Sally Student

Some days I believe that I was NOT called to be a Kindergarten teacher, especially on the days when they ALL forget how to stand in line ... how to go to the restroom ... how to sit on the carpet ... how to take turns ... how to NOT hit/kick/bite/poke one another ... you get the idea.

HOWEVER, they are the cutest little people and I do love them dearly. This week one of our focus themes is 'We are all alike and different', and so we made a "student" together that reflects everyone's contributions! (Some made the eyes, hair, nose, socks, shoes, watch, etc.) Tomorrow we are doing another cool activity which should be even cuter, so I'll try to get some photos too. Meanwhile, they are just too darn cute in this picture to not share :) Enjoy!!



The finished product:



Yes, you absolutely may laugh :)
If you had seen how stinkin' proud they were of Sally Student you'd be laughing even harder. I hung her up next to the door and every time we walk by they go "Hiiii Sally!!!!" and some have even tried to give her a hug.

A RUSHED Evening

I'm so, so, so, so sorry about the lack of posting lately!

I've been working some seriously long hours, plus I've been a little sick so it hasn't been on the top of my priorities. However, I will get you caught up since my last post about our anniversary asap!

First, since we didn't take a First Anniversary picture, this is the two of us a week later at the Rush concert:

(We are pretty sweaty... Texas heat, you know)

This concert was at 7pm at the Woodland's Pavilion. Thank you Dad for the awesome tickets!
I had an all day training in Brenham that day (a very LONG, BORING, HORRIBLE training) so I had to do some serious hustling to get back to Houston, change clothes and head to The Woodlands with Bryan. It was worth it though!


Here are some photos of RUSH!





Bryan loves this band and regularly practices their songs on his bass and guitar. I think he'd love to play their songs on drums, too, but thankfully we don't own that particular instrument :)
I'm sure he'll fix that as soon as we don't live on top of anyone, haha.

I have some adorable photos of my students, too, but I feel like they deserve their own post :)

Our 1st Anniversary!

Yesterday, 09-19-10 was our first anniversary!! It's been such a wonderful year with each other and we had a great day celebrating :)

First, the really really sad news - we didn't get a photo together!! :(
However, I'm determined to find someone to take one of us either tonight or tomorrow. I want to be able to put a photo of each anniversary into our wedding album.

We slept in (8:30!!) and then felt like heathens because we skipped church ... to go to Bryan's surprise for me: a couple's massage! It was really relaxing, and since I've been having such awful neck pain since the surgery, it loosened some of that tension up too. I didn't know we wouldn't be going to church, or we would have gone Saturday night. I don't think Bryan realized there was such a thing as a Saturday evening service. They had us in the same room and everything. Bryan's so funny when he giggles - and he can't help being super ticklish, so it happened a lot, haha.

We went to lunch together, and then to demonstrate just HOW much Bryan loves me, we went to get our new library cards!! I hadn't made it over there yet, and I've been craving something new to read, so we both checked out a few books. How sweet is that? Of course, all of Bryan's books were about retirement, 401k, mutual funds, etc., haha.

We also stopped by Barnes and Noble because I wanted to use a gift card to purchase a book for my classroom full of Nursery Rhymes and popular children's songs. TWO book errands in one day! That's true love!

We went back home, watched a movie together, and then he watched football while I read one of the books I just checked out.

SUCH.A.PERFECT.DAY.

It was also fun to think back to our wedding day, our nerves, and the fun we had. Plus our honeymoon to Maui!! It's actually quite hard to believe that was an entire year ago.

Thanks for everyone's love!!

Surprise Visit!

Thank goodness it's SATURDAY which means no school!! I did attend an ALL day T.A.L.L. training :( but thankfully there were no children I needed to watch over. I do need weekends to spend time with some adults!

On Friday there was a very unexpected but fun visit to my classroom - from my parents! I had no idea they were coming, but during my lunch break I got a call from the front office saying "parents" were there. I was very confused because parent/teacher conferences are usually scheduled in advance and NOT ever during my lunch break (teachers deserve that 20 minute break!) So I hurried to the office and lo and behold, my Mom & Dad were standing there waiting for me! What a cool surprise! They wanted to meet my students and see the classroom. It was great timing because I was about to collect my students from lunch and walk them back to the classroom. My parents officially checked in and then joined us in the "march" to the Kindergarten hallway. I think Dad found the bubbles & ducktails they have to do pretty silly :)

When we got back to the classroom I had my students sit with their partner in their assigned spot on the floor (they all spread out). Then I introduced my parents! I think my kids were super surprised I have a Mom and Dad too, haha. Then, since we had been practicing speaking in complete sentences all week, I had each student stand up, and use complete sentences to introduce themselves to my parents - giving their name and something that they like. It was really cute and ALL of them used complete sentences!! (Proud teacher moment.) PLUS they almost all also used the good listening skills we've been practicing (meaning not talking or rolling around or trying to eat someone's hair, etc., while someone else is talking) - double proud teacher moment :)

Then, continuing with our math sorting unit, I passed out a small container of varied buttons to each pair and they started sorting their buttons by size or color while my parents walked around and visited with some of the kids.

