Sore Throat

I still have my sore throat. I read on the internet that it can last 5 - 7 days. It has been five. I called the doctor this afternoon to make an appointment but they are booked for three weeks. I have to call each morning to see if they have had any cancellations. I think that a doctors office should leave times open for emergencies. I guess they expect you to go to urgent care. Only my urgent care co-pay is 75 dollars. If my throat is not better by next week I may just spend the $75 and go to urgent care. At least there you don't have to wait three weeks.

I am lucky I am well enough to work. I just have to stay doped up on IB profen all day. One more day and I get a weekend!!!! I wish I didn't have to do all my shopping this weeked. I would really like to just crash and spend the day in bed. Makes me sleepy just thinking about it!!!! Sometimes going to be is so nice. Last night I went to bed at 8. When I told the girls at work that, they were shocked. They don't go to bed until after 10. I don't know how people do that. My bed time is 9 and sometimes that isn't early enough. I have to have AT LEAST 8 hours of sleep to have the energy to work. Of course all these other girls don't have a thyroid problem! Lets see them stay up that late when their thyroid is all wacked out!!!! :)

Calling in sick

I HATE calling in sick. I got sick over the weekend. I could feel it coming on Saturday. On Sunday I was sick all day. I had a light fever all day and my throat hurt a little bit. By Sunday evening I was through. I was terrified that I had strep throat again. Kyle and Dad gave me a blessing. My fever peaked at midnight but by morning my fever was gone. I still wasn't well and my throat was killing me. I called in sick to work and stayed home. At least I knew it wasn't strep because my fever was gone. I am so thankful for preisthood blessings and the fact that there are worthy preisthood holders here who could give me a blessing.

So the reason I hate calling in sick. I don't know who my sub will be when I call in. We have some really great subs but they are always booked so if you call in a sub when you are sick you usually end up with REALLY bad ones. The sub I had yesturday was the WORST. I know her from a class at Ottawa and from meeting her at school when she subs. She has NO classroom management. What really got me was her note that she left for me. It said, "Your class is sweet. But they do not listen. We managed." I couldn't believe it! My class is great. Every other subs say my class is wonderful. But becuase I knew this teacher I knew it was because of her that my class didn't listen. The art teacher told me that when the sub took my class to art they were all over the place. The art teacher told them to get in a straight line and the sub told her, "they haven't done it at all that day." The art teacher had them in straight quiet lines within a few seconds. I really hope I don't get that sub again.

I have a sub today and tomorrow in the mornings because I am DIBELING. It is a state test that is given to all kinder through 3rd grade students. I am certified so they are making me help out. Luckily only in the morning I get to go back to my class in the afternoon. I have a great sub. She is so wonderful. She reminds me of Shelby!

Todays weather was AMAZING. I am so glad it waited to rain until after recess. Once we were inside it started to down pour! Then it began hailing. I had my kids stop what they were doing to come see the hail. My classroom has a giant window and has a covered patio area. I had them all go outside to watch the hail. Most of my kids have never seen it before. We didn't stay out for long because it was FREEZING!!!!!!!!! I love when I get to have those moments with my kids. Where we can just stop everything and watch the weather. Especially here is Phoenix were it is sunny 350 days of the year.

Gingerbread Houses

WOW! Before I knew it, it was already the second week of December and several weeks since I have been on my blog. December is a very busy month for me at work. We actually sent home a packet to the parents telling them all we are doing in December.

First on our list, gingerbread houses. We made our gingerbread houses on Wednesday the 5th. I wasn't looking forward to it. It is a huge messy job but the kids LOVE it. I actually enjoyed it myself. I kept things very organized and had parents there to help us out. I didn't have as many parents as I would have liked but I had enough to get the job done.



The gingerbread houses are made with graham crackers and royal icing. We had a parent collect the students milk cartons from lunch and wash them. I then stapled the top closed. Another parent covered cardboard squares with foil. I used a hot glue gun to glue the carton to the cardboard.

I was suppose to ask parents to bring in eggs for the icing but mom said I could use meringue powder. So mom helped make the frosting. We had to use 6 pounds of powdered sugar and it was just enough.

I gave each child their carton and a bowl of candy (donated by parents) and let them have at it. It is very neat to see how the kids do. Some kids just slap the stuff on and say "I'm done!" and others spend so much time on their house the frosting starts to dry before they are finished. They all turned out sooooo cute.

After they dried I put thim in cute holiday plastic bags and tied them shut. The houses will go home on the 19th.

I gotta tell you though, sitting in my classroom at the end of the day, I was getting a sugar high from the smell in my room. It smelled sickeningly sweet in there.

I took several pictures and put them at the bottom of my blog. Take a look!

Catching up

It seems like forever since I have posted on my blog. We were having a lot of issues with the internet.

Thanksgiving was nice. We went over to grandma's for lunch. It was a small gathering.

