Entertainment Center

Josh has been working for about a month now to make an entertainment center in our family room. He is finally finished and I am very thankful. I LOVE IT! He worked really hard on it so I have to give him a lot of credit.

You might recognize this picture from my post (a long time ago) about our house. We called this our wall of cabinets. Well, now we can call it our wall of entertainment. Yep, Josh made this wall of cabinets into an entertainment center. It looks really great!

This is it! We took out the middle two sets of cabinets and, made a shelf for the TV, and then stained the cabinets that were left. WE had to buy a new TV because our old one would be really wimpy in the open area. It would have taken about 1/4 of the area given. Besides, we needed an upgrade for February 17, 2009. Enjoy another picture.

I'm happy with the hard work the Josh put into this. Like I said, he did a great job. It took a little bit of time to get him started on it but it was worth it. I cannot be happier.

Confessions of a Student Teacher: Part 4

Welcome back to week four of Confessions of a student teacher. What a crazy week it was! I loved every minute of it, expect when I realized that Thursday was Thursday and not Friday. Oh well, it was still great! I ended up taking over another class. Because my supervisor was coming in to my class on Monday I was allowed to practice my lesson on fifth period (before I taught the lesson in seventh). Somehow I managed to take over fifth for the rest of the week and semester. I didn't mind, the more that I can do the better. Anyway, this is a breakdown of what we did this week.

Monday: Lecture day. We did chapter 8 section one. We are starting to learn about percents. It was an easy lesson so the students had a lot of time to work on homework at the end of the period. Everyone stayed on task nicely (which was good because my evaluator was there). "How did that go Emily?" Everything went great! She said that I did a really good job on my lesson. My largest issue is classroom management. She said that no matter what she is always going to write that as an improvement. I knew that would be brought up so it didn't bother me. I am learning to speak slower (which is great) now all I have to work on is remembering certain things (such as passing out the calculators).

Tuesday: Same as Monday, a lecture except on chapter 8 section 2.

Wednesday: WOW! The student were really bouncing off of the walls on Wednesday. It was a half day which explains all. We played basketball and had a review. It was a lot of fun! Fifth period couldn't handle it so they had to stop with 10 minutes left. That was not very pretty. After all the students left all the math teachers in the district got together at South Valley Junior High. It was awesome! We looked over the new standards and found what was taken out and what as added. Because of the new standards the district has to rewrite the curriculum. We helped. Well... I didn't say much because I don't know a whole lot about them so I listened. I did have fun. I know, I'm a dork because I really enjoyed talking about math. Get used to it!

Thursday: Fun day! Not really, we did chapter 8 section 3. Same as Monday and Tuesday.

Friday: Once again, like every other Friday, we had a quiz! We actually took the classes outside to do it and gave them a partner. It was something different and it was a beautiful day outside. It helped to keep me from going crazy because I constantly stayed busy (like normal).

I haven't decided if I am going to take over a third class next week or not. I've thought about it but I have not made a definite decision. That will probably occur before classes start on Monday. I hope so but at the same time I am nervous to take on more. I've never done this much in a class before so it is weird but awesome! Anyway, I'll let you know how next week works out in a week. Thanks for reading!

My Fate...

Today was one of the hardest days in my life. I took my last two AEPA tests. WOW! They were really hard. Now my career of teaching lies in the hands of these two tests. First I took the middle school mathematics test. Yeah, when I opened up the test booklet (around 8:30) I got really scared. Three hours later I was finally finished and totally wiped out. I still had another one left. SO, I left the building (Gilbert High School) and walked out to my car. I ate some food that I brought and walked back in. I still had about an hour until my second one started so I decided to go take a pilot test they were doing. So I did one and received a $20 gift card to Barnes and Noble. I then talked to my friends and at 1:00 walked to the classroom I would be taking my next test. It was the Elementary Professional Knowledge and that only took about two hours. After the whole day was done I had a large headache and I really wanted to sleep.
Now I have to wait......

Confessions of a Student Teacher: Part 3

Things are definitely improving at Gilbert Junior High. I love it there. I cannot get enough of the students and the math. Yeah, I am a math dork. I'm even reading a book called "Kiss My Math". It is so awesome. Anyway, like I said I did start to teach this week. It was very scary but a lot of fun. I couldn't have a better teacher or group of kids to work with. I started with seventh period so that way I can watch all day and then go on to teach. That was only one reason: seventh period is the best class out of all of them. Here is a breakdown of my awesome week!

Monday: This was my favorite because I got the day off. Yep, being a teacher pays off because you get MLK day off.