I LOVE surprises and that was so sweet :)

I also wanted to leave you with an adorable photo of my students with their leaf project. One or two of my students are missing, but it's still really cute! They were SO proud of these projects!



And here's a photo of my students just looking cute.
It's really providence that 5 year olds are this adorable :)



We just finished eating at Hasta La Pasta because they gave all teachers a $20 gift certificate (yay!) and then we got some delicious gelato, yummm.

Now we're watching some college football and enjoying a relaxing evening at home.

Tomorrow is an extra special day - can you guess what it is??

Putting together our N-A-M-E-S

My class did a really cute activity yesterday. I wrote every student's name on a sentence strip and then cut each letter out individually. The student had to take the mixed up letters and glue them back together in the proper order onto construction paper to make their name. Not only was it funny to see the deep concentration, but some of the results made me giggle :) Most of the kiddos did great - but a few had some creative ways to put together their name!!!


Here is our Look At What We Did wall with all of the names shown!

Here are a couple of the more "creative" (or potentially confused) responses:





And here are some of the other responses looking goooood (with a few backwards or upside down letters, haha):

Too funny. I'm proud of them for working so hard on these, though.

I hope everyone had a good Tuesday!

Birthday dinner & Mom's Retreat

I've been so incredibly busy trying to stay afloat with all of the lesson planning, prep work and other random teacher duties I have to do that I was starting to feel like friends and family were being neglected. Thankfully Bryan has had the opportunity to spend some time with his family lately or I would have started to feel extra-bad!

Thankfully we had some great family time this weekend!!

First on Friday evening we went to dinner with Bryan's family - MeMaw, Paw, Roger, Lety, Maddie, Ronnie, Celina, Alexandra & Ronnie - to celebrate both Roger & Paw's birthdays that happened this past week. (Plus all the ladies & kiddos went to Tuti Fruti to eat some delicious frozen yougurt while the menfolk enjoyed margaritas. Yumm.)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY AGAIN!

Then that night we saw our friends Collin & Laura for about an hour before we decided we NEEDED to go to bed badly or we'd be even more exhausted on Saturday.

Saturday we ran a ton of errands and I spent the day getting lots of teacher stuff accomplished, and then we met Dad at the Circle Lake Retreat Center where we surprised Mom by attending a Candle Light Service in support of all of the retreat-attendees (of which Mom was one). Following the service, Bryan & I drove to my parent's house in Conroe and spent the night there so we could attend church and have lunch with my parents on Sunday.

Sunday's church service was really nice - especially because Mom was singing :) (She has such a fabulous voice!) Lunch was nice, and then we headed back to the house. Bryan & Dad watched football and played pool while Mom & I made 24 "chair pockets." I'll post a photo tomorrow of what they look like. Online you can find them for anywhere between $13-$45 EACH (ouch) but I was able to make them for a little less than $2.50 each which made me quite happy, especially since I needed at minimum 18 which would get expensive very fast. Wait until you see how clever teachers can be :)

I'm going to get some more planning done & go to bed very early tonight.
I hope everyone is staying dry & enjoying a lovely weekend!

18

Question: How does (now) 18 students manage to feel like 40!?

My, but that's a lot of 5 year olds in one room.

Today went really smoothly considering we just came off of a 3 day weekend. Kuddos to the kiddos for remembering most of the rules and procedures.... and even helping each other remember them sometimes today :) Many thanks to the Magic School Bus for making inside recess more bare-able!

This week we have some pretty fun activities to mix in with all of the drier curriculum, so I hope the students enjoy them! I plan to! I was so proud of them for learning to use scissors nicely last week, so that means they're getting promoted to get to do more fun stuff.

Bryan's got a cold, though, poor fellow. Maybe being a supportive husband during a stressful time is weakening his immune system :) Or maybe I've just been bringing home all of the colds that my students have. Eww.

3 day weekends are the BEST!

This weekend Bryan & I drove to Coleman, TX to my family's ranch, The Happy M. I'm so glad we went! My parents were there, my cousin Kevin, my Aunt Jana and Uncle Keith and their family, plus my Meemaw and Papaw all turned out for the fun.

We had lots of projects, but the main event was dove hunting! Granted, the doves really weren't flying very well because of how dry its been, but we still had lots of fun. Some folks went hog hunting and others just ventured out to check out the deer before October's deer season comes around.


Even though it's dry, our place is so pretty:

There were lots of deer:

We camped out by the pond for dove hunting:

Bryan & Dad were both successful! Me? Not so much... Maybe next time :)

And here's Bryan & I with some of our cousins cleaning the doves:

This weekend was so much fun and so relaxing. We had such great weather, too! Which was especially nice since we drove back to Houston in a crazy downpour, and apparently it's going to keep storming all week. Thank you, Tropical Storm Hermine. (Inside recess? Yuck!)

