Friday Favorites

Trying to get myself back in the habit of regular blogging.  :)

Figured I would try to round up 5 things each week that I'm loving.  Baby stuff, mom stuff, teacher stuff, just girl stuff - whatever I'm feeling at the moment. 

The flip side?  If I'm missing some awesome stuff - let me know!  Always in the market for new must-have items! 

Anyway, here we go.  :)

I've really been making an effort to do more reading.  Not fifth-grade reading for my students...but reading for my own enjoyment.  It's an expectation that my 5th graders read for 150 minutes/week; which is approximately 30 minutes/day, so I've been trying to follow the same expectation.  To be honest, most days - I'm horrible at it.  But on the weekends, I try to make up for it!  I've read lots of really great books in the past couple months since taking on this personal challenge.  I plan on doing a book review soon, but wanted to share my recent favorite.

Amazon

I love everything Emily Giffin writes.  Seriously.  I just loved this book.  An easy, quick read.

I watch alot of reality TV - in fact, it's most of what I watch.  Last year, I was introduced to the Real Houswives and I'm thankful that Beverly Hills and Orange County are on opposite seasons because it just keeps me going...just a never ending dose of shenanigans.  The reunions are always ridiculous.  But this season?  Oh.my.crazy.  And these two?

Just wow.  They need to just pump the brakes on the crazy.  It's alot.

My child will usually eat most anything we put in front of her.  These things though...

Like crack in a can.  She would eat this entire container in one sitting if I would let her.  Girlfriend loves her baby Cheetos.

My morning routine has changed significantly since my husband switched from being on the air in the afternoons to being on the air in the mornings.  Before, I could take my sweet time getting reading without a little someone fussing, into everything she shouldn't be, or climbing up my leg.  Now, time is critical.  Anything I can do to cut down time is my friend.  My hair is thick, naturally wavy, and sometimes hard to manage.  I've spent many years straightening and fighting with it to be something it's not - so recently, I've just been embracing it for what it is.  With the help of this miracle potion:

Amazon

Smells delicious.  Keeps the frizz under control.  Doesn't leave my hair sticky or stiff.  Sold.

Lately my 5th graders have really been impressing me with their technology abilities - they are SO brilliant at ways to use technology to make their lives easier.  For instance, the other day, we weren't done taking notes on a poem but our time was up - so I was quickly jotting things down in my plan book so we could pick up where we left off the next day - meanwhile, my kids?  Well, they were using their devices to just simply snap a picture.  **insert teacher feeling SO dumb**  Anyway, I've been trying to find ways to use tech to my advantage in my classroom and have been playing around with Google Classroom

It's a great way for my kids to make, receive, and submit materials to me...but more importantly, it's a nice platform for them to be able to collaborate with each other outside of the classroom, school, or normal hours.  We are loving it so far. 

Alright, there's my 5 for today.  I could probably rattle off 5 more right now - but I'll stop.  Have a great weekend, friends!

xoxo -

My daily calendar

I have a calendar at work filled with inspirational quotes to live by.  It is one of my favorite parts of the morning when I get to flip it and see what today's message will be. 

Today's is absolutely perfect for this season of my life.  It says:

"Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing."

-Theodore Roosevelt

Work worth doing is something I've thought a lot about lately.  What does that really mean?  How do you define your worth or the worth of your work?  I think that largely depends on the line of work you're in.  I don't know many people who say "my job is worthless", nor can I think of many jobs which I would consider worthless. 

But because I'm a teacher, I'm going to talk about the worth of my job today.  I really believe with my entire soul that my job is far and away the greatest job on Earth.  It doesn't come without struggle or frustration, but at the end of the day - teachers are the epitome of working for the greater good in my opinion.  Can you name one teacher who has entered the profession for any other reason than because they enjoy kids and want to make a difference?  I've thought a lot about it, and I can't think of one. 

