Back to 6th Grade and a DIY Project

So at the end of the school year I, my classroom was moved into the 5th grade hall with all intents of me being one of the new 5th grade teachers. We had a couple teachers leave in 5th grade and they were reducing the 6th grade from 10 teachers to 9 due to a smaller class.

Then about two weeks ago, I got a phone call from my principal telling me that one of the other 6th grade teachers receive and took a job in Northern Idaho and I could now choose which grade I wanted to teach this coming year. I stressed over the decision for a few hours (knowing my principal needed a decision relatively soon because he's ultimately hiring 6 new teachers this year and also knowing that the more I thought about it, the more difficult it would be to decide) and even did a coin flip.

In the end I decided to stay with 6th grade because I was familiar with the team and the curiculum. Basically I felt that with 6th grade I wouldn't be starting from scratch again and it wouldn't feel like a first year again. I'm hoping I made the right decision but I do feel good about it. As a result of my decision, I had to move classroom yet again. Thankfully I have two good friends that are 6th grade teachers that helped me move my classroom and one that helped me clean out the room I moved into. (The teacher that left didn't take much with him and left a huge amount of stuff to go through.)

So I will be back in 6th grade this fall. I'm excited for it and one day I'm sure I'll end up teaching 5th grade. I'd love to teach different grades but I want to wait until I've figured things out a bit more. Plus this year will be challenging enough because we have to begin implementing Common Core Standards.




This summer I've also been doing a lot of DIY projects. I've always been a crafty person especially when it comes to scrapbooking, paper crafts, and some painting. I'm not a seamstress though (one day I'll learn). Pinterest has become one of favorite things and I love all the ideas I've been finding for school on there.

One of my latest projects was redoing a desk that I'll use for my computer in my classroom. Here is the before:

And after some spray paint, a new top, some cute baskets, and hard work, here is the AFTER:

Here it is in my classroom. Sorry about the mess, I'm still moving in plus that's not my computer. Mine still hasn't been moved from my old room.

Current Listenings

"Well, I don't want the whole world

The sun, the moon, and all their light

I just want to be the only girl

You love all your life"

- All Your Life

Anyone that knows me, knows that I love country music. One of my new favorites is The Band Perry. I first listened to this group back in like 2009 when iTunes offered their first single "Hip to My Heart" as a free download. Seeing as it was FREE, I downloaded it and enjoyed it but basically forgot about them a month later.

Next came their single "If I Die Young." If you're not a fan of country music, this is may be the only song you've heard from them. While I liked the song, they still weren't a favorite. Then came the song "You Lie." For some reason this song really hit me. Not totally sure why because I couldn't relate to it at all then, though I can now. Since that single, I've been hooked. I purchased the full cd and have been loving it ever since. It is certainly a go to album for me. They have since released "All Your Life" and "Postcard to Paris." Those two songs have become some of my favorites. I have found that I can relate to so many of their lyrics (and that's important to me). If you're still reading, here's some of my favorite lyrics and videos and if you haven't checked them out yet then I suggest you do!

"Loving you was like throwing a lasso around a tornado 

I tried to hold on to you

Took a turn on a high trapeze swinging over the deep

I thought I could show you

I've always been afraid of flying

But you can't blame a girl for trying"

- Lasso

"It ain't complicated

Well I've grown to hate it

I never liked the taste of crow

But baby I ate it

They tried to warn me

They said that you were ornery

So don't bring me those big brown eyes and tell me that you're sorry

Well you might as well throw gasoline on a fire

The way you lie

You lie like a priceless Persian rug on a rich man's floor 

and you lie like a coon dog basking in the sunshine on my porch

Well you lie like a penny in a parking lot at the grocery store

It just comes way too natural to you

The way you lie"

- You Lie

"I'm quitting, quitting, quitting, I'm quitting you
Like a, a girl wants her chocolate, yeah, I know that I'll miss you
But I'm quitting, quitting, quitting, I'm not kidding I'm kicking you,
Cause you're my bad habit and I'm quitting you
I don't know what the heck you were thinking
It's gonna, gonna take a better man, I'm betting, to win my hand,
I'm not gonna play your game, I don't like the high stakes,
I'd rather sit alone at home playing one more round of, Old Maid"

- Quittin' You

"I was meant to be by your side
And I have waited here a long time
For you to turn around and notice me
But now you're here holding hands with me"

- Walk Me Down the Middle

Braces are off!!

So this post is a couple months late but I'm happy to say that my braces are off!

BEFORE

    

AFTER!! 

