PRAXIS Exam & Updates

Many of you already know, but I passed the PRAXIS! YaY! That means I'm well on my way as a teacher, but I just have to pass this final semester of school. I'm definitely seeing the light at the end of the tunnel! Graduation is May 1st, so just around the corner.

I met my 5th grade cooperating teacher. She seems like a really nice teacher. She was very helpful, and gave me a variety of topics to pick from that I could teach. I'll be teaching the Civil War (social studies), Matter (science), and Geometry & Probability (math). Reading will just be incorporated in these subjects.

As for the 2nd grade teacher that I'm supposed to team up with first, I haven't been able to meet with her yet! I'm a little nervous about that, since I'll be in her class in 2 weeks. However, I'm sure it will all work out and I can get on board quickly. I can't wait to get started!

Student Teaching

I'm super excited because I start student teaching next semester! Starting January 5th, I'll be teaching at Antelope Elementary. Half of the semester I will be teaching 2nd graders, and the other half of the semester I'll be teaching 5th graders. Each semester, I get more and more comfortable with teaching. I really can't wait to have my very own classroom!!!

Other than that, I took my Praxis II exam about 3 weeks ago. I'm really nervous to get the results back. If I passed, then I'm considered "highly qualified" to teach. I get my results around December 17th. Everyone cross your fingers for me :)

Living/NonLiving Scavenger Hunt

I'm now finished with field experience, and I had a GREAT time! I absolutely love THIRD GRADERS!! At the end, they all wrote me a letter and put it in a folder for me to keep. The kids were so sweet, and they told me what their favorite lesson was. Each lesson got at least 2 votes, but the popular lesson was my Science: Living/NonLiving Scavenger Hunt.This was the lesson I mentioned in a previous post, but I didn't have the pictures to go along with it.

Thankful Turkeys

For my art lesson, I had the students tell me what they do for Thanksgiving, and then read the book Thanksgiving at Our House. Afterwards, they helped me make a list of all the things they are thankful for, since that's what the book discussed. They came up with a great list: Home, Family, Dog, Cat, Teachers, Oxygen, Myself, Friends, Neighbors, and Food.

Next, they were given an outline of a turkey and a feather. They traced their feather on six colors of construction paper (primary and secondary colors).
On each feather, the students wrote what they were individually thankful for and glued them on the back of their turkey. They also colored the turkey and wrote their name and "is thankful" on the front. As I walked around, I was happy to see students coming up with their own ideas other than what was on the list: education, soul, doctors, freedom, grandma and grandpa, and shelter. They turned our great; here are a few examples.

Night Out with the Liberals

Friday was so much fun! Clint and I hung out with Jody and Rod. We went to Tepanyaki to eat and then back to the Liberal's to play Sequence! We usually hang out with the Liberals at least once a week, so I think it's becoming a tradition.

Jody and Me
Not quite sure of what Clint's doing

Jody and Rod
Such a cute couple!

Clint and Me

Just Clint being his usual funny self!

Busy, Busy, Busy

Wow..this semester is FLYING!! Instead of having a ton of projects due at the end of the semester, my teachers had us do all our projects at the beginning of the semester before we do our field work. It'll definitely be nice at the end of the semester when I'm not worrying about 50 million projects. One project that I'm super excited about is our self-authored children's book. When it's finished, I'll be sure to post it.
I start field experience on October 22nd. I'll be teaching a 3rd grade class (YAY..I finally got a grade I asked for), and I only have to teach 8 lessons. I'll just be observing the first week, and then after that I'll teach 2 lessons each week.
About a month from now, I'll be taking the Praxis II exam. This is the test I take to get my teacher licensure. I'm pretty nervous about it. So everyone cross your fingers that I pass all of my sections :). I'm not worried about Math or Language Arts, but Science and Social Studies will definitely be harder for me.

My Latest Do!!

So I saw a picture of a haircut that I really wanted. I decided to CHOP it all off and go super short. Again, this is another cut done by Kenzie. Here's the pictures of my new cut. I absolutely love it, and it's SO much easier to style. YAY!! Tell me what you think...

Easy Crafty Idea

For school, I'm having to do an art trade book review with a group of classmates. We have to show everyone an activity that would be fun for kids to do in art. I actually did that activity before class, so that we have examples to show. It was very simple, and I thought it turned out pretty neat. You guys with kids might find this fun, or those of you who are super crafty might find this as a cool new way to decorate.

The materials needed include:
Gold Acrylic Paint, Elmer's Glue, Marker, Black Shoe Polish, Paint Brush, Paper Towel, & Cardstock or Cardboard

Step 1:
Draw your lines, picture, or design on your cardstock or cardboard

Step 2:
Open your glue so that thick lines will come out. Hold the glue a little bit away from the paper as you trace your drawing. You need to hold it away, so that the glue stays raised on the paper. Let it dry (overnight for best results).