Are there "bad" teachers?  Sure, just the same as there are "bad" actors, "bad" musicians, "bad" cooks, "bad" doctors, "bad" police officers, and "bad" news reporters.  Every profession has their less than great members, so why is it that we as a country are so overly critical of bad teachers?  I find it hilarious when people argue about the importance of people's jobs. {because it really doesn't matter}  "Police are the most important jobs in our community", "No, it's the firemen and women", "no it's the teachers" - Well, ladies and gentleman (all 3 of you reading...) - I guess I would argue that the importance of a profession could be measured by how critical people are when it's not being done well.  I rarely see a person complaining about a police officer who is not doing their job, or a garbage collector who leaves the can tipped over in the street or with some garbage left in it, or the journalist who doesn't cover the entire story, or a doctor who misses a diagnosis or is less than friendly to his/her patient - but when there is a bad teacher, look out - everyone has something to say.  I personally, take that as a compliment because I go to work everyday and do the very best job I can do.  When people are critical of teachers though, it's difficult not to be defensive of my fellow colleagues.

Does this job have benefits?  Sure, but it (like any job) also has it's bumps.  Summers off are nice - except that usually I'm working another job to pay the bills or in my classroom getting ready for the next school year.  Our salary is nice - except by the standards of our country it pales in comparison to other professions.  Working 8-4 as a contract day is great - but to be honest, I can't tell you the last day those were really the hours I actually worked, usually coming early, staying late, and taking home work. Working with kids all day is awesome - except that I spend more than 1/2 my day doing things that 50 years ago were done at home {teaching middle names, phone numbers, manners, appropriate responses, anger management, etc} Our benefit and pension package are great - and what are people attacking right now - the only free and clear, no questions asked tangible benefit of teaching.

But here is the bottom line, every single day teachers in this country put all the political crap aside and go back to work in hopes of making a difference.  As Ralph Waldo Emerson says:

"To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."

And so today, I will go to work and work hard at my work that is unquestionably worth doing. 

Have a happy day, Friends :)

Teachers...

...are obviously bankrupting our country.  What a hot topic debate!  Honestly, I think it's really difficult to not be biased in this situation because I'm a teacher.  I would be willing to argue that teaching is among the most difficult professions out there, but I do it because I love it.  Here comes the part I don't get: since when in our country is a teacher's salary or benefit package considered too high?  Seriously, we pay people 6 figures to PLAY.A.GAME.  I wouldn't even make that salary in 2 years. 

A colleague of mine posted on this topic today too - quite entertaining if I do say so myself.  Hop on over and check it out. 

Now, Obviously I understand the difference between the public and the private sector - but really, America?! Let's get our priorities in order and our acts together, sooner than later please.

Home Sweet....

Home.  CLASSROOM.  :)

I spent the entire day in my classroom attempting to get things in order for the fast approaching beginning of the school year.  I cannot believe how quickly this summer has gone!  I think after 7 hours in my room, Kaitlyn working like a set of twins on the to-do list I made for her (she LOVES helping me!), and me crossing things off left and right - I think I'm close to ready.  Here is a photo tour.  Enjoy :)

The door to my classroom.  *smile*

View from the door.

Small group table

View from back by the small group area

My new Daily 5 Cafe board.  I am irrationally excited about it....

View from the other corner of my room towards the front

My desk area

View of the entire room from my desk

I cannot believe in one short week I will be back at work and just a few days later, my students will be filling those blue chairs!!  Wow.  :)

Feeling accomplished

Well, 'tis the season for checking things off my to-do list!

It seems nearly impossible that in 2 short weeks I will be done with another school year and getting married!

Last week, I finished my grad classes of the semester with 2 A's. I have very much enjoyed my graduate work, but the timing hasn't exactly been perfect. I have quite a lot on my plate these days, so it has been difficult to devote the attention needed to my classes and homework. I often find myself spending lunch periods or other inconvenient times working on homework or projects - but I can say with certainty that it has been more than worthwhile. I am highly relieved that I have one year down and only one to go until graduation!

