Sunday, May 22, 2011

Student Teaching Week #6

I love weekends.  Friday night Thomas picked me up from school and we headed to the foothills for a 5 mile run.  It sucked! First of all because it's all up hill and dirt but we both just felt so tired.  I was ticked at those darn hills! We made it through though and headed over to USwirl frozen yogurt, our new favorite frozen yogurt shop.  I found my favorite combo: coconut and mango peach swirl with cherries and mini gummy bears.  Delish!
Saturday I went with Tess to hot yoga.  Yoga is now an important part of my weekly workouts.  I try to do one workout video during the week and then go to a class on the weekend.  I honestly feel like it has improved my running and it really helps with soreness and tight muscles from stress.  Once I got home from yoga Thomas and I went around our neighborhood because the HOA organized a neighborhood garage sale.  It was a BEAUTIFUL day out and we had fun walking around checking out what people had.  The neighborhoods here are huge and they all have names.  So people will commonly say "I live in Hobble Creek neighborhood".  We ended up getting a pretty much brand new snowboarding jacket for Thomas for $20. 
I have been really wanting to get a bike that I can use for duathalons or sprint triathalons and some people we ran in to at a garage sale suggested a bike shop here close by.  We stopped by and chatted a bit but it wasn't too much help.  It's kind of scary getting in to a new sport you know nothing about.  I hardly know anything about bikes but am starting to get an idea of what I want.  I want to be able to use it on dirt trails but also on the road so I'm thinking about a hybrid bike like these:


I had an 11-miler this weekend and was on my own.  I did a big no-no and didn't eat before running so about 25 minutes into the run I was starving! I had brought along some sharkies but wasn't planning on eating them til 6 miles in but I dug in at mile 2.5.  I was planning on taking the greenbelt the whole way but after three miles it was closed because the river is too high.  So I took one of the main roads pretty much right into downtown Boise.  Mentally it was a tough run but I maintained about a 9 minute mile the whole way.  My goal for this next half marathon is to maintain an 8:45 pace the whole way. 
Our pool opens this next Friday but Thomas and I went out this evening and layed out for about an hour.  The weather is just perfect and I ended up dozing off outside laying on my towel. 
Wonderful weekend! This week should be exciting, we have our third grade program and so Monday and Tuesday we will be practicing the last half of the day and Wednesday all day and then the program is Wednesday night.  Since it is a performing arts school the program is a huge deal. We have somebody record it and sell BluRay DVD's of the performance and the props are big, detailed, and very creative. 
The school district's levy did not pass so it doesn't look like they will be hiring at my school.  I'm bummed about it cause I love my school so much but I've started applying to other teaching jobs around the area.  Crazy!!!

Monday, May 16, 2011

Student Teaching Week #5

I'm halfway done with student teaching! It is going by so fast and I know will be done before I know it.  I really am enjoying my student teaching experience so much.  I love the kids and am learning so much from my cooperating teacher. 
The science unit I am teaching is on the states of matter and so we have been doing little experiments with evaporation, condensation, and freezing.  The kids learned this past week that salt lowers the freezing point of ice water and so today (Monday) we made ice cream.  They loved it and at classroom meeting almost all of them said that was their favorite part of the day.  Thomas and I made some last night and tested it out and it was so good.  Homemade icecream is the best and who knew it was so easy to make?!


  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1/2 cup whipping cream (heavy cream)
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon vanilla or vanilla flavoring 
  • 1/2 to 3/4 cup sodium chloride (NaCl) as table salt or rock salt
  • 2 cups ice
  • 1-quart ZiplocTM bag
  • 1-gallon ZiplocTM bag
  • themometer
  • measuring cups and spoons
  • cups and spoons for eating your treat!
Procedure

