I love my job....

It is the best job in the world.

OK, sometime it is hard for a teacher to say that, but so far for 5 weeks I have had the best job in the world. I LOVE what I do. Good grief I never thought I would feel that way again.

So, today, I am teaching the children of Green Acres about the Bill of Rights. We are having a blast. They are bringing up great questions and in general doing a wonderful job of discussing the first 10 amendments to the US constitution. Seriously, I am teaching 5th graders and they are coming up with wonderful examples.

I am using a book called "Adventure Tales in America" to help me teach the Bill of Rights. It teaching history in almost a cartoon form. I think it is set up great for the kids to learn. Anyway, in one of the pictures this guy is on a box labeled soap. Now that is important to know. These kids have never heard the phrase of getting on a soap box. I have to explain what the soap box means before they understand the cartoon. Then I had a student that I get a soap box for them to use when they want to state their opinion about something. WHAT A GREAT IDEA!?! So I am thinking about getting a box and label it soap for them to use if we debate. Seriously, these little people are neat. And if we don't ever use the soap box, it will just be a fun thing to have to remind the students of what "getting on a soap box" means.

Yesterday when we were going over Rules, Rights and Privileges...defining the words, then classifying things as each, the kids came across some things that were hard to classify. It is wonderful to hear them justify their answers. There was a light bulb moment for me though with one of my classes. I ask a student why they thought something was a privilege and not a right or rule. He paused (you know that deer in the headlights look) and I told him "You aren't wrong, I just want to know what you think". He looks at me, smiles and says "That gives me to confidence to tell you my thoughts." Light bulb moment....how often do we as teachers, parents or adults want to know what a kids thinks (just to get inside their head a little) but we don't let them know it is safe??? Think of how much more conviction our children could have for the things they believe in if we made it safe for them to speak their mind a little more often. I am going to strive to make my classroom a safe place for my students to speak up without fear of judgment so they can learn to advocate for themselves and tell people what they think with confidence.

Peace out my peeps....have a great HUMP day!

Down Sizing

HOLY COW!!! I am so excited. This weekend I took my wedding rings in to be resized. I have been wearing a little sizer on the bands for about 8 months now and it was starting to drive me a little nutty. Those sizers are NOT comfortable. Anyway...I took my ring in and the guy gave me some great news....my ring is going from a size 8 to a size 6!!! How cool is that??? I knew the rings didn't fit, now we know why :-) I lost two ring sizes off my fingers!!!!!!

Now I just need to keep the scale moving in the right direction. I want to look good for this next summer. If we have the money and time hubs, PITA and I will be taking another trip north, but this time to do the history thing and check out Civil War battle grounds and the capital. Plus, I just might get to meet a good friend if all works out right!! So I want to look great for that.

ALSO.......I found out that Mary Kay will give me options once I earn my pink Caddy!!! OMG, I was bouncing with excitement when I saw this over the weekend.

For those of you that don't know me too well, I thought that the caddy was an old person's car. I don't care how expensive it was or anything like that or really even the fact that it was free. It was an old person's car and I just couldn't see me driving it. Well, as you can now see I can earn a FREE Cadillac SRX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AWESOME!!! And it will be PINK!!!! WooHoo, time to get to seriously doing some team building. Not just for the money now, but the FREE (yes FREE) Pink SUV!!!!

Peace out my peeps....I hope you are having a great start to the week.

GRRR

Damn blogger ate my post!!!!!

Ok, highlights from eaten post:

Sucks to be sick....only two good things come from it: weight loss and catching some much needed zzzzz's

Students were great yesterday while I was out wishing I was dead. They were so good for the sub and I am not sure if it is because I teach in Green Acres or because I am in a parallel universe where the kids are always great.

Last but not least.....I was burnt on this teaching thing back in May. Didn't know if I wanted to do it anymore. Here I am a few months later and I have my faith restored in the youth of today and may even consider sticking this teaching thing out for a little longer.

Peace out my peeps....Hope your afternoons are going great!!

Student Quote of the Day

"Mrs. Davis, you look comely today"

Cute, huh?

