Sorry it's been sooo long....

Sorry it has been so long since I last posted.  Things have picked up, and I have gotten very busy.  I just finished my fourth week in my first placement.  I am halfway done!  I am excited about this because I am closer to being done with student teaching, but I'm also very sad I'm halfway because that means I have to leave my kids in four weeks.  I have picked up a subject each week, and starting next week I will be full time teaching!  I am super excited to being teaching all day! 

I started teaching writing.  We have worked on learning how to write "how to" stories.  They are currently publishing their stories so we can have our author celebration on Tuesday.  Some of them are doing their stories on how to draw different things.  I will definitely be keeping a hold of those so I can learn how to draw! We will move into nonfiction expository next week, and they will be picking an animal or something to do research on for this unit.  The next subject I picked up was science.  This time of the day is rotated between three areas social skills, science, and social studies.  When I first started with the kids they were doing social skills (mainly talking about bullying as there have been problems with that).  Now it's science time and I am teaching a unit on water.  We were working on understanding surface tension, but it was a struggle for them to understand it.  I am currently searching for a book at their level that will hopefully help them understand it more. Then I started reading this week, but I have been teaching a small reading group.  We are reading James and the Giant Peach in our small group.  The class was finishing up their unit on comparing and contrasting, fact and opinion, and making judgements.  They took their post test today, and many of them passed and did really well!  Finally, this coming week I will start math.  They are finishing up their unit on multiplication/division and story problems including two-step problems.  Our next unit is fractions, of course very basic fractions.  I have enjoyed teaching the subjects I have so far, and finding different ways to make my lessons interactive and fun. 




Next week on Wednesday is the 100th day of school.  We have different things planned for the day.  In writing they are going to write a story titled "When I'm 100...."  They will also do stuff in math pertaining to 100.  Outside we have posted four different posters with different titles.  One says "100 ways to make 100", the next one says "100 questions about anything", the third one says "100 places I'd like to visit", and the last one says "100 ways to be nice".  They will then write stuff down on post-its and stick on the poster it goes with.  I'm excited to see what they come up with.  They will start working on these on Monday, and will hopefully be done with them by Wednesday!

Here are two funny conversations from my kids.  I am going to try and remember to write these down as there are many more of these I wish I could remember! 

I was working on story problems with one little boy.  He can mentally solve the problem, but when you ask him to show you an equation he used to solve it he gets a little upset.  So while we were working this happened...
Me:  Good job, can you tell me what equation you used to solve it?
Boy:  Uhh! (takes his pencil and starts hitting it on his forehead like he was trying to break it in half)
Me: Be careful you might...
As I was talking he broke the pencil in half on his forehead.
Boy:  Oops! Sorry!
Me:  (trying not to laugh) Don't tell me sorry.  You didn't hurt me.
Boy:  Ohhhh, but I hurt me.  Now I have wood in my brain from my pencil.
Me: (still trying to contain my laughter)  I promise I'm not laughing at you I'm laughing with you.
Boy:  But Miss Drake I'm not laughing.

Boy to my cooperating teacher: My hair itches do you think I have those bugs (meaning lice)
My cooperating teacher:  I doubt you do.  Did you take a shower today?
Boy:  No
Cooperating Teacher:  Sometimes when you don't take a shower your scalp can get dry, especially in the winter.
Boy: Oh...(walks over to me) Hey, I think I have those bug in my earbrows.
Me: What are those?
He points to his eyebrows
Me:  Oh you mean your eyebrows.
Boy:  Yeah, those!

Freak Out Mode..

Ok...not so much, but I am freaking a little...ok alot!  I had training today for student teaching, and when I woke up this morning I felt I was ready to go for student teaching.  After the training today and listening to student teachers from last semester I became more nervous.  I'm sure I will do just fine, but listening to them talk about planning, taking over, and their teacher work sample I must say I feel a little overwhelmed.

The good news is while I do all of that planning I can watch all my guilty pleasure tv shows that are starting back up again!  Tonight The Bachelor starts (which I'm watching as I write this!)  Tomorrow night The Biggest Loser starts, which the last season just ended a month ago. So glad I don't have to wait forever for the next season to start.  Thursday I mean Jersday I'll be getting my fist pumping and jersey turnpiking on!  Then next Tuesday the final season of One Tree Hill starts, and I have been waiting for this to start back up for a long time! Then the Real Housewives of The O.C. starts in February.  Needless to say I will be busy with student teaching and watching my tv shows!

I hope everyone's holiday season was great!  I had a good one, and spent it with the people that mean the most to me.  My sister and I got back into Iowa a little later than expected, but what do you expect with Amtrak always late or always something happening to make you late.  While she was back we went ice skating, to Zombie Burger, and a bunch of other stuff.  It was nice to have her home and I'm ready for her to be back for good! One of the best presents that we got was a DVD full of my dad and his dad, Pa Dave, 8 mm videos of them riding motorcycles and enduro races.  It was so much fun sitting there listening to stories.  Pa Dave was ranked #1 nationally toward the end of his career.  My dad never lost a race...besides one.  He was going around the first turn and his bike stopped.  He tried kick starting it a couple times it wouldn't start so he threw his bike down and walked away!  My sister and I definitely found out where we get our competitiveness from! 

