Monday, August 25, 2008
My First Day in the First Grade!
I started my day actually waking up on time (first day jitters) and making it out the door by 6:50 am. I get half way to school and realize I have left my school keys in the office at my house. Since I live half way to nowhere, it is not an option to turn around. My next realization is that flashy flash drive with the way cool PowerPoint I was going to show that morning was attached to the keys that are at home. :(. What a way to start the first day!!!!
But no worries, I found someone to let me into my classroom and made do without my cool PowerPoint. My kiddos arrived at 7:50 and although it was a little crazy the first 15 minutes, it was no where near as crazy as the first day of Kindergarten. The kids sat down in their desk and were being GREAT!
I can't tell you what a difference one year makes! I am sure it helps that 12 of the little guys were mine from last year, and they know me, my expectations, and our routines. My kids were almost perfect today. We read books, laughed, practiced routines and even implemented our discipline program as if we were 6 weeks into the school year. I started out going over the program (called Make Your Day) as if none of them knew anything about it. When 12 of the kids were looking at me like I was the one who had forgotten everything over the summer I decided to just pull the new ones in a small group to fully explain, and then do whole group review. The kids from last year liked that much better!
I know this is going to be a FANTASTIC year! I have a group of kiddos who are really excited about learning. At the end of the day I let the kids explore some math manipulitives and 5 of the kids asked if they could read books instead. When I agreed, I watched as ALL 5 actually sat down and "read" independently without disturbing their neighbor, or getting up and down to play in the library center. They are going to do really, really well when we introduce the Daily 5 tomorrow.
I will keep you posted on how First grade is going, I know we will have our challenging days, but I can just tell that we are going to have a great year!
After school I was able to take a kiddo from my first Kindergarten class 3 years ago out to Sonic to celebrate his first day as a big 3rd grader. I am so proud of him! It is very encouraging to see the little guys grow up into big kids, and to know that I played a very small part of shaping him into this really incredible kid.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Things I love to do
- I love sleeping until 1:00 pm
- taking naps
- reading blogs!
- watching Big Brother
- watching The Hills - I know!
- Grey's Anatomy
- reading a book for fun
- staying up REALLY, REALLY late
- cleaning my house ( I know, I am a weirdo!)
- doing laundry - I only like the part where I get to put the dirty clothes in and put in the fun stuff like soap and bleach. I despise having to hang up my clean laundry (but it always gets done).
- swimming all day
- spending time with friends and laughing!
- Game nights
- traveling and planning trips
Ok, so not all of them are 'guilty' pleasures so much as just stuff I LOVE to do when I need a break from all the stuff I HAVE to do. :)
Friday, August 15, 2008
My Vacation!
St. Thomas was FABULOUS! We had a great trip! I was and still am amazed at how blue the ocean is.
Saturday: St. Thomas is HUMID!
4am - Head to the airport for ST. THOMAS!!!!!!!! I was so worried that my bag would be over the 50 pound limit, but... guess what?! It was 50 lbs EXACT! Wahoo! Our first flight was from DFW to Miami and had no problems. Our next flight from Miami to St. Thomas, however was a different story. WE board the plane and quickly realize how hot the plane is. We all settle in, and hope to take off quickly. But, then we hear the Captain come on and tell us, not to worry, but there is just a little engine trouble and that is why the air isn't working properly but no worries, he called the mechanics. I wanted to yell at him and say "WHAT?!?! What do you mean a"little" engine trouble?" 45 minutes later we were coasting down the runway to what I assume was an engine that was working perfectly.
I tried to sleep as much as I could on our last flight. I woke up when the pilot said that we were about to land. I opened up my little window and just about came out of my chair. It appeared as though we were going to land IN the water. I wish I would have taken a picture of this, but I was too panicky and was preparing myself to grab my seat cushion and jump from the plane. When we finally landed safely on land, we walked down the stairs of the plane to an extremely humid airport and a very cloudy city. We made it with all of our luggage, (YEA!) and boarded the Tropic Tours bus that would take us to our hotel. On the trip to the hotel we learned that they drive on the left side of the road with the driver's seat on the left side of the car. The roads were so narrow and wind down mountains. They also don't believe in medians so oncoming traffic is just a small painted white line away. The drivers drive as quickly as possible just to scare the silly tourists.
Sunday: Iguanas are not stupid!
We headed for the beach pretty early so that we could get started on our tans. We got to the beach around 10 and stayed until about 6ish. :) We were planning on having brunch at a little beach restaurant. While we were waiting on them to open at 11:30 we learned about "island time". Basically, island time is "Why hurry?, take your time." At 12:15 when they decided to finally open up for the day we enjoyed a yummy brunch. On Sunday, we enjoyed snorkeling and just being plain lazy! Here are some of our pictures:
This was taken from the pool looking out to the ocean.
Monday and Tuesday: RELAXING is fun!
This is my favorite picture. I want to frame it!
Look! That is me up in the sky!
Just Kidding! But you can imagine that is me up there! I considered parasailing, however my wise travel buddy told me scary stories about sharks, and weird boat drivers who might drive around for hours and hours and not let you come down. So I decided to pass
We went to the casino and I won a whopping 25 cents. WOO HOO!
We ended Tuesday by getting massages at the spa!
Wednesday: Tour of St. Thomas
At a lookout point where you could see the cruise ships visiting.
Lookout onto Magen's Bay. It was pretty cloudy. Normally you can see all the way to the BVI.
This was at Mountain Top, the highest point in St. Thomas and home of the world famous Banana Daiquiri.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Pictures posted!
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
The craziness has begun!
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Sunday, August 10, 2008
Oh! I almost forgot!
St. Thomas = FABULOUS!
Pictures and stories to come very soon! Even though it was tough the last couple of days, I HIGHLY recommend St. Thomas to anyone looking for a vacation destination.
Tomorrow it is back to reality as I go back to my new first grade classroom and try and unpack all of my things, and take full advantage of my mom's help for the day. As much as I have looked forward to settling into my new room, I am kind of sad that this is my last night of summer.