Additionally, last week I completed my Professional Development review with my principal. Each year, I have to create a plan for how I will improve my teaching, log weekly how I am working on that goal, keep data on how my goal is improving student achievement, and then put all of this together for an end-of-the-year review which is then submitted. It is quite a bit of busy work, and I am ultra-relieved that it's D.O.N.E.! :)

And probably most exciting of all, the wedding is just 19 short days away and almost everything is done. My best friend Jamie, my mom, and I spent our Friday night watching Girl Meets Gown while folding programs, measuring birdseed for the center pieces, getting other decorations ready, & placing stickers on the wedding favors - I left feeling much better about my to-do list. The RSVP deadline is this Friday, so the end is definitely near! It seems crazy how quickly time has flown. We got engaged 10 months ago tomorrow and it seems like just yesterday.

Everyone keeps telling me to take all of this in - and I am - but a part of me ((a HUGE part of me)) is ready for this phase to be over so I can enjoy being married, get my life back in order, and take a huge breath. of. relief.

More to come soon on my bridal showers, the bachelorette party, and the final days of my school year.

Lots of Love,
Katie :)

A new perspective...

So yesterday I was teaching math and one of my students was really struggling. The concept was adding zero's to find larger numbers (7x6, 70x6, 700x6, etc). Student L simply could not figure out what 7x6 was to begin with, much less the adding zero's part - so I made a suggestion I make daily during math. I said, "why don't you try to draw a picture". What I meant was, make an illustration that will help you to find the answer...draw 6 groups of 7 people, or draw 6 rows of 7 dots, or something to that effect. I made the suggestion, and continued pacing my classroom to observe other students.

I circled back to Student L only to find a rabbit, big as life, right there on his paper. I said, "um, what might that be?" He looked at me with such a blank expression and replied to me like I was the biggest moron on the planet, "it's a rabbit Miss D". I took a deep breath and explained to him that I meant to draw a picture to help him solve the problem and started such a picture for him to finish.

Lesson learned: say what you mean and mean what you say. Especially when it comes to math and rabbits.

How's your mom?

So last week, I received an email from a student's mother. It essentially informed me that she would be having surgery and would not be at home for the next couple of days and requested that I give her student a little extra attention if necessary. (As a teacher, I always appreciate these little heads up's)

So, the next morning, I am very proud of myself for remembering, and ask the student "How's mom?" He says,with a completely serious face, "Oh, she's fine. She just had to have her baby maker taken out".

Honestly. I couldn't even find the words to respond to that, nor could I muster up the ability to not crack a grin. It was so adorable and yet so inappropriate all at the same time. Just goes to show you, you should always be careful how much information to share with your children, because they will ALWAYS repeat it to the exact people you don't want them to.

Have a terrific Tuesday! :)

A little gem from school this week...

Student A chews up a piece of chicken from school lunch and decides it would be a funny idea to place said chicken in Student B's hair. Student B flicks it out of his hair onto the floor. Student A naturally picks the chicken up off the floor and places it back into his mouth, chews it up some more, and places it in Student C's hair. Student C freaks out, flicks the chicken out of his hair and immediately reports the situation to me. I stare at Student A in disbelief and inform him how completely revolting his behavior is to me. To which he responds, "Can you just kick me out of here yet?"

Student A, you are awesome. You increase my patience and my dependence on prayer to get through the day.

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is why I LOVE MY JOB.

Time sure does fly...

I have never in my life experienced how quickly time flies as much as I have this year. This was the year that my childhood dream came true. Since the moment I stepped foot in school, I knew I wanted to be a teacher. I would play school in my house as a child, as a teen I collected things I might use someday in my classroom, I took mental notes of the kind of teacher I wanted to become, I studied long and hard in college to gain the skills necessary to do the best job I could, I endured struggles - both financial and emotional - to get to where I am. But, I'm here. Exactly where I've always dreamed of being. And to be quite honest, more days than not out of these past 177, I could be found wondering why on Earth I wanted this so badly.