There's No Crying in Social Studies

That title comes from a line in a movie that we have used on PITA for years. Good grief, I need to get my (Light bulb moment...While typing this sentence it occurred to me that I just need to make a poster that says "There's No Crying in Social Studies") anyway....I need to get my 5th graders to understand that the work they do in my classroom, no matter how frustrated they might get, is NOT worth tears!!!!!

Now, I kind of understood when they got teary eyed about the quiz on how to take notes because they didn't study and they were worried they were going to fail and it was going to hurt their grade and....and....and.....Seriously, I could go on, but why. But today....it was a map. A MAP caused stress tears!!! ~sigh~ It is sometimes hard for me to remember that I am not with hardened 7th graders anymore and that I teach innocent soft hearted 5th graders. I have stopped being sarcastic (I was told it was more of a dry humor and not sarcasm by one of the other staff members). I really don't feel the need to be flippant with these children. They are sweet and generally want to please me in anyway they know how. They love what we are doing in the classroom and tell me how much more fun Soc. St. is now. (What a great compliment, right?!?)

So back to the map......I have this sheet that goes with our maps that I found this last weekend. I LOVE it. The kids have to go through and answer 9 questions about the map. Things like: What is the title? What in the range for latitude and longitude? What does the map aim to convey? (ok this question is just mean to ask 10 and 11 year olds. They don't have a clue what the word convey means much less how to pronounce it.) But I have worked hard to explain this sheet and today I even went over the whole sheet answering ALL of the questions that go with the map they were using today. Just to make sure they knew what they were looking for to keep their map skills sharp. I ask them to take time to read over it on their own now and put the answers (the ones I just gave them) on a sheet of paper, then they had questions on the back of the map in which they have to use the map. THEY HAVE ALREADY BEEN GIVEN THE ANSWERS TO HALF THE ASSIGNMENT!!! And yet, I had kids asked me like 15 times (ok more like 5-10) what convoy (remember convey??) meant and what the heck they were suppose to do with the scale question {all they had to do was tell me how many inches (measure the line) for 100 miles (the amount of miles shown on the scale)}. Seriously I didn't think this was an assignment that should bring on tears and yet in three classes I had students break down crying.

Me, being who I am, told them to cry over big things like lost pets, broken bones.....not my work in my classroom. It isn't life or death. It is a worksheet. ~sigh~ God love them.

Tomorrow should be a blast. They are making flip books on the 5 themes of geography.....and they have to construct the book. I know there will be tears at some point tomorrow, but hopefully I won't start 1st period with a headache. I would also like to add this....if the kids crying over the fact that they don't understand is my biggest stresser so far, I really have nothing to complain about. I have had no disrespect, everyone turns in their work, and life in general is pleasant. THANK YOU to the powers that be for letting me work in Green Acres!!!!

Peace out my peeps....have sweet dreams and don't let map skills bring you to tears.

More to life

Oh how you have to love getting to transfer over 600 songs from a device that you thought was useless. Thank you to my favorite science guy for fixing my first MP3 player ever and allowing me to get to my MP3s on it. Some of them are songs I just can't believe I have lived without over the last year and a half. Like the "Under the Scotsman's Kilt", how can someone not just enjoy the pure laughter this little song can provide?? Or the life changing lyrics of "Cows with Guns"? :-)

anyway...that is neither here nor there. I came across a song I forgot I had, yet it is just what seems to be plaguing my life these days. I think there is so much that can be said about the words in this song. Those that know me well know that I am always searching for something and it may be the search that I enjoy so much, but life can be so short and in reality we need to get as much out of it as we can.

Here are the words for you to read:

(There's Gotta Be) More to Life
by Stacie Orrico

Yeah... Ooo...

I got it all but I feel so deprived
I go up, I come down and I'm emptier inside
Tell me what is this thing that I feel like I'm missing
Why can't I let it go?

There's gotta more to life
Than chasing down every temporary high
To satisfy me
'Cause the more that I
Trippin up, thinking there must be more to life
Well there's life but I'm sure
There's gotta be more

I want something more

I got the time and I'm it wasting it slowly
Here in this moment, I'm half way out the door
Onto next thing, I'm searching for something that's missing

I'm wanting more

I'm always waiting on something
Betterr than this
Why am I feeling like there's something I missed
Something I missed

More to life...


Peace out my peeps. I hope you find all that you are searching for in life and that it brings you great joy.