I am by no means trying to say that name calling is acceptable. But the amount of actions and words that are classified as "bullying" is getting to be ridiculous. Kids no longer have tough skin. They don't know how to handle other kids or people not liking them. Parents (by being very involved to "stop bullying") are not doing their kids a huge disservice. The reality is that world does not care about each individual kid. While the parents may have made their children the center of THEIR world, the rest world does not think that they are all special. The world will not cater to each child the way that their parents have, and if the kids are not prepared for the world, they will eventually fail. And (having no prior experience with the real world or failing) it will be devastating. Obviously this is not something that I can fix, but it is really something to think about. I hope in the future we will see more parents who have a realistic view of their children in the world. Keep your fingers crossed.

Well, now that i've done a significant amount of ranting, Let me break up the blog with a couple of my favorite journal entries from yesterday.

“Today is happe hour.” (TGIF. I wish it had been happy hour at school.)
“I want to be a placeman. I want to ride in a plaecar all day. Placemens because my favorite color is blue and there yonefrms are blue. I like placemen because they cach bad giys. Placemen are speshel because they cach the bad giys for us.” (This is what my student chose to write about. Out of all the things in the world, I think this is pretty neat.)
Well loyal blog readers, I'm off to enjoy my Saturday.
Until Monday (maybe)...
Peace, love, and country music,
Jayna