Alright I'm off to watch The Bachelor, as I have lost all motivation for this post.  I will keep everyone updated on how the week goes with the kids!

Big City Trip

So I told you that I would blog about my trip out to visit my sister so here it goes....

I left last Friday on the train.  It was a pretty good ride until we got into Denver.  We were about two miles from the station and we came to a stop.  I figured we couldn't get into the station due to a freight train coming through.  We sat there for awhile, and then the conductor came over the intercom to let us know that part of the rail had broken off and when it did the luggage car and dorm car fell off.  This all happened about two miles from the station.  We were told that it would be about another two hours before we got into the station.  We couldn't get off the train because we were in the rail yard, and if we were to get off and a freight train hit us Amtrak would of being responsible for it.  So instead I sat on a train two miles from the station for almost three hours.  Good thing I can sleep anywhere :)

Once we finally got in we went and ate at Snooze which is a really good breakfast place.  After that we went back home got ready and headed downtown.  My sister and I made our first trip to H&M.  We had to wait outside in a line because they were over capacity, once we got in we figured out why.  There were so many clothes that my sister and I both wanted.  After that we went and saw The Muppets with my sister's friend Megan.  It was pretty good, but I was also super tired so I didn't enjoy it too much.

On Sunday we slept in and then went to the Broncos vs Patriots game.  This was my sister's first NFL experience and my third.  I absolutely loved it as it was a different atmosphere than the Chiefs games I had been to.  Here are a few pictures from the game.

Heading to the game with the mountains in the background.

Walking to the stadium.

National Anthem

I love me some sisterbear and football!

She loves her Broncos!

As do I!

We were walking out of the stadium and I decided to Tebow.  Yes, that is my sister on the far left Tebowing...I was successful in getting her to Tebow even though she claims she caved to peer pressure!

Although we didn't win it was worth it to see this in person.  Here is the video of Tom Brady getting sacked!  Although he gets right up it was a hard hit, and the crowd went crazy when it happened.

Our other fun adventure for the trip was going to our first NHL game.  We watched the Avalanches vs. the Flyers.  It was pretty exciting, but we didn't know enough about the rules of hockey to really get into it.  We left after the second period because we were tired, my sister had to work, and we were ahead 2-1.  By the time we got home, we turned it on to see the last minute or so in the game.  With 20 seconds left the Flyers tied it up 2-2 to go into overtime.  No one scored in overtime so they went to a shoot out.  The Avalanches won the shoot out 3-2 and won the game.  We may of missed the most exciting part, but at least we got to see it on TV.

The rest of the time here was spent relaxing...catching up on my sleep and enjoying my time with my sister.  Last night Mother Nature decided to grace us with her presence by dropping around 10 inches of snow.  When we woke up this morning it was still snowing.  We are hoping it doesn't cause any problems with our trip home.  So far we are in the clear, but there is still alot of time before our train leaves.

This picture does not do a good job of showing how much snow there is here, but I was too big of a baby to go outside to get a better picture.

I had fun in the big city, but I'm ready to get back home to see every one and enjoy the holidays with the family!

Student Teaching

I have visited both of my student teaching placements already.  I am equally excited for both of my placements as they are both very different and will be different experiences.

My first placement is in a 3rd grade classroom in a very diverse neighborhood.  When I went and visited the classroom I could see that I would be learning a lot of classroom management skills.  It may of just been the day that I was there, but there was some reluctant students who didn't really want to participate while I was there.  I introduced myself to the students, and they were able to ask me questions.  After that I stuck around to see how the class worked.  They were doing a social skills lesson where they were working giving compliments.  There has been some bullying issues going on in the classroom, and in this lesson they were working on being bucket fillers.  (See the book Have You Filled A Bucket Today?)  They were to write a compliment about one of the students in the class of their choice, and then the teacher assigned them a student they don't normally talk to and were told to give them a compliment as well.  Their compliments had to be more than just face value compliments.  One little girl got up and told her compliment about the student she doesn't normally talk to, "I know I don't normally talk to you, but you are a good illustrator and you are very nice."  It was interesting to sit there and see the interactions and what they came up with.  I'm also very excited because they have alot of technology that I can work with (smartboards and iPads).  I haven't had a lot of chances to work with these kind of gadgets and I'm ready to learn!

