Finished!

Ah, it is so sweet to be done! I had my last day of school on Friday. They threw me a sweet suprise party, we had breakfast, did crafts, and enjoyed being together. They wrote me some sweet cards that I will always keep and be proud to share!

This week I am resting mostly, working at Starbucks, filling out a million applications, and getting ready to graduate! I will be graduationg next Saturday, and then Kyle and I will be MIA for a week. We will be camping and celebrating our 4 year anniversay! Can you believe it? I can't! When we get back we will have a graduation celebration, and you're invited! More details to come!!

Anyways, I wanted to share something beautiful, hopeful, and encouraging I read this morning...

I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness and you will acknowledge the Lord.

Hosea 2:19-20

Last week of school!!

I cannot believe I am nearly finished with Student Teaching! My last day is Friday which is even a half day!! I am not teaching anything this week, but doing some observations in other rooms, grading papers, and working on a couple of bulletin boards. I am making my students a card with our picture together and working on pulling something together for my CT. It truly has been a wonderful experience, so much that I learned through this experience. It is a blessing to have been told repeatedly that I need to apply for a position in the next school year. So Sweet!!! I am going to miss my teachers and students most definitely! Since I am on the sub list already, I am going in next week one day to sub while my teacher takes the day off! But I am still considering Friday my "last day," we are having an ice cream party and a fun, short day!! Thanks for following my blog! In the next two weeks I will be working more at Starbucks, finishing my portfolio, and heading to beautiful, sunny South Carolina to see many familiar and loved faces and graduate!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!

Backing up to Spring Break - Chicago

Kyle and I got to take a wonderful trip to Chicago for my SB. Here are a few pictures.

FREE Cubs game - seats right behind the mound!!

We saw Ernest Hemmingway's childhood home in Oak Park.

Art Museum of course! I had to get my picture by this ballet painting!

Beautiful Song.

I heard this beautiful song on the radio and wanted to share it. Such beautiful, and true lyrics! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-w6YG2NZguc Spring break is nearly over! I will post some pictures this weekend about what I have been up to! Back to school Monday and Zoo field trip on Tuesday! Three weeks left :)

Overdue.

It has been long overdue that I update my blog on ST. I am in the full swing of things now, and will be finished with my two full weeks of ST the end of this week! Then I will have a lovely week of SB and go back for 3 more weeks of some teaching/observing/loving & admiring these sweet kids. I have had a great experience and am SO thankful to be with such a good group of kids as well as fellow teachers. I have laughed with and learned from these teachers more than I realized I would. As for the kids, I have grown to adore them, and will miss them terribly. It has been wonderful to see them grow/change over the last few weeks and getting to know them each so well. I wanted to share with you some of the laughs I have had over the last two weeks of FT teaching. 1. Heritage is big of reading as a class and following along together, they call this "Bounce." I did the same thing when I was in school but we called it "Popcorn." I made the terrible mistake of calling it Popcorn and the class lost it, they thought it was the biggest blunder AND they thought we were having popcorn! Oh my, the laughs we had! 2. One of my good readers read "he looked at him with a slobery face" instead of "sober." And ohh the laughs! 3. During a third grade rotation, my class comes back after another class had been in there. One boy exclaims for all to hear "Those kids pulled everything out of my desk and threw my pencil across the floor!" I had to gently remind him that those sweet kids from across the hall did not in fact go anywhere but the floor, he was a little embarressed :) There are so many others! I hope you atleast could smile at these! Some sweet times that I have shared with my class: 1. Talking about Jesus' brokenness in Gethsemane. We talked about what it was like to be broken, and they shared times they felt broken, and what they did when they felt that way. 2. I have them writing "kindness cards" about people they seeing doing something friendly or going out of their way to serve someone, we share these on Fridays. Oh the smiles kids get when they realize that what they are doing counts and others appreciate them! 3. My class getting excited about helping others in their class and doing their best. This certainly is not the case everyday or all day, but it is so sweet when it happens naturally. 4. Sincere apologies and biblical conversations with a child when they have had a hard day doing what is right. Their sweet apologies remind of the simplicity of being a "Child of God" I will miss this dear class! So much more to share!

Third Grade Scientists.

As previously said, my favorite subject has definitely been Science! I love bringing in supplemental materials to share and having them do lots of fun activities.

The first few pictures are from a habitat activity we did. I gave each group a book on a different habitat and their job was the locate basic information (filling in a worksheet I made) and then make a poster to share about their habitat with the class. It is an understatement to say they LOVED doing this. I think they enjoyed the freedom + working in groups + creating something. This was a great activity!

The last pictures are from my animal unit. Every year third graders make habitats and mosaics on an animal they choose to research. I took some pictures to show you how creative these kids are! They all truly turned out wonderful, and they really enjoyed doing these projects.

Last but not least, my desk with a personalized sign and all! And of course our class caterpillars we are watching grow!

Sillies.

Okay, so my girls daily ask me if I have my camera and if we can take pictures...this week I happened to have it! This was the third or so picture we got without the boys in the background giving us bunny ears! So of course after we girls had a picture, the boys clammored around me! So sweet! I have become very fond of this group of children and will miss them dearly. I can't believe they will be big 4th graders soon! This means that I am nearing the end of my ST, which I am thrilled about (because I'll have a degree and maybe a class of my own!), but sad for the obvious reason that I will miss these kiddos.

This week will be standardized testing, then two weeks of full-time teaching, and then Spring Break! One of the harder parts of ST is after you have taught and then have to give a test that covers the material I taught, wow. I sure do feel a lot of pressure, and pray these little ones do well. It is very difficult when I see grades plummet, and it is very each to blame myself and my teaching. Fortunately, my CT reminds me that she too felt the same way, but when it is only 2 or 3 that don't do well, I can't blame myself, there is often something else underlying this. Of course it does the other way, and when they do wonderfully, I can't help but be thankful.

Anyhow, getting some spring cleaning done today, not much planning this weekend because of standardized testing next week!