Three Weeks Up!

I can't believe I've already finished 3 weeks of my student teaching! Time is flying!! I already talked about my first week and the last two weeks have been just as eventful! I'll try to sum it up:

- I went on a "Winter Survival" field trip with the 5th grade class this past Tuesday. We drove out to a place with lots of space for us, got out and walked

half a mile through snow whilecarrying our own gear, and met up in the middle of some woods. The kids were instructed how to collect kindling, tinder and pieces of wood in various sizes in order start and feed their own fire. The adults were told to DO NOTHING many times (I guess they've had bad experiences where the parents feel bad for their kid's failure so they take over and that's not the point of the day) so we just encouraged them along. I had a group of 6 girls and I kept trying to tell them we needed more than these dinky little sticks and they should look for downed trees to get big logs, but it took a while for them to catch on. Eventually, we got the go ahead to light our fire and pull out our food. One of the girls in my group actually brought stuff to make guacamole... not sure if that's cookout food but whatever. We also had hot dogs, and special hamburgers, and grilled cheese, and ,of course, s'mores! Everyone wanted to be in our group after they smelled our spread! After our great food, the kids were taken on a walk and then played a bit of hide and seek and then we went back to school. Great cold day!

- I bonded with a student on that field trip-one of my EI kids that had so far ignored or got upset with me because I'm a girl. That day, he hovered around me and my group until my girls yelled at him to go back to his own group. Ever since he's been one of my best students!

- I had a 1st grader do some crazy stuff including hitting on me several times:

-he actually noticed that I wore my hair differently and told me I looked hot

-he looked at the rings I wear on both my ring fingers and told me I shouldn't have them since he wanted to put a ring on my finger

-he offered to find my CT (cooperating teacher) a woman

-he came up and grabbed my sides and hugs me full-out

- I saw a total meltdown from one of my EI kids... scary to watch since he was screaming and wouldn't walk and had to be dragged out of the gym in front of some 2nd graders who then asked if his legs were broken and why he was being dragged outside

- And I had a kid come into our office and tell me he's excited to give me a Valentine's Day card!

So yeah, like I said, eventful! I'll be starting to teach a lot more this week, especially my own lessons, so I hope it goes nice and smooooooth!

Lessons Learned from the Gym

This first week of student teaching phys ed at the elementary school has been full of some crazy but great things! The principle at my school missed school Monday and Tuesday so my CT (cooperating teacher) had to take over the role... there was a sub there but she didn't know how to teach PE so I got to lead the class several times on my first few days there! Scary but also pretty awesome! I thought I'd share just a few of the fun happenings with you so you can start to see what you're missing by not teaching K-5th graders PE!

-you get Kindergartners whispering to you that you're pretty

-hugs from random children that like you just because you're associated with someone else they like: their other PE teacher

-birthday treats from kids you've known less than a week

-chubby little EI kids with partial mullets trying to explain how to kneel by telling the other kids that they have to get down on one knee like the prince does when putting the slipper on the princess

-going through almost an entire song of listen-and-move (songs put with movements like running or galloping that you have to listen for to figure out what to do) before you realize you have 3 Kindergartners following you in your shadow

And these are just a few of the things my week was filled with! Jealous yet?

Long One...

Happy New Year!!

With the start of a new year, I'm going to try to be better about my blogging! There's a lot going on right now so there shouldn't be a shortage of things to talk about...

2010 is starting off a lot like 2009 in the way that I'm about to start student teaching again! If you've been following for the last year, you'll know that I was supposed to do my semester of student teaching last winter semester, but it fell through. Well, I think I've fixed the previous problem so I should be all set to go now!! I'll be starting out at Northside Elementary in Ann Arbor just like last time, but my secondary placement has been moved to Scarlett Middle School, also in AA. I was hoping for Canton placements this time around since I'm living at home this year to save money, but I'm still pretty excited to be at both of these schools. Monday's my first day back at the schools so pray that everything goes well please!!

One major change from the beginning of last year is that I now have a neice!

Noel's the cutest baby and she almost never cries. We've got her to stick out her tongue when we do it first and she's just started giggling! She'll be 3 months old on the 3rd and she's the first grandchild/neice in our immediate family so everything seems new! We all love babysitting and we keep trying to think of new reasons to get Kyle and Danielle out of the house so we can watch her! With all of the holidays and football days recently, our days have been wonderfully Noel-filled. I can't wait to see what she does next!

Last semester, my time was filled with work and class. I took my hopefully last Math class that was a killer and yet somehow I got A-! It was one of the best surprises ever! My working situation was part-time at ITS for my dad- cleaning and doing scrap-runs, and then part-time at the local Family Christian bookstore. It's been great working there, but I'm taking a break from that while I student teach.

The last new thing in my life is the house I bought. It's in the same neighborhood as my parents' house, just a walk away, and we're redoing nearly all of the inside and some of the outside to suit my brother/sister-in-law's taste since they'll be the ones living in it when it's ready. It's pretty neat to see and help with all the changes going on over there, and be a part of the new plans for the house. It's certainly giving the whole family something else to do!!

I think that's it for now! I'll try to be back soon! Thanks for reading!!!

Busy Bee

Wow it's been a long time!! I can't believe I let 2 months get away from me! However, it's been a SUPER busy 2 months so I have really good excuses!

First off, and biggest announcement, I'm an AUNT!!!! My sister-in-law had my niece Noel Grace Archibald on October 3rd. It was an exciting 2 days in the hospital and she finally arrived and is the cutest baby ever! I've since had the chance to babysit and hang out with the cutie a lot and

I love it! Babies are a semi-new thing for me, seeing as I'm pretty much the youngest in my immediate and extended families so it's been a learning process. She's started smiling now and it's wonderful to catch her in a smile with her dimple showing! We try and try and then it happens and we're all so much more excited than she is! She hardly ever cries and just makes these squeaks and grunts. Great stuff!

