Our Disney World Vacation

  

  After a stressful semester, I was really looking forward to taking a vacation. I think both Joe and I were equally looking forward to getting away for a week, since we haven't taken a week's long vacation since our honeymoon.

   Joe and I spent five days at Disney World and visited the four Disney parks, Downtown Disney, and the Disney Boardwalk. It took about 10 hours to drive there on Friday, so we were happy to be in our hotel room Friday night to relax. Saturday morning we got to Epcot for about 9:30 am and stayed most of the day. It was over 90 degrees, so we decided to leave for a little bit to shower and change our clothes. We returned to Epcot to have dinner and watch the firework show called illuminations.

   I wanted to eat at the French restaurant at the world showcase (which includes 11 countries) Saturday night, but we had not made reservations. The steak house in Canada was also booked, so we ended up eating in Morocco instead. Afterwards, we walked around the showcase a little more. We took in a show at the American Experience showcase, which was about the history of America, and then waited in line for the boat ride at Norway. Afterwards, we saw the fireworks, which went unbelievable. I wish we had gone back to see them a second night. We didn't get to see the entire showcase on Saturday night, so we ended up going back to Epcot for a second day on Wednesday and we walked the showcase again and was able to eat lunch at the French restaurant.

   Sunday we went to Animal Kingdom (Disney World's newest park). I had never been to Animal Kingdom before. The last time I went to Disney World, I don't think it was open yet. The park was more like a zoo then a theme park, but it did have a couple of rides and some good shows. We loved the roller coaster Everest and the Finding Nemo Musical.

   On Monday we went to Magic Kingdom and we were basically there from opening until when the park closed after the fireworks. We only left briefly to take the monorail to a couple of the Disney resorts we wanted to check out. My favorite attraction at Magic Kingdom was a show called philharmagic, which was a 3D musical show that featured Disney music from Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Lion King, and Aladdin. Donald Duck and Mickey are also featured in the show. We ended up seeing it twice.  Splash Mountain is also a lot of fun and a classic ride. Great for hot days in the park.

   On Tuesday we went to Hollywood Studios. I haven’t been there since I was a kid. My favorite attraction was the Beauty and the Beast Show. I love the music from that movie and it is a great story. I can't wait for Beauty and the Beast to come out on Blu Ray in the fall. I am really looking forward to seeing it again.

   Joe and I also went to breakfast with the characters, where we met Donald Duck, Minnie, and Goofy. It was a buffet breakfast and it even had waffles shaped like Mickey Mouse's head.

   Epcot was also having their international flower and garden festival, which was an added bonus.  I had heard of this show many times before, but I thought it would be over by the time Joe and I went.  I highly recommend going to Epcot in the spring, so you can see the flower festival as well and yes, I do think everyone should visit Disney World at least once in their lives.  Epcot was my favorite park, but I also like Magic Kingdom a lot. 

   So that is a little bit about what we did when we were away. We had a blast. It was definitely one of the best vacations I have taken. Hopefully we will get to go again soon. We would also like to visit Disneyland when we travel to California (hopefully in the next two years). 

Walt Disney World

Thoughts About Teaching...

    So, it is past eleven o'clock at night and there is now less than two days left of the spring semester. I am currently working on a research presentation on using poetry to reading, a subject that I find very close to my heart (especially since I am a poet myself). I should be going to bed, but instead I am up thinking about things and on the computer writing this blog post.

    Many thoughts have been going through my mind the last few days. I sat in on an academically gifted classroom today. It was a fifth grade math class. I learned a lot of gifted education and how children qualify. I also learned that even gifted children don't always know the answers, nor do they never have difficulty with school work. I am sure many times information in class is boring for them, but today I did not see a single student not get a question wrong. I saw multiple students work on math problems two, three, or even more times. Though gifted children need to be challenged, I don’t think we should assume that they always know what is going on anymore then we should expect a student with a learning disability to always need help.

    I have been thinking about why I want to be a teacher. This is not an easy question to answer. I applied for a small scholarship a few months back, and I was asked why I want to be a special education teacher. I have been asked this before by people, and many times I do not know what to say.

