GREAT NEWS!!!!!

So, after Clint and I sat down and watched American Idol, I asked if he had checked the mail for today. He told me that he hadn't, and so I was anxious to see if I got a letter from Weber State about that scholarship. This was the week that we were supposed to find out, so I've been searching frantically for it for the past 3 days.

I ran out to the mailbox and when I got in I started sorting through all the bills. At the very bottom of the pile was an envelope from Weber State University's Education Department!! I started jumping up and down because I knew it was about the scholarship. However, I had to remember that there was a possibility that it might have bad news as well. But regardless of that, I was too excited and ripped the envelope open and saw in bold letters CONGRATULATIONS!

I'm so ECSTATIC!! I don't have to pay for tuition or student fees for my last year of college!! What a Wonderful blessing! The only thing I have to do is teach in a Utah school for at least 1 year. That's definitely doable! :)

Well that's my good news for the week! Oh and I also bought a SUPER cute bathing suit today as well!hehe. Check out the website: http://www.modbeclothing.com/. They sell tankini's that are very modest and fit very nicely. Also, the sizes run big so it makes you feel good about yourself!

End of Spring Semester

Today, I had my Exit Interview for Level 2 in the Teacher Educaton program. Every semester we have to be interviewed to ensure we've met the INTASC Standards of becoming a teacher, and we present a portfolio of the work that proves we've met those standards as well.

My interview went really well! My teacher actually made the comment that he loves my passion for teaching and he wishes he had children young enough to be taught by me !!! I couldn't believe what I was hearing, because he's been the hardest professor I've had since starting the program. That really meant a lot to me to hear him say that, and I hope I can be that good of a teacher some day. It was a hard semester full of constant work, but it was also a great semester and I learned a lot about how to teach diverse learners, social studies, and reading.

Some of you have inquired on what grade I plan to teach. I will take whatever I can get, but I do prefer the younger grades (1st, 2nd, or 3rd). Most of my portfolio work has been done with third grade curriculum though.

I also found out that I got the High Honors Scholarship for Summer Semester! YAY. I got it for Fall/Spring, but I was really worried on having to pay $2000 for this summer. Well, more like that Clint was going to have to pay!haha. It was definitely a pleasant surprise. Obviously, free money is a pleasant surprise to anyone, right??

Now, I just need everyone to cross their fingers for me that I get the T.H. Bell Scholarship. This scholarship pays for all of my tuition for the rest of the time I'm in school. I should find out if I got it by the end of April or beginning of May. That would be a HUGE blessing, because I most likely am not going to be able to work the rest of the time I'm in school. For Fall, I'll be in school from 8a-2:50p almost every day. Plus I have to do my Senior project of volunteering in a school. For Spring, I student teach so that definitely eliminates working. Hopefully after Spring, I'll have a job set up as a first year teacher.

FieLD ExPeRiEnCe!!

Well, my two weeks in the school is over :(. I had a lot of fun with those 5th graders and got pretty attached. They were fun to joke with and they worked pretty hard for me. They learned about Grizzly Bears in Alaska. They created their own Alaska maps labeling the two main mountain ranges: Alaska and Brooks, Denali National Park, Mt. McKinley, and their cardinal directions. They also drew some of the animals: caribou, whales, salmon, dall sheep, grizzlies, etc. They were very artistic to say the least.

Grizzly in Alaska

They also learned how the daylight hours in the summer are longer, and the sun is constantly out for about 3 months, and the opposite happens in the winter. They found that pretty interesting. They wanted to live in Alaska so they could go to school when it was still dark outside!haha. However, they didn't care for the fact that in the summer they would have to try and sleep with the sun still shining through their windows.
Another interesting topic they learned about was the aurora borealis, also known as the Northern Lights. We read a folklore poetry book about the different legends of what earlier tribes thought the lights represented: such as wars to come, fox tails, or ancestors doing spirit dances. For the final day, they created their own Aurora legends and made chalk drawings of their Northern Lights on black construction paper . They pasted their legends on the back of their drawings and we made a class book out of it. I was very pleased with the results. They put a lot of effort into their chalk drawings, which had to consist of an Arctic landscape and their own aurora

Aurora in Greenland

One of my favorite moments was during the reading of their book, it mentioned how grizzly bears can eat 200,000 soapberries in one day. The students wanted to know why they liked them so much and what they tasted like. I knew why the bears liked them, because they have a lot of sugar that helps them store fat for the winter. However, I didn't know how they tasted. As we read on, the author mentioned that he had tasted one and it was pretty bitter. He also stated that bear droppings mainly consist of the remains of the berries they ate. Then, these droppings grow new berry bushes next year. The kids were all grossed out, and they made a pretty funny connection. They said, " EWWW, no wonder the author didn't like the taste of those berries!!" LOL. I couldn't help but laugh for about 2 minutes straight. They were a pretty clever group.

Yummy Soapberries!!

Another funny was when I taught them how to draw their own grizzly bears with step by step instruction. They had just learned that the grizzly bear's body is pretty thin when it comes out of hibernation. When some of them were finished, they thought their bears' legs were too skinny or the body wasn't thick enough. Some thought their bears looked like pigs! I just told the ones that had skinny bears that their bear just came out of hibernation, and the ones that thought their bear looked like a pig..I told them they just had their 200,000 soapberries for the day. They all thought that was pretty funny and they ended up being satisfied with their pictures after that! :)
They were pretty sad to see me go. They begged me to come back and visit. They're supposedly going on a field trip on April 29th and they all wanted me to come. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera and take pictures of my class! I would have posted them so you guys could see. When I go back to visit, I'll be sure to get a class picture. All in all, it was a WONDERFUL experience.