Saturday I went to a bridal shower. The bride had a kitchen themed shower. Her colors are red, black, and silver so I made a towel cake. I used black dish towels and washclothes and used red ribbon to tie it up. I think it turned out beautiful.

Alarm Clock

It is 7:00 on Saturday Morning. I turned off my alram clock last night so I could sleep in. However, I didn't know that I would wake up to POUNDING on the house. Yes , that's right, Kyle decided to work on the house at SEVEN IN THE MORNING!!! I guess I should be glad that he waited that long. BUT COME ON!!!!!!

Our family went to Fuddruckers last night to celebrate Clayton's birthday. I love their burgers, they are the best. I came home with Dad after dinner and everyone else went to a movie. I was just soooo tired.

Today I am going to a bridal shower out in Chandler. While I am out there I need to go to JoAnn's. Our kindergarten class is putting on a Thanksgiving play on Tuesday and we don't have enough costumes so I need to make a few more. I have abusy day, I better go get started.

I am just so happy that I don't have to think about homework. My last class was this past Thursday. I turned in my final paper and got all the points for it. The instructor said she was very impressed and didn't find an grammar errors in the paper and that has never happened before. I am glad I gave it to my Dad to edit cuz' he sure found ALOT!

Frustration

I was so frustrated and overwhelmed today after work. It was early release which means that the kids go home at 11:00 and I have to sit through meetings until 3:30. Matthew Fishencord presented to us. He is a kindergarten teacher in the district. The reading specialist and instructional specialist worship the ground he walks on. They had him come teach us how to teach kids to write. Matthew has some great ideas but the specialists think that we have to do everything the way he does it. He has his students writing twice a day and one time at home everyday. There is a lot of writing going on in his room.
I just became very frustrated because some people at my work think that his way is the only way. Which makes me question how I teach. Am I just wasting time because I don't so what he does? Are my kids learning anything? I just became soooooooo overwhelmed with everything.
I finally just had to tell myself that what I am doing is working. I know my kids are learning and I am trying to help everyone in my class. Which is a completely different story.




I have a little boy in my class that isn't learning. He is still too young to be in school and isn't retaining any information we are learning. I wasn't sure how to help him so I talked to the other kinder teachers. Their thoughts -- work with the kids you know will learn it! Their advice to me was to not worry about him. He won't learn it so work with the one who will. These are the ones that will improve our test scores. The kinder teachers are not the only people to say this. Our very own reading specialist has told us the very same thing. I was shocked!!! So much for "No Child Left Behind!" More like "Leave the Low Ones Behind" It will be interesting to see in a few years the large gap between our high kids and our low kids. Shame on the teachers that ignore our struggling students.

The Day After

Why does the day after a holiday have to be sooooooo hard? I had the toughest time getting up this morning. I have a rough start to my day. Luckily my day got better. I went out with the girls for lunch. We went to Lenny's Burgers. It was pretty darn good. The other two girls that ate there got stomachaches after. I didn't, so that was GOOD!

When I got home I went straight to work on my final paper. I GOT IT DONE!!!! I am about to hand it to my dad to edit. I always hate doing that. One, I don't like other people to read my work. Two, I don't want him to see all my errors, AND THREE, I DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO WORK ON IT AGAIN!!!!!! But it has to be one. My instructor is a real stickler for the details. Which is good, that's the only reason this feels like a masters course! On to more classes and more bills!

Three Day Weekend

I love the perks of my job! I was home today for Veteran's Day and next week I only have to work three days because of Thanksgiving.
Having this three day weekend was nice. I was able to get ALMOST all my homework done. I wrote 6 1/2 of my 8 page paper. I wrote 3 1/2 pages on Saturday and 3 pages today. I will finish writing it tomorrow. I will be nice when this class is over.
I went to a movie today with mom and dad. We saw "Dan in Real Life." It was a very nice and sweet movie. It makes you want a big family where every one gets together to have fun. I don't know where the movie was set, but it was GORGEOUS!!!!!
When I got home from the movie I put some baked potatoes in the oven. Tonights FHE is a pre Thanksgiving dinner. The Relief Society needed three girls to bake potatoes for tonight. Since I didn't have to work I volunteered my serrvices. It was kind of weird to haul around a five pound bag of potatoes through the rest of the block!

Clayton got creative! He found an old couch, added wheels and a motor and off he drove. It takes two people to drive it. One to steer and one to work the motor. He and a friend took it out on Halloween night. People loved it! He ended up giving people rides on it. I sent it to America's Funniest Home Videos.

It "depends"

One of the women at my work turned 65 on friday. While I was at lunch on Wednesday, the first grade team was trying to figure out what kind of gag gifts they could give her. They mentioned buying her some depends. I chimed in and suggested they make a depends cake. ( you know, like the baby diaper cakes we always see at baby showers) They had never heard of these but they liked the idea. On thursday they told me they had all the stuff and needed me to come in and make it. It was hysterical! Unfortunately I did not get to see Donna's face when see saw it. They gave ti to her at her surprise party that night. I will find out on Tuesday what she thought of it.