    I have thought about teaching for years. At one point I wanted to be an art teacher (I used to love art, though I haven’t done any art in years now. My favorite medium was always charcoal. Maybe I can get back into it at some point. I also love taking photos.). For many years I was going to be a social studies teacher, so I could spread my passion for history with others. Then, I was going to be a high school English teacher, because I was interested in teaching writing, and at one time a middle school English teacher. Eventually, I thought there was great need for special education teachers, and I had personal experience with special education, so I could make a positive impact with my students. Now that I am in North Carolina, I also thought of gifted education, and I think being a reading specialist would be cool as well, since I am passionate about reading and reading research. I guess since reading has impacted my life in such a difficult and huge way, I will always be interested in reading research.

    I believe all students are gifted. I believe we all have special abilities and strengths in different areas. I fully believe in Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. I believe that we need to help students find their abilities. For students who have disabilities, we need to emphasis their abilities and not just their disabilities, which I know I have said before.

    I hope that I can spread my love for writing to students as well and generally educate them about many things of interest. If I can inspire one child, I think that will make a difference.

    On another note, I found out today that there is a journal of poetry therapy. That sounds like a journal that I should subscribe to.

    Below is a photo of an item I picked up this past weekend at Peak Fest in Apex, NC. I picked up some cute stuff there.

Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Wicked and other happenings...

    This Saturday (April 24) Joe and I went to see Wicked at the Durham Performing Arts Center (DPAC). This was the second time we had seen the musical. We originally had seen it when it was on tour in Boston in 2007 (I believe). The performance was awesome. I also love the sound track. Joe bought me the sound track a few years ago for my birthday, and I practically know it by heart now.

    In class Monday night, I participated in a special education panel for my classmates in the general education program. There were six of us. We talked about different issues related to working with students with disabilities. I got to say my part about looking for students abilities and not just at students’ disabilities. I find students in special education or student/individuals with disabilities are defined by what they cannot do, but not what they can do. I was happy to spread that message to my classmates along with other information about working with students with disabilities.

    Last night we had the spring graduate education conference at Meredith College, which I found very interesting. There was a poster session followed by four different sessions of research projects that were presented. For each session, you could choose the research presentation that interested you and sit in on that graduate student's research project for a half an hour. I went to a session on gifted students, RTI (response to intervention), year round schools versus traditional year schools and the effects on reading scores in first grade, and a session on classroom blogs and peer-editing.


    Since National Poetry Month is almost over and I have not had much time to take part in it, I decided to share this word art below. Have you done anything to help celebrate National Poetry Month?

Children's Poetry Books

Lois Lowry

I met Lois Lowry, author of "The Giver" and "Number the Stars" and many other books (38 total), at a book signing on Wednesday night.  She was very interesting.  She showed us a PowerPoint with photos of some of her family, her dog, and her house in Maine (her summer house) and told us about some of her upcoming books.  I bought a hardcover copy of "The Giver" and her newest book 'The Birthday Ball."  I am really busy trying to finish the semester, but I am looking forward to reading them once I have some free time. 

Learning Disabilities workshop, technology, and other updates...

    It has been a busy week. I am happy to report that I have handed in all my paperwork for student teaching. I just have to wait to see what school and classroom I will be placed in. Yesterday, I attended a workshop on the best practices for working with students with learning differences (learning disabilities). The day was comprised of six different workshops on many different topics including teaching writing to students with and without writing disabilities, (Something that seems to be overlooked I think in public schools. At least it was when I was growing up.), study skills and note taking, successful transiting to college for students with learning disabilities, assistive technology, and other topics as well. There were some teachers and other educational professionals from schools for students with learning disabilities (the schools present were from North Carolina). These are private and very expensive schools that specialize in working in children with learning disabilities. They have class sizes of three to five students per class. If you are a high school student, these schools help you research colleges and they know all the best schools with programs for students with learning disabilities. I only knew of a couple when I was in high school, but they mentioned a few new ones yesterday including the SALT program at the University of Arizona  http://www.salt.arizona.edu/.  It makes me wonder how my education would have been different had I attended one of these schools when I was growing up. 

    Tonight, I have set aside some time for writing in my memoir. While I was on spring break, I did some research, and I want to insert some changes into a few chapters of my memoir (I need to write a section or chapter about my misdiagnosis of my learning disability as a child, which definitely impacted my education). I also have some data to enter. . 

    I learned some new websites and technology yesterday as well, one of which is below (well, I actually used two of them to create the below image).  The below image was created at http://www.wordle.net/.  This site allows you to enter any text you want and create different types of random word art. I just entered a few random words that helped describe me. I used a free program called JING to capture the image and save it to my computer and upload it here (I also learned about this yesterday) http://www.jingproject.com/. 