End of School and Moving

So again, I'm awful at blogging and apparently only update like every 6 months. Sorry about the lack of updates if anyone actually reads this. :) So life sure has a way of changing on you. This past six months can be explained with that one word... CHANGE!

END OF SCHOOL AND NEXT YEAR CHANGES

Well first off, I survived my first year of teaching. I really did enjoy it even though there were days when I wondered what I had gotten myself into. I will miss that group of kids but they'll always be important because they were my first class. So now for the change part, I will be teaching 5th grade next year instead of 6th. Even though that means getting new curriculum and working with a new team, I really think I will enjoy it. I student taught 5th grade and absolutely loved the age group. They are old enough that they aren't needy and they're not too old that they've all become "hormone poisoned."

The grade change also meant a change in rooms. I moved clear across the school and now reside in the 5th grade hall. This change is nice because I can actually talk to the team I work with (the old hall I was in was a mix of two 6th grade classes, five 4th grade classes, the gym, computers, and the lunch room). I will also be away from all the noise because my room was at the central point of lunch noise and noise from all the classes going to prep. I will however miss most of the people in my hall and seeing them everyday. It may sound weird but if you don't work on the same team or are in the same hall, you rarely see some people since we have such a large school. Overall the move was bittersweet. It was kind of hard leaving my first classroom but at the same time I know that I will move rooms many times in my career.

MOVING ADVENTURE

So on the topic of moving, I also moved back to Twin Falls for the summer. I did this for a couple reasons. First, my apartment was a bit pricey and since my lease was up it was time to move out. Second, I was able to move back in with my parents so I can save some money. Lastly, I am going back to work renting cars for the summer and there is no way I can commute there from Burley all the time. Of course, I will be heading back to Burley in the fall and am hoping that I can find an apartment I love but at a little more reasonable price.

The move back to Twin was an eventful one. I was lucky to have my dad help me with it. However, when it came to moving my washer, I wasn't so lucky. My dad is amazing but his health has deteriorated in the past few years meaning he's lost a lot of the strength he once had. As we brought down the washer from my upstairs apartment, he lost it with about 5 steps remaining. I was on the bottom part and was the one that had to stop in when it fell. I was able to and didn't get hurt and the washer only received a few scratches. After that, we thought everything was fine and it was until we got to the storage unit. We had rented a U-Haul moving van, the enclosed kind, because it rained all day! Again with the washer my dad thought he could take it down the ramp and I was just the assistant. Well about halfway down the ramp he started to lose control of it. He said he was fine but that's not what I saw. :) So I jumped from the truck and must have landed wrong on my ankle because the next thing I remembered was being on the wet asphalt crying in pain because of my right leg. Turns out I twisted my ankle really bad, cut my knee up, and bruised my leg pretty bad. And the washer, well after I fell my dad did drop it so it sustained a new dent. :( Did I mention this was my brand new front load washer that I only got in September? So we were both a bit damaged and I hope the washer still works. I am okay too after 10 days. I still have a lot of bruising and my ankle hurts a bit but I will survive and I'm grateful I didn't get hurt worse.

Finally an Update!

I guess it's about time for an update (Anna you should be happy to see this). So the newest in life is this:

In June I was hired as a 6th grade teacher at White Pine Elementary in Burley, Idaho. I moved to Burley in August a week before I began teaching. I have a cute little two bedroom apartment and I love living on my own though sometimes I wish it didn't cost so much. Moving to Burley was a bigger adjustment than I thought it would be. I'm not used to small town living and only having a couple choices of where to shop. I'm also not used to running into students or someone I know everywhere I turn. I however, do enjoy the people living here. I work with some amazing people at my school and am beginning to make some good friends which makes living here much easier.

I am also enjoying teaching 6th grade. Overall I have a great class even though there are days they drive me crazy. We have almost made it half way through the year. I can't believe how fast the time has gone. It seems like just yesterday I was nervously beginning my first day. Now we're on Winter Break and the time has flown by. Although I do have to admit that I'm grateful for the two weeks off (especially since I lost my voice this week and it's been very difficult to teach.)

As far as everything else in life, my brother's been out on his mission for almost 14 months, which means only 10 months til I see him again. I honestly can't wait. I didn't think I'd miss him quite as much as I have but honestly feeling like an only child stinks! I'm also counting down the months until I get my braces removed, should be in about 3 months! Can't wait for that day either. Unfortunately the road to get them off still isn't finished and I have to have oral surgery this monday to aid in the process. They say it's relatively painless and recovery is quick. I hope they're telling the truth. Other than that, I hope I can just enjoy this two week break.

