Five Things I Love About the Holiday Season

There are so many things, but here are a few things that I think make the holidays feel real special:
1. Christmas Music

2. Decorating my house

3, Baking cookies and making chocolates even if they are not good snack foods

4. Driving around to see holiday light displays

5. Finding a perfect gift for someone you love

Student Teaching is Done!

    I just completed my last day of student teaching yesterday.  It was bitter sweet, since I am going to miss the students, the other teachers, and the school.  We had a pizza party for the kids to celebrate.  They cleared up six whole pizzas.  They also wrote me letters about the favorite lessons we did while I was teaching, which I plan to keep. 

    My master's degree coursework is also complete now.  I can barely remember the last few weeks, since I was busy writing so many assignments and papers and finishing my portfolio.  It is so strange that this journey has come to an end already. 

Busy Time of Year

    Happy belated Thanksgiving everyone. This year Joe and I spent our first Thanksgiving with friends and family in New Hampshire since we moved down here. It was great to be home for the holiday. We had our meal with my parents and then stopped by Joe's brother's house afterwards to say hi to people. Our flight on the way home was delayed for a couple of hours. That is just one of the many joys of flying.

    Seven days left of student teaching. I can't believe it has gone by so fast. I will miss it there a lot. Now it is on to Christmas shopping, Christmas decorating, Christmas cookies, and Christmas music. Let the season begin.

New Teaching Links

   I just wanted to share a couple of links.  First, scroll down to the bottom of my blog and you will notice I added a children's book level finder.  You can search popular children's books through this widget and you will be directed to the approximate reading level of the book.  The same resource is available at http://bookwizard.scholastic.com/tbw/homePage.do.  I might find another place on my blog for the search box eventually, but this is the location for now. 

   I also wanted to share one of my favorite worksheet websites called Super Teacher Worksheets.  This site is especially good for teachers working with elementary aged students.  The next link on the scholastic website is good for beginning readers and features Clifford and interactive games http://teacher.scholastic.com/clifford1/. 

   This next website allows students to create a graph online.  I used this with my fourth grade students, but this could be used up through high school.  http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/

   On another note, this week is Geography Awareness Week.  You can read about it at http://geography.about.com/od/teachgeography/a/gaw.htm. 

  That's all I have for now.  Thanks for reading my blog.  Check back soon for more posts. 

Another Year Older

Well, yesterday was my birthday.  That means another year done and another year older.  This past year has flown by with completing graduate school and student teaching.  Plus, I started writing my book, took a few trips (including a week in Disney World), and was in my friend's wedding.  I only have a little over three weeks of student teaching left and that includes the week of Thanksgiving when there is only two school days. 

This next year is going to be a busy year as well.  One of my first priorities will be to find my first teaching job.  I'll have to finish getting my portfolio, etc. together.  I would also like to do some traveling and continue to work on my book. 

Terry and Brian's Wedding

    Our friends Terry and Brian got married this weekend. Joe and I were in the wedding party. We wanted to save some money, so we drove up. The drive up was a little crazy between the awful traffic we were stuck in for 3 hours around D.C. and the rain. Once we got there, we changed and headed to the rehearsal. The weekend flew by. Before we knew it we were at the church. The bride was beautiful and picture perfect. Joe and I did some dancing at the reception, which allowed us to burn off some of that extra food we were eating. Yesterday we drove home. We stopped and did some shopping at Peddler's Village along the way.

    We are both so happy for Brian and Terry and we wish them a happy life together and an awesome honeymoon at Disney World.

Halloween 2010

  

   Another month of October is coming to an end.  Tonight Joe and I went to a Halloween costume party at a friend's house.  I dressed as Twister (the game) and my husband was Where's Waldo.  The costumes were tons of fun.  It has been a while since I dressed up for Halloween.  I kind of missed it.  It was fun this week with the kids in my classes, since kids love Halloween.  I was able to do a few Halloween themed activities, and I gave out Halloween pencils during writing.  Happy Halloween everyone. 

Rain or Snow

    We have all experienced these days.  There is some form of severe weather outside.  Maybe it is a killer lightning storm with harsh winds, or snow falling so fast that you can no longer see where you parked your car.  Be that as it may, there are always those days when you just want to stay inside.  Though we probably wouldn't have any severe winter weather like I experienced in New Hampshire, North Carolina has days when you just feel like staying inside.  So what to do?  Here are a few things I like to do until nature is through: 

1.  Curl up with a blanket on the coach and watch your favorite movie. 
2.  Read a book that you have been putting off. 
3.  Bake cookies.  This is especially good on a cold winter day. 
4.  Day dream about my next vacation or otherwise plan where I would like to go. 
5.  Play scrabble or another board game with my husband while drinking hot chocolate. 

Busy, Busy

    So the last few weeks have been packed like the beach on the fourth of July and the rest of the year is going to go by in a similar fashion.  Right now I am working on my resume.  I plan to start looking for jobs in November.  My student teaching internship is already half way done, since I had my mid-term evaluation this week.  I also have multiple projects and papers that I am currently working on.  I am going to start a class newsletter for the remainder of my internship as well.  That should help keep me busy. 

    Next month, I am a bridesmaid in my friend's wedding.  Joe is also the best man in the same wedding.  I just picked up my dress from being steamed yesterday.

Student Teaching and Other Updates

    A couple weeks have gone by since my last update on student teaching and my semester so far. Student teaching is going well. So far math has been easiest and most interesting to teach. So much has changed in how math is taught since I was a kid, so many times I have to brush up on my math skills. There is a lot less memorization then there used to be in math, and I have to keep that in mind when I teach. Today's students are expected to understand the why behind math and not just memorize how to complete the problems. Place value. addition, and subtraction is taught using something called base 10 blocks. The blocks come in either 1, 10, 100, or 1,000 and can be added together to represent numbers. Borrowing and carrying for addition and subtraction and now called regrouping and is many times taught through using these base 10 blocks.


    Well, that is it for now. I’m looking forward to a busy week ahead. This weekend is my husband Joe and I’s 6 year wedding anniversary. He has a bad virus or flu or some sort right now, so hopefully he will feel better by this weekend, and I don’t get sick. That way we can enjoy a day together. I think we are going to Old Salem in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. There is one of my favorite restaurants out there and it is just so beautiful to walk around with the old buildings and tall oak and maple trees.