My second placement is my special education placement.  I will be working mainly with 4th and 5th graders as it was set up a month ago.  This experience will be more different than what I was used to.  During my Phase II, I was able to see a successful co-teaching relationship.  The special education teacher worked directly with the second grade general education teacher.  They taught lessons together, and did everything together.  The special education teacher did some pullout throughout the day, but rarely did the general education teacher teach on his own.  This experience will be different in the fact that, this teacher does alot of pull out, and moves from classroom to classroom.  She does do some co-teaching, but it isn't like what I saw during my Phase II.  It will be interesting to see how this teacher handles going back and forth and managing her time with all of the students. 

I'm super excited to get going with my student teaching, but I'm not excited for the early start of January 2nd, but then again I get two weeks off during student teaching, where normal college students only get one week. 

In other news I am out visiting my sister having an absolute blast.  I will be posting another blog toward the end of my stay talking about all the fun activities we have done.  Off to make supper with the sisterbear! 

I am missing a very important someone though...can't wait to snuggle up with her when I get home...miss you Bella! Oh yea I miss my mom and dad too!

kenny and tim...yes please!

Today I managed to get our tickets for Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw for this summer!  They are doing a tour together with only ten stops and we will be on the floor for one of those dates! I can't wait :)

These last couple of weeks will be fun and emotional.  I will be leaving cf to head back home to student teach.  I will be leaving so many great friends...I guess I won't be leaving them just won't be seeing them as often.  I will start a new chapter in my life as I will continue on the path to the real world! I will be enjoying my next two weeks to come, and after that I'm off to see the sisterbear in the big city.  We will be hitting up an NFL and a NHL game while I'm there among other fun stuff she already has planned I'm sure!  I can't wait to be back out there with her!

Standing in the street downtown on St. Paddy's Day!

 Alright, I'm almost done!  This video has been floating around fbook the last couple of days and I feel the need to share it.  As a future teacher I am very passionate about ending bullying.  Not only because of my profession, but so that no one I know, my kids, or anyone for that matter has to feel this way.  This is a very powerful video and the message is inspirational!  When you are getting ready to complain about someone or say something hurtful...think to yourself and ask how would you feel if someone said that very same thing to you.  Bullying needs to end, it's a good thing this kid knows he has more to look forward to in life!

Warning:  This video contains information on cutting, suicide, and vulgar words.  

 

The sad thing is that people are claiming that this video was all fake.  But this was released to everyone from him today via Perez:

In his own words!

Following the false claims made against him and all the hate thrown his way since his emotional video about being bullied went viral, 14 year old Jonah Mowry took to YouTube and wrote the following in the description to the clip above.

He says:

"UPDATE, PLEASE READ
To all my friends and supporters,
I made this video 4 months ago just before school was about to start. I was 13. It was a very emotionally dark time in my life. I made the video at 4:00am in the morning; I hadn't been sleeping at night for a long time, too many things going on in my head. I was dreading going back to school and I had not come out to my family yet. Only my closest friends knew. I didn't know how to say what I needed to say. All I could think about were all the bad things that had been happening at school last year, every year for that matter. I just couldn't bare to go through that anymore. I was done being fake happy, pretending hateful words didn't hurt, done hiding it from my family.
So this video was made for my friends that had moved on to High School who were worried for me, to say to them that I was going to take a stand, and to the haters at my middle school that I'm not going anywhere. I am who I am. I posted the video here and told people were to find it. That was it.
My friends were moved by the video and thought I did something important. I was encouraged to upload it to my Facebook page so more people could see it. Maybe it could help someone else going through the same thing. So I linked it Dec. 1st. My Parents saw it for the first time Dec, 2nd.
Then….. all this happened.
I never expected in a million years that it would have such a wonderful impact on so many people. I am truly humbled and truly thankful for all the love, encouragement and support from people all over the world. It's been incredibly overwhelming. I don't know what to say. Thank you so, so much!
Lastly, yes you have seen me happy in a couple short videos replies I posted; I would think that would be a good thing , and yes I do have friends, my High School friends, and I have made friends because when I came out they realized that they had hurt me and that they fealt sorry. The video is real, and true.
In the last few months everything eventually came out in the open, I felt a huge weight off my shoulders; I'm happy, I'm excepted for who I am, I'm more confident and feel stronger every day.
Thank you all, Love and peace to all who are hurting.
Jonah Mowry"

And there you have it!

Stay strong, Jonah!

You are brave! You are special! You are inspiring! 

It's sad to think that people go bashing someone because he is standing up for himself, and is now happy and in a better place.  Because of that he is now being bullied again...this needs to end!

Ok, I'm done ranting and raving...until next time!

the start of something new

Well here is the start of my blogging experience.  I'm excited to start and thought it would be a great way to keep people updated with me and my life...especially since I will be moving out of cf in a couple weeks to start my student teaching experience. 

I had a great start to my weekend...

1. It's my b-day weekend...yay for being 23 tomorrow!

2. I got our Jason Aldean and Luke Bryan tickets!

I came home to spend time with my family and friends for my birthday. I can't wait to have lots of fun with ALL of them this weekend!