Adventures in Teaching

It has been an awfully long time since I last posted but that happens when you're student teaching for 50 hours a week, working 23 hours week, taking 6 hours of classes week, and serving as Institute Council President. Basically that has been my semester. It has been a difficult semester, but I have grown a lot.
This semester I student taught in a fifth grade class at Lincoln Elementary. I worked at Lincoln last year as a pre-intern in 4th grade so I didn't think it would be too difficult of a semester...boy was I wrong!

Being the teacher compared to just an aide is completely different. Most days, I felt completely underprepared to deal with the challenges of the day but I some how made it through. It was difficult because Lincoln is basically the inner city school of Twin Falls and I had a large, rough group of kids that have lived through horrifying things in their eleven years of life. Much different than my sheltered life at eleven.

For a couple months I drug myself through teaching, just looking forward to the degree at the end and telling myself that I never had to teach again I just had to graduate since I'd come this far. Yes, not the best outlook but there were many challenges that brought me to that point, which I won't go into now. Then slowly I began to see my outlook changing. This happened in a few ways but one was because of one individual student. When I started teaching, this student had grades from A's to D's. I also noticed that he would never read and got easily distracted and then would cause problems. One day during silent reading time, I asked him about it and his response was that reading was boring and his book was dumb. I asked him what he liked to read and if he'd give reading another try if I got him something interesting. He kind of shrugged his shoulders and said I guess so. The next day, I brought him "Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief." During silent reading time, he read a couple chapters and loved it! He didn't want to put the book down (Thank you Rick Riordan for your amazing books!). That moment was the true changing point of my semester and his life though I didn't realize it at the time. He continued reading the Percy Jackson books (5 total, equating 1,815 pages...pretty good for a boy that didn't like to read) returning each day excited to tell me what happened and how he stayed up reading for 2 hours. By the end of 3rd quarter he also had grades of A's and 2 B's. Going into 4th quarter I began telling him that he could get straight A's the next quarter if he tried. He said there was no way but I kept telling him that he would. Setting the expectations high for him actually worked, after pushing him for a few weeks, he began to be determined to get straight A's as well. To this day he has those A's and I'm hoping that he is able to maintain them since I'm no longer in the classroom. He has also read the Lost Hero book (another  Rick Riordan-576 pages ) and is in the process of reading the Kane Chronicles (Rick Riordan as well--- 992 pages). By the end of the year, I expect him to have straight A's and have read 3,383 pages since the last week of January. This student is the one that truly changed my outlook on being a teacher in the middle of my semester. Not only did I begin seeing how I helped change his outlook and made a difference but I began to get to know him and my other 5th graders better. I began to see them as unique individuals that just wanted to be loved and accepted. This boy that I worked with, turned out to have a great sense of humor and was a real smart aleck. On the truly rough days, he would say something, usually out of the blue, that just made me burst out laughing. My girls in class would always tell me how great of a teacher I was and that I had to follow them to 6th grade.

In the end, the semester I wanted to just be done with, changed into a semester that I wished could have lasted longer. My last official day teaching, I had a student completely bawling because I was leaving...it was all I could do to not shed some tears myself. My student that I talked about above didn't say much that last day but he is a kid that wears his emotions so clearly on his face for someone that knows him. He wasn't his happy self that afternoon and his face just read "I can't believe you're leaving me." I honestly felt the same way that I can't believe I have to leave.

Monday will be the first of a week that I won't have to wake up early to go to school and teach. I don't know what I'm going to do, it's definitely going to be different. Though my student teaching adventure is over, I will never forget the things I learned or the students I taught. I'm looking forward to embarking on a teaching career, and I'm actually hoping to teach more students around this age group. In the end I also graduated with High Honors from ISU's College of Education. It's been a rough two years, but I don't regret doing it at all.

Here's some pictures of my students from my last day teaching:

Just Songs in my Head

Almost always I have song lyrics in my head. Recently the following have been there:

There I was again tonight, forcing laughter faking smiles same old tired lonely place.
Walls of insincerity, shifting eyes and vacancy vanished when I saw your face.
All I can say is it was enchanting to meet you.....


This night is sparkling, don't you let it go
I'm wonderstruck, blushing all the way home
I'll spend forever wondering if you knew
I was enchanted to meet you.


The lingering question kept me up, 2 am who do you love?
I wonder til I'm wide awake....

This is me praying that this was the very first page
Not where the story line ends
My thoughts will echo your name until I see you again.
These are the words I held back and as I was leaving too soon
I was enchanted to meet you.


"Enchanted" by Taylor Swift