Next up is I bought a house!! Kind of... we took advantage of the whole 1st time homeowner

credit and bought a foreclosed house in my parents neighborhood for a great price that we can work on for a while and fix up. It's definitely not livable right now but it will be! It's pretty exciting but there's so much work! It was a bit creepy when we got there... there was this big cage in the basement with some handmade edges coming out of the wall... we're guessing a ferret? Anyways, we've (and when I say we I mean mostly Kyle and my dad) have torn out a bunch of stuff already, trying to get to a point where we can still work in the winter. We're talking floor plans and such at this stage since we hope to change a lot. Similar to this is my sister just moved into her new house last week and she's going through totally different things! She doesn't have much to change at this point, but there's lots of painting and furniture choices in her near future.

I'm still taking my math class and it's going pretty well... I know I'll pass, but I'm really praying for a great grade to raise my minor GPA... Pray for me please! I also had a PE convention that I had to give a presentation for a few weeks ago. Scary. Mom and i drove up to Traverse City for the night and day so I could be there, but I think it went all right! Not much fumbling but we may have to do something for the national convention which would be 10 times worse. We'll see...

Finally, I got another job! I've been filling in at my dad's shop, which is fine and pays really well, but I didn't have a real position and I couldn't meet anyone new. I felt I was in a rut. Now, I've got another job on top of that at the nearby Family Christian Store! Perfect, right?! I get to walk

around and talk about books all the time! It's such a temptation, though! I want them all but then I wouldn't get to save any money. We had our employee appreciation day the other night and got a super discount so I already have most of my Christmas shopping done, but it was still a lot of money. Oh well, I think I'm getting a raise cuz it seems like I've been put on a track for management... not so sure I'm ready for that yet...

Well, that's the news! As you can see, it's been busy busy busy! Hopefully I'll be better now!

Back to School :(

Yep, it's true, I'm back in class. I'm taking my hopefully last math class this semester before again hopefully student teaching and graduating next semester. The class is Geometry for Teachers so it's a bit different from most other math classes and the teacher is WAY different from most math teachers. Most of the time, we're taught by extremely smart mathematicians that totally know what they're talking about but have no clue how to transfer all of that info to an unknowledgeable student. I've only had the class 2 days now but already I can already tell this new teacher is different. When I think of him, I think of a life-size leprechaun. He's just over 5 ft tall, has a beard, likes to walk with locked knees, wears a lot of green and brown, only wears slippers, and always wears a cap which is where he gets his nickname "cap" that we're supposed to call him (oh and by the way, this cap happens to be a tweed deerstalker cap that just adds to the leprechaun earthy image). When introducing himself to us, he got very serious and admitted that not only did he get his degree from OSU, he also married a Spartan. He felt he had to get that out of the way before he went any further. After that, he showed that he loves to laugh and I'm hopeful for the semester...

It's just the one class so I have time to work with one of my professors on some more research and maybe get another part time job and- BIG NEWS- be around when my niece is born ANY DAY NOW!!!! Very exciting!! We just had her church baby shower last night and it was so fun to see her open up all the cute stuff! She wasn't supposed to be due for another month, but it's been moved way up and we've been praying that she at least made it through the shower and she did! I can't wait for her to get here! Every time I hear one of them hurrying around or I get a call from one of them I think maybe it's happening... one of these times it'll be right.

Oo, I forgot to mention that I'm not the only one back in school, my dad is too! He's decided to take one of those random classes over at Schoolcraft and he starts tomorrow. It's pretty weird coaching him through getting to class early and what to bring or leave at home. Hopefully it'll open his eyes a bit to what school is like these days!!

Home!!!

This here is just a little shout out to say WELCOME HOME CARLY!!! My roommate for practically my first 4 years of college just got home today from being gone for 11 months! She's traveled all throughout the world, experiencing an amazing missions trip crossing several continents and I can't wait to hear more about it face-to-face!!! Love you Carly!!

Golfing?

Until a little over a week ago, I would have definitely said golf was one of my least favorite sports. Yes, I know I'm a PE major and should enjoy and encourage others to love all sports, but there are just a few that I couldn't seem to understand the point. Well, in the case of golf, my mind has changed.

_

My aggravation with golf has been around for a long time, growing worse with age, to the point that I hardly felt like trying again. You see, quite a few years ago, my mom took my sister and I to a driving range with a few holes on the side and it went terribly! I'm generally athleticly alright at most sports (not great at anything) but I sucked that day. It's hard to get me frustrated but man did I go off that day! Ever since, I've stuck to the random fun game of putt-putt (especially glo-golf!) and stayed away from even watching real golf.

However, all this was subject to change when we decided to take my mom golfing for her birthday at a 9 hole 3 par course, playing a scramble with two teams. It actually sounded pretty fun since I knew we could play with fun in mind and I knew neither my brother nor my sister-in-law (who is 7 months pregnant btw) had played much before. Well, the fun was definitely true! Even though it rained, we still had a blast watching each other, particularly Danielle when she would attempt to bend over and tee up. On top of that, I wasn't half-bad! I had a few good drives and then came my famous birdie shot. The course is full of water, which really sucks if you can never get your ball to go up, but I found a way around that... I hit the ball and it skipped over the water several times before jumping up on the shore, around a wall, and to within a foot of the hole!! It was crazy awesome! I did the skipping water trick a few more times but never with the same result. Overall, it was great! I'm not sure that I'm a total golf convert but we did go to the same place today to play regular golf and it wasn't too bad. We'll see what the future brings!!