    That's all I have for now.  Check back in the next few days for more updates.  Hopefully, I will be able to make another update this weekend. 

Confidence?

    The topic today is confidence. How do we build children’s confidence? How can we change attitudes of students who are struggling, so that they can have the chance at learning? How do we reduce the anxiety in a classroom for children who struggle? I don’t begin to have the answers to these questions, nor could I ever discuss this thoroughly in a blog post. I could write a 300 page book, and still only scratch the surface, but these are things we need to consider. If children don’t have confidence when they start the early grades, this lack of self confidence builds on itself and can have devastating effects on learning and on the child’s life into adulthood.

    Here is a situation. Say you are a first, second, or third grade student and you can’t read.  You are constantly seeing material in the classroom that you cannot read, and you see you classmates in your classroom reading the material you cannot read. You try to read the material, but you aren’t catching on. What does this do for a child’s confidence and self-esteem and what could be done to repair this? It seems the more a child is put into situations like these, the more hopeless he or she feels. They might begin to say I can’t read. Once they say they can’t read, then it is really hard to break through that. How can we teach something to someone, when that person has made up his or her mind that he or she can’t do it. It is like the old saying, "if you think you can or you can’t you are right." Please, let me know your thoughts on this.

Thanks Joe

This post is partially inspired by a friend of mine's blog post and a status update I made on Facebook the other day, and other things as well. I just wanted to take a moment to say how thankful I am to have found my husband Joe. He is my best friend, my cheese to my wine, my bread to my butter. He understands my deepest thoughts and dreams. He shares those same thoughts and dreams with me. He loves me and believes in me, even when I am not able to (or have not been able to). When I feel overwhelmed, which I do at times with the amount of work I have for my master's degree, and I feel like I should just give up, Joe is there to listen to my frustrations. He knows my worst qualities and loves me just the same. It is so important to have someone to spend your life with.  I couldn't imagine spending it with anyone else.  For all those times that you are there for me and I don't seem to appreciate it or have not told you that I appreciate it, thanks for being you Joe.

Just a Moment for a Poem

By: Amy Donnelly

No time to write
No time for games
No time to run in from the rain

No time to sit
    and contemplate my life
Only time
    to say goodnight

Take a step back
For I fear you will see--
How busy life
Always seems to be.


_________________________________________________

Happy Saturday everyone. The spring semester is almost over. Only 25 days left. Now it is crunch time. I just signed up for fall classes including student teaching and a class on leadership in schools, so I have officially registered for my last semester of my master's degree.

Busy Week

    The last week has been busy. I spent the better part of the week working on homework (from Monday to Thursday). I spent all day Thursday on an assignment, which I feel asleep on at one point and ended up submitted two minutes before the 5pm deadline. I made my decision about student teaching and signed up for the Praxis exam. Since Joe has a long weekend, Joe and I went away yesterday and last night to Wilmington, North Carolina. Above is a photo we took entering Wilmington's neighboring community, the town of Wrightsville Beach.  We did some shopping, walked around a little, and discovered a new favorite restaurant, Bonefish Grill. I had the imperial longfin and Joe had the grilled salmon. There is also a location in Cary, near where Joe and I live.

    I also posted an image to my blog to promote Autism Awareness month.  For more information visit Autism Society.  I put aside some time tonight for writing and possibly working on my book. I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend. Happy Easter everyone.

Bonefish Grill

Happy April and National Poetry Month

    I just wanted to take a few minutes to wish everyone a happy April and National Poetry Month. I hope everyone will be able to take part in National Poetry Month in some way, either through being involved in the writing community or through poetry itself. If you are not a poet or a writer, take time this month to read one or two poems. I have a poetry book I recently read to recommend. The book is by a North Carolina Poet Terri Kriby Erickson. Her new book is called Telling Tales of Dusk.

    I also wanted to share with everyone that I have signed up to take the Praxis teaching exam on Saturday July 24. I will be taking two tests back to back. The exams start at 7:30 am, which I am not overly happy about. I hate taking tests in the morning. I will devote the day before to studying and going to bed early. At least I don't have class on Fridays. I will be taking classes all summer as well, two classes for the first six week session and two classes for the second six week session.

    I wanted to share a couple of article of interest. The first is about America's best beaches.
America's Best Beaches    The next article is about Dyslexia.  Dyslexia

    I hope everyone has a beautiful Easter weekend.  Check back soon for more updates.  Thanks for stopping by.