I got a picture of the cake before they took it. The writing on it is the brand name of the depends.

Survival of the Fittest

Well, I survived the field trip to the farm! I ended up having 12 parents come. I was able to divide my class among the parents so that I only had to deal with one child. This student was a HANDFUL. I needed to be able to watch only him.

The farm was a lot of fun. First we went to the petting zoo. It wasn't very big, but the kids enjoyed feeding and petting the animals. There was a calf, a piglet, horses, chickens, goats, turkeys, an ostrich, and a donkey.

After the petting zoo, the kids got to ride on a cut little train that was pulled by an ATV. The kids LOVED it.

After that we got to go pick some vegetables from the field. This part the kids didn't enjoy so much. There were alot of bugs flying around and they didn't like having to walk through the mud. The kids didn't know what any of the vegetables were. They picked white radishes, red radishes, and cucumber.

We then went through a corn maze and learned about all the uses of corn. I found out an interesting tidbit. It gets so hot here in Arizona that if you go to the outside edges of a corn field in the heat of the summer, you can hear a popping noise. It is the corn popping into popcorn. Out tour guide showed us some. She also said that if you take the dried indian corn that you decorate your house with, put it in a plastic bag, and microwave it, it will turn into popcorn!

Once we were out of the corn maze we were treated to some icecream sandwiches. The kids didn't know what to do with themselves. ICECREAM BEFORE LUNCH!

That was the end of the field trip to the farm. We headed over to a nearby park and ate lunch. It was a fun expeirence for the whole group. I think our next field trip is to Stuffington Bear Factory in the spring,

The Farm

Well, tomorrow our kindergarten group goes to the farm. I can't count how many fieldtrips I have been on but this is the first one where I am in charge. I am the one that has to make sure that no one gets hurt or lost. It is a HUGE responsibility and I am a little nervous about it. Luckily I have a ton of parents that are coming along. We'll see how it goes.

It is my FOREVER LONG DAY today. And yes, that is what I call it. I start out my day by waking up at 5:00. I get to work at 7:30 and stay there until 5:00. Then I go buy my dinner and take it over to Ottawa were I have class at 6:30. I don't get home until 9:00. I only have two more weeks of this until I am on winter break, but then in the spring I get to have two FOREVER LONG DAYS!!!! I will sure be happy when I am done. There is NO WAY I am going for my PH.d. After I get my masters, I AM DONE!!!!!!!!!

Time Flies

Today at lunch the girls were talking about how fast these next few months go by. I agree, they really do. Then this afternoon, after I wrote out my page long list of things I need to do by friday, I realized that this saying "time flies" is not true. It seems like it does because we are all so busy that we can't even think about what day it is. When we finally come up for a little air, it is a new month!
The girls were talking about how great November and December are because of all the holidays. I love these months and the holidays but I hate how much I have to do. Of course it doesn't help help the parents that are suppose to come in and help me don't show up. My plate is extremely full right now.
Even as I write, I should be working on my final paper for my Ottawa class. I guess I better get to it. (maybe)!!!!!

Tough Day

What a day I had today! I knew it would be bad when I was still tired when I woke up this morning. I did too much this weekend.

My bad day started when one of my little boys came to my class during library. He wasn't suppose to leave library and the librarian didn't notice that he left. I had to walk him back to library were he cried because he got in trouble. On my way back from taking the little one back to library I find two of my little girls wandering around the campus. They were given permission to go to the bathroom and decided to use every bathroom on campus.

Then after lunch the AC in my room went out! It wouldn't have been so bad if we had decent weather here in Phoenix, but it just has to be 95 degrees in NOVEMBER. I sure hope that it is fixed by tomorrow. On top of all of this I got a new student today.

I always have to end my whiny rantings with a positive. My new student is such a sweet heart and very smart.

Saturday Night

Kyle, Adam, Daina and I went out Saturday night. We went over to Tempe Marketplace to see if we could find a place to play pool. We found Dave and Busters! It is such a great place. There is a resturant and arcade, as well as pool tables. We played three games of pool. My team won a best out of three tournament! We are definetly going to have to go back again.

We also went to Lucilles for some food. It is a great place. A little pricey, but we just split an appetizer platter between the four of us so it wasn't bad. The food was amazing! We got a table in the bar area because a great little band was playing. It was a great experience.

My New Blog

If you are a blog-basher - ENJOY!!!!!!!

This is my new blog! I can't believe I am jumping on the band wagon. Oh Well, I think I will enjoy this so I hope you do as well. I am still in the process of creating the site so don't be surprised if things keep changing and looking different.