Countdown to Graduation

I only have 6 days left of student teaching and I graduate in 12 days!  It is so bittersweet.  I love my 5th graders to death.  I have learned so much from them and everyone at Tyro.  This semester has absolutely flew by.  It is so hard to believe that it is all coming to an end.  In less than 2 weeks I will have my Bachelors in Elementary Education!

I guess this semester has flew by because I have been going non-stop.  Thanksgiving break was a lot of fun.  I got to see a lot of family I haven't seen in a while, eat lots of food, watch some good movies, hang out with friends and go shopping on Black Friday.  I also went to CVS on Thanksgiving and got everything in the picture below for free and ended up making $7 in extra care bucks!

Black Friday was pretty interesting.  Felicia and I got to Kohls around 2:30 a.m. and waited behind about 600 people for Kohls to open at 3.  It started raining while we were outside in line which was a great added touch to the occasion.  After we got in line there were probably another 600 people that came in line behind us.  The check out line  was a 3 hour wait. It was double wrapped around the store.  We also went to Target right when they opened but didn't try on anything so we got through the checkout line fast.  We then went to Hanes Mall which wasn't too crowded but by this time we were about too tired to shop so we got a few things and left.  I don't know that I'll go next year, online shopping seems like a good plan to me.

On another note,  I had an interview for a 6th grade position this week.  I don't think I will hear anything about it until next week because they have one more person to interview.  I would really love the job though, the staff seems great and it's a really nice school.  I'm loving student teaching in 5th grade so I know I would enjoy 6th grade just as much. 

This past Sunday we had a great service to kick off the Christmas season.  Randy preached about Joy.  He said that at the top of our Christmas list should be to not let anything or anyone rob you of your Joy because we have already won the ultimate victory.  I wish we could always remember this because knowing that we are saved and will be going to heaven should bring us Joy everyday.  And yes, I am spelling Joy with a capital J on purpose.

Time to get busy

I haven't wrote about student teaching in a while so I thought I'd post myself a to-do list.  Note to self: stop procrastinating!  Anyway, I am loving student teaching right now.  Getting to teach everything is time consuming with all the other assignments I have to do combined but I love every minute of it.  I'm becoming much more laid back than I was at the being of student teaching.  At first I was all about my students not talking unless I gave them permission to and getting on to them constantly for not paying attention.  Now I'm letting them take responsibility for themselves.  As long as they aren't disturbing the learning of other students then I'm not wasting time fussing at students for every little thing.  I think it is making my students respect me more because they don't hear me getting on to people all the time.  Anyway, I need a list of all that I have to do this week so I don't forget so hear it goes.

1)  Finish this week's lesson plans
2)  Write last week's reflection
3)  Finish PDP
4)  Revise last component of Impact Project
5)  Combine all components of Impact Project to one PDF file
6)  Scan student work for Impact Project
7)  Make next week's lesson plans
8)  Create reading assesment for this week
9)  Contact registrar's office to make sure name is on list for graduation
10)  Make out graduation invitations
11)  Call for screening interview

Extreme Missions = Complete!

Our church is pretty much finished with the Extreme Missions project we did. We still have people coming to redo the roofing but the inside is finished. It was such a wonderful experience!  My church really pulled together to remodel a house in our community.  The family was gracious enough to let us come in and work for a full week.  People were there working on some days as early as 6 a.m. and some people stayed until after 9 p.m.  We did everything from removing all the trash in the home to completely redoing a bathroom.  We had a lot of challenges throughout the week like when when the countertop came undone and we had to completely redo the countertop on the island in the kitchen.  But in the end we finished remodeling the house and the family is very happy to have a like new home!  It really showed that no matter what your talent is there is some way that you can help out people.  Those who couldn't do labor helped provide meals for those working.  Even children came and helped out in some way.  I'm looking forward to doing this again.