The Start of Week #3

I have yet to go to a whole week of school! The first week we had a half day on Monday, last week we didn't have school at all on Monday. This week we were supposed to have our first full week of school, and then today we (my roommate and I) were informed that school was canceled due to high winds and low temperatures. Now, Megan and I are left to figure out what to do for the rest of the day. We have plans to run some errands and go swimming and to have some fun! I haven't posted any new pictures lately, and Natrona County has given me a macbook to use throughout the semester, so here are a few pictures from the program PhotoBooth.

Ending Week #2

Week two has been wonderful. It was a short week due to Martin Luther King Jr. Day (or Equality Day, as it is known in WY), so this week has flown by! I can't believe that tomorrow is Friday already! I went home for the long weekend and I got to see my friends and my family. It was nice to see everyone again and just relax because my time to do that is quickly coming to an end! It has been a pretty eventful week, even though it has been short. I got to teach the lesson for the pre-algebra classes yesterday. I must say that I definitely improved a lot the more I taught it, which makes me feel bad for my 1st period class, poor kids had to suffer through my inexperience and lack of expertise! They seemed to understand the concept (sequences) much better by the end of the period though, and my 7th period class kicked sequences's butt! Today was a pretty good day, I got to go up to one of the high schools and do some observations. It amazed me how different high school kids are from junior high kids! I mean, I knew they were different but I've just gotten so used to how active my students are that it was weird to go into the high school classes and see how quiet and passive the students are! It definitely made me miss my students, I hadn't realized I had became so attached to them. They are wonderful kids and I really don't think I can get enough time with them! Although, a few of them made me feel pretty good when I came back this afternoon and they had noticed that I was not there this morning. Tomorrow should be an exciting day for me and the students. The kids all got to make paper airplanes today so they can fly them down the hall tomorrow and then we'll find the mean, median, and mode of their flights! It should be fun to see all the different planes and the kids will really enjoy getting to throw them. I love that we do activities that the kids enjoy and learn a lot from all at the same time. I suppose that is about all I have about this week. So, until next time!

The first half of the first week

I've finally started student teaching!! I've officially had students for two and a half days! Monday was a half day, so parents could come in and have conferences with teachers about goal setting and any other questions they may have. I got to teach my first class yesterday! In the morning my mentor and I team taught the first two periods of the day. He coaches 9th grade girls basketball and he had to go to Cheyenne for a game so he left about noon and left the classroom to me in the afternoon. We don't have many afternoon classes though, our planning period is from 12-12:44 and then we have lunch from 12:44-1:14 and then we have our 7th period class (which is pre-algebra) until about 2:00 and from 2-2:30 there is a connections class where the students read for 30 minutes and then school is out! My mentor had requested a substitute for the time that he was gone so I was not alone in the room, but I taught the lesson, at least until the lockdown! It had been a very long time since I had been involved in a lockdown and I wasn't completely sure of what to do, but I did what I remembered my teachers doing and had the students fill in the rest. It worked out pretty well and the students behaved too, so all in all I felt like it was a pretty successful day, even though we did not get through everything that we needed to. By the end of the day today I think that I have about 1/2 of my 115 students's names figured out, which means I still have a ways to go. I do alright until they move around, then I get confused. Hopefully I will get the other half by the end of the week and I don't forget any over the long 3 day weekend! That is about all that I have to report for now, but I'll make sure to keep you posted if anything else exciting happens. I believe I'm teaching some portions of the lessons tomorrow and probably Friday as well, so if anything exciting happens I'll make sure to write about it!

Starting off a New Year

I hope everyone has had a wonderful new year so far! Mine has been pretty good, but most of it has been spent packing, moving, and unpacking. That's right, I've completed my move to Casper and I'm completely settled. I still don't know my way around very well yet, but I'm sure that will come with some time. I can get to a gas station, a grocery store, walmart, and my school, what else does a girl need, right? My roommate and I spent yesterday getting settled and putting cable into our bedroom, now we can watch tv in the bedroom or in the living room. It was a pretty easy fix too, and we did it without any help from any boys, we were very proud of ourselves.
I start school on Tuesday, so I still have a couple days to learn my way around Casper a little more.
My plans so far for my last couple days of Christmas break include relaxing, sledding, lunch with a friend from my freshman year, and a tour of the city. Hopefully I'll learn a lot more on my tour!