I hope everyone else had a wonderful Labor Day weekend!

The Good, Bad & Ugly

The Good: Today was the best day I've so far with my students!! Both the morning & the afternoon went pretty well, so I'm really proud of my kiddos, and made sure to tell them so, too :) I can't really explain how much that means to me. It's hard to have a rough day after a rough day after a rough day.... and on and on. So bring on some more good days!!

(Side note: I got ANOTHER new student today! Up to 17. But she only cried for a few hours!)

The Bad: It would be unprofessional to give too many details, but there was basically a very upsetting meeting today - followed by another equally upsetting meeting. I was feeling so awful when I left school that I just cried on the way home. Thankfully the "bad" parts of my day did NOT have anything to do with my students though! And a family friend, Mrs. Powell, took us out for Mexican food - which made things much better. I was able to put that out of my mind for a little while before diving into some serious lesson planning.

The Ugly: This is pathetic, but the stress I've been feeling has been manifesting itself physically. I am breaking out horribly! Ew. I haven't had acne like this since I was 13. I'm so glad you are unable to see my nose right now...

I also found out that ALL of my lesson plans for next week are due tomorrow by 4:30 :(
The upside? There's only 4 days next week. I still better get to it!

Aw, crumbs!

We're both posting tonight! Just thought I'd let you know that I got another new student yesterday! I had the song from the Sound of Music "I am 15 going on 16" stuck in my head forever :)

16 is a nice even number, 4 to each of my tables.

Plus it was a girl! I keep getting more and more boys, so I was kind of relieved to see my numbers were going to start evening out again. She pretty much cried all day long, but the really hard sobbing stopped around lunch.

I noticed that whenever someone from our front office walks down the hallway with a scared looking child, maybe a parent, and a green slip of paper we all tense up, waiting to see which of us gets the new student. It's SO much easier to start with a big number than to get new students! 5 year olds need to be told EVERYTHING about 20 times (or more) to really learn a new rule or procedure, so every time we get someone new we have to start from scratch. You'd think my students who have already been there for 8 days would be like, "this is how we do it" except most of them still can't remember or make the choice to NOT do it correctly, so I'm not sure I want them teaching her how "they" do it, haha.

My new student today made sure to crunch up all of her crackers from lunch and then throw the pieces/crumbs ALL over the gym floor during P.E., which the coaches were NOT happy about. We had a talk about making decisions and then the consequences that follow the decisions. When the consequences included her helping to sweep up the mess you can only imagine how loudly she screamed. Taking responsibility for our actions is HARD - at 60 years old, 23 years old, and 5 years old.

This is the first story I thought I could appropriately post - you wouldn't believe some of the other nonsense my students get up to, although we're making progress I like to believe :)

The power of positive thinking!

I love sitting here and listening to Bryan play the guitar. I think I'm going to listen to him for a little while and then sleep the deep sleep of the exhausted first year teacher.

News on the Job Front - Bryan

Hello everyone. This actually Bryan tonight! I haven't done the blogging thing in a long time but thought this would be a good medium to catch everyone up on things.

So as of last Friday, I am no longer employed. I tried to work something out were I could work on a temporary basis while I search for a position here in the Houston area, but they seemed to have a more you're either in or out approach. I was able to work my last two weeks from home, so I was here with Kate which was great.

In regards to a position in Houston, I have been in talks with Anadarko recently about a position in the Southern Region Regulatory Department. The position is for a Process Analyst, which means I would help out groups in the regulatory department to streamline the various processes they go through for drilling oil and gas (mostly gas).

Well, today I interviewed for the position! I thought everything went really well. It was a different kind of interview than I was used to. This morning I looked up interview techniques and sample interview questions and went over things in my head in preparation. I emailed it to myself so that when I got there I could go over things quickly in the car before heading inside. Turns out I didn't use hardly any of what I had prepared.

When I got there, I was met by a man named Frank who I had been in touch with regarding the position. He took me up to the 22nd floor where they work and we walked into his office. He then proceeded to talk for a good 20-25 minutes straight about the position and what their department does and why they need it and what not. I think in the first half hour I maybe said a couple things. It was almost as if he were explaining everything to me and asking if it sounds like something I would like to do. I'm sitting there thinking, "of course I do!" I explained a little about what I did at my previous job, what I think I have to offer in terms of the position, etc. It was a very comfortable experience which is great because I tend to get very tense in interviewing situations. After meeting with Frank, I met with two others that work in the Southern Region. Both explained the need that they have for someone to help out.

All in all it was a great experience! I know Anadarko is a great company and I hope everything works out. I have a call tomorrow with Frank to kind of recap everything we talked about today. To top everything off, I ran into Dean Hennings on the elevator ride down. In walking to the parking garage, we got to chat a bit about how everything went. He was very supportive and even offered to contact Frank and see if there was any information he needed about me!

I apologize if this was a long post, but I thought I would try to catch everyone up as to how everything has been going on my end!

Bryan