Student Teaching

Tuesday April 14 is the last day of my student teaching, and I am extremely sad about this. I am going to miss my students so much; I think this is what missionaries feel like about coming home. I'm definitely going to have to visit. This past week I've been taking pictures of my classes so I could remember everyone. Here they are:
First of all, these are pictures of my classroom that I took one day after school:
This is the view when you walk in the door.
Standing in the same spot, with the camera shifted to the left. I'm still by the door.
In this one I'm standing in the other corner, under the TV that you can see in the picture above. The teacher's desk is where all the students are crowded.
Same corner, with the camera shifted to the right a little bit. You can see the door in the other corner.
This is the third corner. I'm still under the tv, and looking to the far right. Sophie is writing me a message on the board:

My cooperating teacher's last name is Schlendorf, hence the "Schlendy."




This is my first period class, which is a French Intro class. I told them we would do one nice picture and then they could do one silly one.









This is my period two class, which is also a French Intro class. I have about five girls in this class who are just brilliant beyond belief. Whenever we do a game and they choose groups they all end up together and sweep the competition. I've had to separate them so it's more evenly distributed : ). I call them my powerhouse ladies.







This girl in the green sweatshirt is probably the sweetest, cutest girl I have ever met. She's kind of shy, but I can tell she wants to talk to me all the time, and I love it. I basically just want to give her hugs all day long. I absolutely love her to death.

Third and fourth period I don't teach; third is my prep and fourth Kathy (my cooperating teacher) teaches a reading class. My fifth period is a seventh grade English class. We've been doing grammar in preparation for state tests, so they were only too glad to take a break and have a picture taken.

They had some trouble with the whole "Silly picture" concept. They're much sillier in person and when not under pressure to take a picture : )

This is my sixth period, which is my more advanced French class. They are hilarious. They all know each other from last year and they've been with each other this whole year, so they have a really good group dynamic (which sometimes gets them in trouble).





The girl in the green and gray shirt is Miranda, and she's one of my most brilliant students. She always knows the answer and she's such a sweetie!!
The blond boy in the sweatshirt is my other genius of the class; I swear he has a photographic memory because he always remembers EVERYTHING!!
Sarah had a little too much fun with the scarves I brought in to serve as blindfolds for an activity involving giving directions.



This is my last class, period seven. It is also a seventh grade English class, and these kids either all have ADD/ADHD, or they're excited for the end of the day. Either way, I love them. It's been the running joke of the semester to see who gets to go fill up my water bottle, cause by that time of day it's always empty. I have kids who fight over who gets to do it. One day I let Nate go do it after he'd been asking, and he did a victory dance around the classroom!! I laughed so hard I could hardly breathe.











Chelsea, on the right, is one of the ones who always fights to go fill up my water bottle. She considers it her "job."
Nate, of the water bottle victory dance is on the right.

On the Telefund front, all is still weird, as you might have guessed!





There!! Now I don't feel so guilty for hardly posting all semester!! Whew, that was a long one. I'm going to miss this semester so much. Stay tuned for a future post about Erin and my trip to New York City. It'll be fabulous.

Life Update

So... Life has been insanely busy, but oh so good. I am loving student teaching more than perhaps is healthy. I really love being at a Middle School; the kids are so fun and energetic. It's great! Some highlights from my teaching experiences so far:
1. I have a really outgoing student who became very withdrawn suddenly, and being concerned, I spoke to her about it. I asked how she was doing, if she needed anything, etc. The next week at Parent Teacher Conferences her mom came in and talked with me about some difficulties she's been having with different circumstances. Her mom told me that I was the only teacher of hers that noticed, and that it meant so much to her. That was like "AHH" (with joyous, triumphal background music). I felt like such a power teacher!
2. My seventh period class. In general. They are so hilarious; I don't know whether they all have ADD or whether it's just because it's the end of the day, but they are so hyper and so funny. My water bottle is always empty by the time seventh period rolls around, and my kids all argue over who gets to go fill it when needed. They are just something else. They have such a great group dynamic and they are just so fun I can't stand it.
3. I have one student who is probably the sweetest child I have ever met in my existence. She's so sweet, kind, courteous and just great in general. She's such an artist and such a great girl; I kind of wish that I could have her in all of my classes for the rest of my teaching career.
4. I love my kids!!

That's it for now!!

Student Teaching

Well, student teaching is under way. Completely, thoroughly, exhaustingly so. I have five classes filled with twelve to thirteen year olds, and I love it. Many people react with appalled horror when I say that I'm teaching at a middle school, but I love it. The students at that age are not as cynical about life or school as high school students are. In high school, it can be "teach me. I dare you." if you don't have the right chemistry. In middle school, I am more the grown up, and the students are still young enough to enjoy school (most of them). I have been doing pretty well I think, and an added bonus is that my mentor teacher and I get along really well. We have very similar temperaments and senses of humor, so life is entertaining. I've taken over all the French classes, and will take over the English classes next week. I'm still trying to learn everyone's name; I keep telling my kids that I need to go to special ed for name remembering. It's quite awful. I am really enjoying my time, and I'm grateful that I was not as nervous as I had anticipated. The classroom management part has been easier than I was thinking it would be, and I fully acknowledge that this is because of my time working at the group home. Working with those kids helped me a lot with my "authority voice" and it's made life as a teacher much easier.
In spite of my enjoyment of my student teaching, I am tired all the time. I am still working at the BYU Telefund, so I go to school in the morning, have an hour after school to get a jump on lesson planning, and then I go to work for four hours. By Friday I'm wiped. For example, today I could really use a shot of adrenaline. My mentor teacher is in Seattle for her son's wedding, and so it was just me, Ms. Dean, with the kids all day and no prep period. This means no break from children or teaching. Even lunch was not responsibility free, as I had to get ready for the next period. Even though I'm tired all the time, I'm so excited it's kind of ridiculous, and everyday I go to work and just tell everyone what my kids did that day. This may be my last post for a while, as I will have no life for the next three months.

Lots of stuff...

So over Christmas break I had no wireless internet and couldn't update my blog cause it takes forever, so here's lots of pictures from Christmas. I'm an auntie again, and Christmas break was a lot of fun. I don't know how much I'll be able to update my blog this semester, as I'm an idiot and decided to work at the Telefund while student teaching. The first week was good, and I'm starting to learn the kids' names, which is always a plus! I'm really looking forward to it.
Brooke and Stuart with their new baby boy Ocean.
Mom and the baby



He's a cutie. Go Brooke and Stu!

My brother Stu and his wife Brooke








This is the view of the Washington D.C. temple from the Capital Beltway. You round a curve, and there it is, almost floating in the trees. It's a cool sight.
Me and baby Ocean
We webcammed with Colin and Jen so they could join us in opening presents on Christmas morning


Baby Ocean in his Santa hat. It was awesome.

I was excited to get this, since I've wanted it for a while.


Me and Erin. Finally a semi-normal picture!
Mom and Dad. This is at the airport when they came to send me off back to Utah.
We always knew that Erin loved me best...
This is Justin. I work with him. He has some issues.... (not really, I'm being mean. We made pipe cleaner crowns, and the girl he was sitting next to put hers on his head and I happened to catch it)
We're really official at work. Can't you tell?
I prove my point.
And again....

I found these fairy wings in the toy box, and I had to wear them, because they went with the crowns. I'm the Telefund Fairy.
This is our somewhat annual Leadership lunch at Tucano's. It was a lot of fun, and very noisy!


This is all the supervisors at work. We're really just a bunch of crazies.