  1. Add 1/4 cup sugar, 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup whipping cream, and 1/4 teaspoon vanilla to the quart ziplocTM bag. Seal the bag securely.
  2. Put 2 cups of ice into the gallon ziplocTM bag.
  3. Use a thermometer to measure and record the temperature of the ice in the gallon bag.
  4. Add 1/2 to 3/4 cup salt (sodium chloride) to the bag of ice.
  5. Place the sealed quart bag inside the gallon bag of ice and salt. Seal the gallon bag securely.
  6. Gently rock the gallon bag from side to side. It's best to hold it by the top seal or to have gloves or a cloth between the bag and your hands because the bag will be cold enough to damage your skin.
  7. Continue to rock the bag for 10-15 minutes or until the contents of the quart bag have solidified into ice cream.
  8. Open the gallon bag and use the thermometer to measure and record the temperature of the ice/salt mixture.
  9. Remove the quart bag, open it, serve the contents into cups with spoons and ENJOY!
Thomas and I are both learning that when you have a spouse who is a teacher, you get roped in to doing a lot of teacher stuff.  For example: grading papers, cutting things out, making copies, going to the store for supplies, volunteering at school events, and helping with projects in the classroom.  Today, Thomas came with me to help get everything ready for making ice cream. He's such a good teacher's spouse :)
As I was walking home from school today I had to take a picture of the little park I walk through.  It is just the perfect example of springtime.

Rexburg Trip

Right after work on Friday, Thomas picked me up and we headed out of town to go to Rexburg to see my newest nephew who was born a week and a half ago.  Little Emmett is SO tiny! He sleeps a ton and is the cutest little cuddle bug. 


Mr. Stinky Pants (Alex) is talking all the time now.  His newest thing is monster trucks.  He loves watching monster truck videos on YouTube.  He'll line up his Hot Wheels cars and then get his truck and roll it over them. Ivan took him to a monster truck show and ever since he has been really into them.

We got to Rexburg Friday night and just hung out.  Saturday Thomas and I woke up and went for a 10-miler.  He biked along side me as I ran.
I had also made a hair appointment for Saturday afternoon and got my hair did.

We had fun singing Glee Wii Kariokee (actually it was really only Briana and I everybody else watched).
It was really nice relaxing and spending time with family. We love our little nephews they are the cutest little stinkers ever.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Week #4 Student Teaching

Four weeks in a row of a great student teaching experience.  This week I had asked my principal to observe one of my lessons.  He observed me teaching math on Friday mid-morning.  Of course I felt hyper sensitive to everything going on during the lessons. I'm pretty sure about five kids needed to go to the bathroom.  And I had handed out some paper Hershey's bars in ziploc bags to use while we were learning about fractions.  Apparently one of the kids in the back was blowing his up and about to pop it when my cooperating teacher gave him a look. Haha when the principal mentioned it in my post observation we both just laughed.  I would have been so embarrassed if that bag would have popped.  In the post observation he was very complimentary and gave me some great suggestions as well.  He is an awesome principal with some great leadership skills.  I mentioned how much I have enjoyed being a part of the school and would love to become a part of the staff for next year.  He told me that there will be a couple openings next year, one in first grade because the teacher is retiring, and one in third grade because my cooperating teacher and the teacher next door will be team teaching since they are both having babies.  There is a levy that needs to be passed this month.  If the levy doesn't pass there will be a lot less chance that those positions will be open because teachers from other schools might get cut and they get first priority on the open positions in the district.  The positions should be open in mid June.  Which seems to be cutting it close since school starts like the second week of August.  But my principal says he will keep me posted on the positions and will be writing me a letter of recommendation.  I feel like this would be such a perfect position for me.  I love the school, love the team of teachers I work with, and love the students and parents.  So we'll see where things go :)
Thomas found a job this week working at the big hospital in downtown Boise, St. Lukes, as an x-ray tech.  He will start his orientation this Wednesday. 
We had a fun weekend, which started off volunteering at my school's book night.  I need to take pictures of the school's hallways.  They are just amazing, filled with student artwork.  Our third grade hallways was decorated as a barn, as all the third graders had read Charlotte's Web.  One of our students' dads is a performer and he had a puppet show going on during read night the incorporated all of the stories the different grade levels had read.  Students had been bringing in used books for the last couple weeks and at Read Night they had rooms set up and families could buy books for 50 cents each.  My cooperating teacher told me to get whatever books I wanted for my future classroom and say it was for her class so that I got them all for free :) So I got a big bag of books (hopefully I'll be teaching third grade).  Thomas and I helped at the book toss. 
Saturday morning our friends Tess and Ryan picked us up and we drove downtown for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. 