Step 3:
Paint the entire cardstock or cardboard with the gold acrylic paint. Let that dry (about 5-10 minutes). Cardboard holds up better and won't curl.

Step 4:
Rub some black shoe polish on your paper towel, and gently brush over your picture to give it an antique look of old metal, and you're finished!!

Back 2 SchooL

Last week, I started back to school. It seems like it's going to be a pretty fun semester. The teachers are really nice, and there aren't as many assignments due :)!! The classes I'm taking include: Science Methods, Arts/Music Methods, Math Methods, Language Arts Methods, and PE Methods.

For my field experience, I'll be teaching in Ogden City Schools in a third grade classroom. I'm really excited to teach third graders, because most of my portfolio work has been done on third grade. This will be a great learning experience.

As for PE Methods, my class gets to teach first graders! That should be interesting and fun. Those kids will have so much energy, that they'll probably wear us out instead of us wearing them out.

Other than that, I thought I'd show you guys my first Art/Music Methods assignment. We had to create a "Past, Present, and Future" project that represented how we feel about art/music, what we've done for art/music in our lives in the past and present, and then what we hope to do in the future for ourselves and our students. I just used oil paint, acrylic paint, ribbon, art paper and cardstock paper (glue stick and a glue gun too). Tell me what you think...

Gigantic Flowers!!

Just last week, I noticed how HUGE our Hawaiian flowers had gotten. They are so big now, and they are even pulling up our cloth weed guard underneath our bark. They are taller than me!! I can stand next to them and they are still a few inches higher. There are even a few that are at the same height as Clint and he's 6'1''.


I still don't know the name of these flowers because a neighbor gave them to us and I dont' remember what he called them. However, when we saw him last he said, "So are those things on steroids or what?". I know that I tried googling tall red hawaiian flowers, and the closest looking flower was called Red Ginger. Anyway, I think they are just beautiful and I thought I'd show the comparison in height from the last pictures we took of them.

Picture taken on August 6th: Hitting the 6th side paneling on the house

Picture taken September 1st: Hitting the 12th side paneling of the house

Tragic Event

I woke up Monday morning with a phone call from one of my good friends that I used to work with at Focus Services. She informed me of some very tragic news. But first, I would like to give a little background information.

The two of us had worked together on a humanitarian project for Focus last year before I went to work at Mills Montessori. Basically, we came up with activities to raise money and talked with big companies about donating prizes to give away at our bowl-a-thon. Every year, Focus uses this money to go to Guatemala and help build homes and schools as well as bring supplies to a village in need.

This year, they did the same thing. They raised money and then they flew out certain employees of the company to go help this village. Unfortunately, a plane that was flying my former employees into the small village crashed before arriving to their destination. Many were screaming for help when the plane crashed, but only 3 survived because the plane blew up into flames 10 minutes after the crash. People tried to save them, but could not get them out of their seat belts.

Only one of my former employees was one of the survivors, the C.O.O., Dan Liljenquist. He should be back in the States soon, but severely injured both of his legs. I personally only knew one of the other three Focus employees who didn't make it. His name was John Carter. He has three kids and a wife, who I am sure miss him very much. I'm glad to say that I joked around with John a few times before I left Focus. He was a good guy. There is a fund set up in John's name at Zion's Bank if anyone would like to donate some money.

I'm just glad that they left this world trying to serve others. They will be missed and always remembered. Please say a prayer for their families.

Lia Sophia Party

Most of you have already been told about the party, but just in case I haven't talked to you I wanted to make sure you knew about it. On

Friday, September 5th at 6pm

I'm having a Lia Sophia (jewelry) party. Even if you don't want to buy anything, you might as well come because they play games and do raffles to give away free jewelry & it's really cute, nice jewelry. If you want to come and need to know the location, just give me a call or leave a comment and I'll give you the address because it's not going to be at my house. If you've never heard of Lia Sophia, here are a few of their pieces:

Empress
I'm actually getting this one myself because I'm loving the purple and graphite!

Glitterati

Tahoe

Fall/Winter 2008 Catalog

The New Cut

Kenzie, Clint's sister, is going to hair school right now. She just gave me the CUTEST new hair cut. I absolutely love it. I thought I'd post the pics to let everyone see.

It's extremely nice to have someone in the family who knows how to do hair! I used to spend a fortune to get my hair done, so I'd go a LONG time before getting another style. While Kenzie's in school it's VERY cheap..only $6.00 for this cute hair cut. Plus, she gave me a manicure. I'd highly recommend you to get your hair done by her ! :)

Ichiban Sushi

For my birthday, Clint took me to a sushi restaurant in Salt Lake called Ichiban Sushi! It was DELICIOUS. I had the Mia Roll, which has grilled eel and avacado on top, with crab mix and shrimp tempura. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera, but here's pictures of what Ichiban looks like and what my yummy roll looked like!