This first year of teaching has been anything but blissful. It has been exhausting, frustrating, trying, and just down-right hard. I have spent many afternoons after school in tears and many mornings silently praying for strength and grace to make it through my day. It is a daunting job to be responsible for 27 people and their academic, social, and emotional growth for an entire school year. It is an enormous responsibility to spend all day taking care of everyone, besides myself. Many nights, I come home exhausted and in need of someone to take care of me for a little while. It has been difficult.

But it has also been exhilirating. As I sit here, we have merely 3 days left of the 2008-2009 school year. The dreadful "first year" is almost over. As I am gathering information for the district data we are required to turn in, I am realizing my students made enormous strides this year...in reading, in math, and most importantly in the kind of people they are and will become. It is indeed an awesome responsibility I have to help to mold and shape the kind of people they will grow up to be. I have spent countless hours teaching, then practicing, the re-teaching, and then practicing some more the life skills they will need to be successful teenagers and more importantly adults. How they handle anger, frustration, sadness, guilt, and dissappointment. How will they react when things don't go their way? And how will they react when things do go their way? It is an amazing thing, what teachers do everyday, and I say this with utmost humility, I am amazed at myself.

While they are far from perfect, they are indeed far from where they started. We have worked hard together. We have laughed alot together. We have seen our world change - a new president, a closer look at war, a study of our Nation's history, a clear view of ourselves and a very honest look at the things we need to work on. We have spent 180 days together, approximately 1,170 hours together, about 70,200 minutes together, 4,212,000 seconds together. It seems like a lifetime and a blink of an eye all at the same time. They are different people, and so am I - in more ways than I could possibly count. They have taught me to be patient, kind, honest, tough, compassionate, and humble.

If you were to ask any teacher, they would be able to say without doubt that they remember clearly their first class. And so, I too, join the ranks of teachers who will say, without hesitation that I will never forget these 27 children. I am both hopeful and confident that they will find success on their journey, but I hope that someday, some of them will look back on fifth grade and smile for a little while, knowing that they learned and laughed alot.

I pray that they will be quick with a smile, a helping hand, a thoughtful word, or a compassionate heart. Because for them to learn those qualities in human kind, is my biggest responsibility to them, and this world.

Perhaps I do have the greatest job on Earth. :)

Pennies make dollars

Yesterday at school we kicked off a fundraising campaign for a charity called Pennies for Peace. (You can click the link to find out more)

This amazing charity was started by a very humble man by the name of Greg Mortenson. Greg was visiting another country when he became very ill. The men and women of this country took care of him until he was well and as he left, he promised them he would re-pay them. As he spent time in this country, he saw many children writing in the dirt with sticks and no teacher. When he inquired about this, the children told him they had to share their teacher with a neighboring village because they could not afford the teacher's $1/day salary - so they had to split the time and salary. Greg saw a need, and stepped up to the plate. He returned to the United States and sent out over 500 letters of request for donations - he did not get one single donation. His mother, an elementary principal, granted him permission to kick-off a fundraiser in her building. This fundraiser raised almost $1,000 in just 6 weeks! And so Pennies for Peace was born.

We had an all-school assembly to kick-off this charity campaign in our building yesterday afternoon. Our librarian, who is heading up this wonderful cause, stood up and told the kids all about it - which got them very excited, but what she said at the end of her speech is what really impacted all of us. She said to them, "Boys and girls, it doesn't matter to me if you bring in a gazillion pennies or zero pennies. The most important thing you can do for this cause is to appreciate the education you are granted here at Mark Twain and in this country." You could've heard a pin drop in that room.