Tuesday: On Tuesday we did scale drawings. Essentially we went around the world. We had maps in front of us and we found the distance between two cities using a ruler and the scales on the map. Once everyone in the class understood we played for homework passes. They really enjoyed that. Teaching this lesson was a lot of fun but I was nervous and I felt it. I talked really fast... yeah I need to slow down. (In third period we watched the inauguration, it was awesome because we had a period to watch TV).

Wednesday: First, I had an all staff meeting. I had to be to "work" a lot earlier than normal. (Okay, half an hour isn't a lot, but it makes a difference). It did get boring at one point in time but it was good for me to go. Besides, they had food, who would pass up free food? We did scale drawings of ourselves. We took measuring tapes and measured our heads, bodies, legs, and wingspan. They then had to draw what they looked like using those measurements on a paper. We used the scale of 1 inch on the paper equaled 10 inches on ourselves. SOOO if my head was 10 inches, it would be one inch on the paper. The students had a lot of fun and so did I. My only problem was that while I was giving instructions I (you guessed it) talked to fast. I did find out that my strength was that I talk in the perfect pitch, I'm not too loud or too quiet.

Thursday: We had a review day because Friday was a day for the big chapter seven test. We brought out the whiteboards and I would have them work out some problems on those. After doing that for about half an hour we had a quick drawing contest. For some reason they have to draw and telling them we would do something like that keeps them motivated to do math for awhile. Anyway, I had my class draw a penguin. They all did an awesome job drawing my favorite animal. They were very cute!

Friday: We had a big test on chapter 7 (ratios and proportions)! It was worth 100 points (scary, I know) but most of the students did well. I would grade as they turned in their test and then did the extra credit. Nothing too exciting happened. Oh! I had to go to "work" early because of an AVID meeting. My teacher is an AVID teacher and I am a tutor. So, I went just to get more information (even though I didn't have to). I figure that the more I learn about AVID and work with it, the more qualifications I am given.

Like I said, this week was a lot better. I am having a hard time teaching the class and I think I know why I've never taught math lessons before. I've done one, maybe two, the whole time that I have been in my teaching programs. Pathetic, but true. I'm still getting used to the fact that math isn't always as easy to teach as the other subjects. That is perfectly okay, I'm up for the challenge. Next week will be a more normal week because I'll be doing normal lectures and note taking. I am only going to take over seventh period and then maybe after another week of just them I'll either do second or fifth (I haven't decided). Well, I'm off to go write a lesson plan for Monday (my advisor is coming in to evaluate me). See you next week for another post about my life as a student teacher.

Confessions of a Student Teacher: Part 2

It is time for another blog episode of "Confessions of a Student Teacher". This one is a lot better, trust me. This week went by a lot faster than the last. I just go throughout my week and next thing I know it is Thursday and I'm on my way to Gilbert Junior High. Anyway, here is a quick rundown of how my week went. I'll post some thoughts after that.

Monday: Went by like the week before, more observation and helping students. It wasn't very exciting.

Tuesday: Mr. Hauptli told placed me in charge of grading homework. Okay, so I'm not really grading the homework, I just make sure that they show their work and they did it. Its a little complicated because my version may be different from his. I asked a lot of questions. I'm suprised that he isn't sick of them quite yet.

Wednesday: Mr. Hauptli was out sick. When I walked into the classroom I found a substitute in the classroom. He was very nice and I think that we worked well together. I think that it would have made everything easier if I was teaching because then we wouldn't have to change the lesson plans for the week but that is okay. It was actually really exciteing because I got to help go over the homework (my first big debut in the class). Fourth period was the worst. You can always expect people to act up, I guess they were all in the fourth period.

Thursday: I didn't do much, graded homework and then helped with some other things. mr. Hauptli and I planned out next weeks lesson. We also made up the quizzes that the students would take on Friday.

Friday: QUIZ DAY!!! Basically I graded quizzes and homework. That is all okay, I'm getting better at looking at the homework and grading. The day went by fast because I was constantly busy.

I cannot beleive that my second week is already over! Like I said, this week was better so I am constantly excited to go back. I'm starting to learn the students names really well. I can recognize them but sometimes I get thrown off (like when they are not in their seat). Next week I start teaching. Well, I will start with seventh period and then add more periods every week. I love being in this class! I know this is going to sound really dorky and weird but I get a very big high from doing math. It is so exciting! Yeah, I'm crazy. Anyway, I'll let you know how my frist week of teaching goes in the next episode of "Confessions of a Student Teacher".