Thomas and I were debating whether to walk or run but ultimately decided to run because it was on my training plan to run a 5K this weekend.  Starting out it was really hard to get moving because there were so many people and tons of walkers. We weaved a lot and then got in a pretty good rythem.  I wanted to keep about a 7:50 pace and was pretty much able to maintain that.  The race wasn't chip timed so my final time was just based on my Garmin. We loved seeing the different shirts with funny references to boobs. 
"Freshly Squeezed Lemons"
"The War on The Rack"
"Walkers for Knockers"
"Save Second Base"
"Jogging for Jugs"
There were these ladies in tutus and riding motorcycles as we ran.  Loved it.
As soon as we got home I started this weeks lesson plans.  Around 4:30pm my university supervisor called me and asked if we wanted some tickets to see "The Secret Garden" at the Nampa Civic Community Center.  How nice is that?  "The Secret Garden" is one of my favorite books so we were totally up for it.  The play started out kind of rough with some bad accents and high notes that weren't quite right but it got better as it moved along.  Mary the main little girl did an AMAZING job.  It was a fun cheap date night.  We especially liked the commentary of the guy behind us, trying to explain the story to his six year old at intermission.  "The book is much much better.  There wasn't all this singing so it wasn't so confusing."  The play is definetly different because all the people who have already died will sometimes pop up wearing red hankerchief and that means they are memories so I could see how it would be confusing to kids.  Also, at the beginning of the play the director came out to make all these announcements and one of the main actresses and they were totally making shout outs to random community members in the audience.  The main actress was said to her daughter "Hi Bella! Be good. Okay?" Um... that's when you know it's a small town. 
Also, in unrelated news... On Friday night Thomas had made dinner and brought it to the living room to eat hot out of the oven.  All of the sudden I hear a crack and look over and see this:
His plate had completely cracked, I'm guessing from the heat and spilled all over the couch.  I'm glad it didn't burn his private area :) We had a good laugh at that.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Student Teaching Week #3

Another great week at Pioneer Elementary.  Our principal does the daily announcements over the intercom every morning and he always ends it with "learn something new out there pumas!" It makes me laugh every time.  He has the best announcers voice.
One experience this weekend that kind of broke my heart was that one of the girls in my class told me two days in a row that her snack had been stolen.  Everyday the kids get about 5 minutes to pull out a snack around 10:30am.  Some other student said she saw one of the boys eating the peanut butter crackers that the little girl was missing.  I looked in his desk at recess and saw the wrapper of the crackers.  So my cooperating teacher talked to him and let him know that some snacks had been taken and if it was him it needed to stop.  She let me know that his mom doesn't send him with a snack ever.  I guess he get's his breakfast and lunch at school and then the school even sends him food home over the weekend.  It broke my heart the next day seeing him watch while all of the other students ate their snacks.  I was teaching a math lesson about fractions that involved cutting apples and so I made sure to have him help and then let him have half the apple along with another boy who had forgotten his snack.  Then on Friday when he got his food for the weekend put in his backpack, during snack he ate a ton of it! He pulled out a fruit roll up, a little single serving box of frosted flakes, and a poptart.  It made me so sad to think that he might be so hungry.  I know that the other students don't realize that he doesn't bring a snack but it must seem like they do to him and I can just imagine how that makes him feel :( 
This next week I will be pretty much full time teaching.  Most of my Saturday's are spent lesson planning with a little fun filled in there.
This Saturday I went to another hot yoga class with Tess.  This time the teacher she normally goes to was there and it was Bikram yoga which I hadn't done before.  I really liked it and am excited to make it a part of my regular weekly workouts.  This coming Saturday Thomas and I and Tess and Ryan will be participating in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5K so we won't be able to go to Jaime's class.  But Tess and I will be going to the 6am Friday class with Don, our instructor from last week.

After yoga Tess and I both ran home to shower and get ready and then her, Ryan, and little Graham picked Thomas and I up and we went to the downtown Boise's farmer's market.  I was surpised at the number of samples of food.  There was meat, salsas, bread, cheese, and lots more.  I bought a bag of vanilla bath salts as a treat for myself for after my long runs.

Which speaking of long runs... I finished my second one of this training cycle this weekend.  It was another 8-miler and this time a little more flat since we ran on the greenbelt.  Thomas ran 5.5 of it with me.  He ran the first three and then started walking back while I ran one more and then met up with him with about 2.5 left.  The greenbelt is just a couple miles down the street from our apartment and is so pretty it runs along the river and has tons of parks that you run past and tons of walkers and joggers.