In the introductory video we showed the kids, one student being interviewed from the United States summed things up pretty perfectly. He said, "Here in the United States, well we have to go to school. It's a requirement. In Pakistan, and lots of other countries around our world, well, it's a privledge". How true those words are.

How often I forget the privledges I have been granted - not because of the kind of person I am, not because of how hard I work, just simply because I was blessed to be born in the United States.

If you are interested in making a donation, please don't hesitate to contact me. Our school goal is to raise $5,000 over the course of the next year. That $5,000 will supply one school for an entire year. Amazing.

Spring is in the air...

I have grown to love the season of spring. Everything is new again. New leaves, new flowers, new green grass...and now I have another item to add to my list...new fifth grade attitudes.

I mean to tell you, evidently when April arrives, 5th graders decide it's time for them to know everything. It was like a switch, seriously. Suddenly, they all want my job. "When are we doing this?" "Why do we have to do that?" "I think we should do it this way instead" "What time are we doing _____?" All. Day. Long. Today, I took the opportunity to remind them that I went to school for a long time to get to do my job. If they wanted my job, they'd have to wait a good 12 years. Sad for them.

Aside from this new item on my list, I have developed spring fever right along with my students. I find it easier to get up and going most days, I want to be more productive, I'm constantly cleaning/organizing something, I just am overall in a much better mood.

On another happy note, Middle Road is back to 2 lanes. That also helps my mood for the day. :)

John 15:13

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

People all around the Quad Cities have been captivated by the recent death of U.S. Army Cpl. Jason Pautsch - a 20 year old Davenport native. It has been on the news, in the paper, on the internet - everywhere we look, we are reminded.

Today, my class and I were discussing current events and this one obviously came up, as it is something that makes the war real to them. I have to be honest, it was really hard for me to discuss this with my students today. Tears formed in my eyes more than once hearing them talk about and realize the magnitude of life, or the loss of life. I have known since before I started this job that there would be many opportunities for me to help my students see the world through "new" eyes - but I was inspired by them today. I was inspired by their compassion for a man and his family - people they don't even know, and more by their respect for the sacrifice he made for our country, and specifically them.

They helped me to sort through my feelings and helped me to slow down for a minute. This war has been going on for so long that sometimes it just becomes "something that's happening an entire world away from us", "something that other cities, other states, other families, other communities have to deal with", "something that is part of life". In reality, that's not the case at all. My twenty-seven 11-year-olds helped me to slow down and remember that this war is something we all need to think about, and that the men and women fighting this war for us are making an enormous sacrifice so that we may live in safety.

I am more thankful than ever today for Cpl. Jason Pautsch and the countless other men and women who have fought this battle. As one of my fifth graders (we'll just call him T) said today, "It's just so great that someone else would put their life on the line so that I can go to sleep in my bed tonight knowing that I'm safe."

Pretty much sums it all up right there.

God Bless America

What an incredible honor it was to watch history unfold today in America! I have to admit, no matter which candidate you voted for, there is something exciting about Barack Obama. Something calming. Something reassuring. Something inspiring. There is nothing better than a living example of the "American Dream"...growing up, dreaming, and achieving - it reminds me of the power in dreams and inspiration.

Watching the inauguration today was even more special for me because I was blessed to be able to share the experience with my 5th grade class. The entire election process has been exciting for them. We spent alot of time discussing the candidates and their opinions on many different issues. We watched very closely on election day - and we celebrated when the results came in. And today, we watched as President Obama was sworn in. They clapped and cheered when they were excited, they listened very carefully and absorbed what they could of his speech, they stood and they sang - I have to tell you, I had tears in my eyes.

Again, whether I agree or disagree with the outcome of the election, it was simply amazing to me that those 27 students will never, ever forget where they were when they watched Barack Obama become the 44th President. They will never forget what they saw, or what we talked about, or how they felt...and I stand in constant amazement that I have been blessed with the opportunity to be a part of that...and that it's my job to be a part of it.

I have the greatest job in the world. :)