I also had the Miso soup, and for dessert the Banana Fernando. This is probably the best dessert ever. They make it like a sushi roll, but it's bananas rolled in a fried crust, with cheescake inside, topped with caramel, and served with vanilla bean ice cream.

Finished Yard

FINALLY, I'm showing you guys our finished yard. Of course, the bushes and trees are small right now. I couldn't believe how much bushes and trees cost! It's expensive to have a semi-decent yard.

ReVaMpeD bLoG!!!!

Okay..so I've been seeing my friend's blogsites and they're SO cute! I would look at mine and think, "Man, this is so boring and lame. Where are they finding these cute backgrounds?"

I got on the Internet and searched several different times, and I could never find anything. I could tell that the backgrounds looked almost like scrapbooking pages. So finally on my fourth attempt, I finally found some of these cute backgrounds by searching for scrapbook blogger backgrounds. The specific site was: http://www.thecutestblogontheblock.com/

Tell me what you think of the newly designed blog site by either leaving a message or taking a vote on my poll!

SKYDIVE UTAH!

What a crazy day! Clint dove out of a plane with his good friend, Rod, and my stomach was in knots. He made it back to land safely, and had a blast. I'd have to admit I was a little jealous, but there was no way in heck I was jumping out of a plane. Maybe someday, but as of now I'm too chicken. Check out these sweet pictures and videos....

Before the Dive:

Look...he's not even phased by the fact that he MIGHT be jumping to his DEATH!!!!

During the Dive:

Check out the beautiful scenery!! How amazing is this???

The Landing:

You gotta LOVE Clint's Fro after the dive! That's sweet.

A Few of My Favorite People....

Today was my last day at Mills Montessori School. Since I'll be going to school from 8a-3p next semester, I just wasn't able to work at the preschool anymore. I had a blast working there, and I had the cutest kids in my class!! I LOVED each one of them. I"ll miss them dearly. I was sad to leave, but I know that school is more important right now. I thought I'd share some of the pictures and videos of these cutie pies...you'll easily see why they were some of my favorite people.....

Maci & Hailey:

Maci always liked to do the "Crazy Llama" dance for me!!

Hailey always enjoyed being a Ptyeradactyl dinosaur.

Christian & Matt:

These two were definitely a pair of cuties. They always did something everyday to make me smile and laugh! Just look at those innocent sweet faces.

Madison:

She was so sweet and lovable. She would often climb in my lap and just sit and talk with me for at least twenty or thirty minutes a day.

Grace, Isaac, Sam B., Jessica, Sam C.:

This was the kindergarten/1st grade bunch. They kept things lively and were extremely smart!

Back Row: Lucas, Jake, Isaac

Middle Row: Dylan & Grace

Front Row: Sam P. & Samuel

I've already talked about most of these kiddos. Jake, however, was one of my buds. He was in the 2nd grade class, but we always had fun on the playground. We often got in soccer battles, or started up a game of hide-and-go-seek. He was full of energy and always the comedian. I think I got along with him so well because he really reminded me of my nephew, Andrew (who lives all the way in Alabama)

The Crazy Llama Dancers

So one day at playtime, the kids started dancing and they asked me to make up a song to the their dance. Well, Maci was galloping around, and making funny head movements. For some reason, she looked like a llama to me, so we made up the song, "Crazy Llamas, Crazy, Crazy Llamas", and they all thought it was hysterical. Good times!

Interior Decorations

For Christmas, Clint gave me a gift cerficate to Tai Pan Trading Company!! This place has all sorts of decor for pretty cheap, and it's very nice. I used the gift certificate to decorate the kitchen, and part of the living room. Ever since then, I've been making decorations and buying odds and ends to make our home look a little more "homey". Since most of you haven't seen my house because you live so far away, I thought I'd show you some pictures of what it looks like.

Kitchen: Deep Red & Golden Yellow Decor

Dining Room: Olive Green placemats, Suede wall,

Golden Yellow and Deep Red flower centerpiece, Pub Table

Living Room: Black & Deep Red Decor

Recent crafts I made:

Glass Bathroom Tile & Vinyl Lettering:

"Laugther, music of the heart"

Ceramic Tile & Vinyl Lettering:

"Our Family is a circle of strength,

founded on faith, joined in love,

kept by God..."

Coming Up Next:

In a few weeks, I'll be posting pictures of our finished yard. I'm just waiting for the Hawaiian flowers to bloom. They're almost there, and I can already see the buds!!

Other than that, we're going to Stanley, Idaho with Clint's family over my birthday next week. I'm pretty excited to take a break from work and school. Until then, I hope everyone's having a great summer. Check back soon for other updates!