PTA Conference

I got to attend the Oklahoma PTA Conference that was held in Tulsa, Ok this past week.  I was pretty excited to have a mini vacation.  I attended with two other ladies who are my BFFs and are part of our PTA board at my school.  I became active with my PTA this past school year.  I was voted in as the VP of our PTA.  We got to stay at the Renaissance Hotel.  The conference was a 3 day conference with mini sessions and then several general sessions.  Our first key not speaker was our Governor and she proceeded to pretend she has education number 1 in her books.  But those were all lies.  I won't go on about her and why but lets just say her and our State Superintend have both screwed our children over during their rule.

 The lovely ladies I attended with.  We had some fun being silly for a photo and learned quite a bit.  I am not a person who follows politics and such but I am starting to find my voice as a parent and as a teacher to speak up for my students.  This year I want to educate the parents on their voice as well.  We need to take back our education system for our future and for our children.  We are letting people take away our rights and our student's rights.  We did show the state and the politicians we are tired of the BS and we voted out our superintendent.  We will have someone fresh and someone who has taught before help bring Oklahoma from being 49th.

 Selfie of me and my bff while waiting for the conference to start after breakfast.  I am excited to be working with her as our PTA president and this year as her son's teacher.  She will be making a big difference in our school.  In the past my school's PTA didn't do anything and couldn't stay a functioning PTA.  This last year she helped get new members, started several new things to the students like a skate night, school dance, and a silent auction dinner.

If anyone reads my blog please take the time to be a part of your child's PTA, go register to VOTE, and have a voice in education.  We need to let others know education is the number one priority.  Without education our future is grime.  We want our students to be competitive thinkers.  One day they will be running this country and taking care of us when we are old. 

Sorry Been Busy

I haven't been blogging in a while.  A lot has been happening. And Lots of big milestones.  I turned 40 in January, my oldest son turned 18 in January as well.  Then my youngest son turned 16 in April. I made it through my oldest son's senior year in high school.  It was sad to see him hit those milestones you have in high school and to know those were going to be his last ones.  No more football practices, games, the prom, and more but he is moving into the next chapter in his life......COLLEGE!!!  I am very proud of him.  He has his plan in place and I am ready to see him succeed there as he did in high school.

My summer has been busy as well.  I always plan my professional developments really well during the summer months.  June was kind of easy ...I attended the Harweldon Art Institute workshop again. This one explored art through the five senses.  Each day we worked with one of our senses through different art mediums.  My favorite was working with charcoal.  I have never used it or looked at myself as a great drawer.  But the ladies walked us through the processes.  I have to say I really was impressed with my drawing.

Mine is the one on the far right.  This was the first one we did using flowers as our subject.

 My clay hand I made.

 This is another charcoal drawing and is my favorite thing I did.  We had a real model to work with and this is my  work.

These are fish prints using real fish.  It was ok doing this.  I certainly didnt like to touch the fish.  I only touched with the paints not my hands lol.  The rest of June was pretty quiet except for the fact my oldest son got to travel to Paris France as a foreign exchange student.  It was his first time on a plane, out of the country, and away from me for that period of time.  I was excited he got to experience this and I had to let the strings go for him to fly on his own.

Goodbey 2013, Hello 2014/January Currently

2013 is in the memory books. 2013 was not a bad year for me nor was it a good year.  A few highlights of the year: 1. This fall I started my 13th year of teaching.  I made it through the first principal change I have ever had. 2. I did a bit of traveling with my boys to see my sister in Turpin, Oklahoma.  Along the way we stopped at several locations to mark them off our list of places from the book WEIRD OKLAHOMA 3. My family welcomed two new babies from my sister and brother. 4. I thank God for watching over my youngest son, who suffered a serious 2nd degree burn from a grease fire in our kitchen.  (He learned a valuable lesson. Don't' add water to a grease fire). 5. This fall was the beginning of my oldest son's senior year in high school.

 

Now I am welcoming 2014 with excitement.  This year will hold many milestones for myself and my family. 1. I will be turning 40 in 3 days.  I am not freaking out about getting older I am embracing it.  I don't feel 40 either.  2. Four days after my birthday my oldest son will be turning 18.  He is on the last leg of his senior year in high school. And I am holding it together(so far) I have my moments and tears about it but I am proud of my son.  3. My youngest son will be turning 16 in April, my step mom will be 60 and then her mom will be 90 this year as well.  I feel 2014 is my year full of moments I will remember, as well as excitement for what the year has to hold for me and my boys.

 

 

As for teaching, 2013 has held it challenges.  I was nominated again for teacher of the year and was in running with some awesome ladies.  I feel honored each time I am nominated by my peers.  I have had the opportunity to work with a new pre-k teacher and some other new teachers to our school.  I have made new friends and learned from them as well.  2014 I hope holds more learning for me and the chance to return to school to re start my masters.  But this time in administrative. 

So HELLO 2014!!!!!

December Activities

This December I once again introduced my class to "Pancake" our Christmas elf.  On the first day, my class received an letter from Santa announcing the arrival of his favorite elf and to keep and eye out.  Later that day Pancake arrived hanging from the ceiling but the students didn't notice him until he decided to read some books at our book shelf.

 Each day he moved about the classroom.  The first things my students would say when they walked in each morning and every time after that throughout the day, "Where's Pancake?"  Him and his friends had too much fun and messed up all the chairs.  Pancake left another note explaining what happened to the chairs.

 Pancake moved about the room hanging out on the Chicka Boom Boom tree

 Then on our family tree.

And even in our emergency bag

Then he got really into messing with us, he taped the door so we couldn't get in lol.

 

And then got himself stunk in the tape.

My Favorite Ornaments

My best friend started a linky party of our 5 top favorite ornaments. This is a hard one to choose. My tree can't hold all of the ornaments my children have made over the years and I have them all LOL.  So like I said hard to choose a favorite but here are my top 5:

1.

These three ornaments are the very first ones my dad gave me after I left home for college and had my own tree. I know its not homemade but I remember getting them and still remember.

2.

These next three are my teacher ornaments.  They show others my profession that I am proud of.  I got these ornaments the year after I started teaching more than 13 years ago.

3. 

These two ornaments are my babies.  The top one is my oldest son who will be turning 18 in less than a month.  He was 2 in the picture and my mom made me the ornament.  The bottom one is my youngest son who will be turning 16 in April.  This is his first Christmas picture and first Christmas.  I received these ornaments in 1998 from my mom.

4. 

These two ornaments I got in 2007.  The top one is Oklahoma's 100th year of statehood.  The bottom one I got the same year, I just love how the snowman is inside the globe.

5.

My last favorite ornament is of my nephew Moses.  He sent me this ornament in 2012, he is 2 in this picture and was living in Turpin, Oklahoma over 6 hrs away from us.  I miss having him close where we could just run over and visit.

So I hope you enjoyed seeing some of my favorite ornaments.

I'm back lol

Well it has been awhile since I blogged last, but here I am lol.  I can't believe today is December 1st already.  The school year is going great and super busy.  It's been super super busy.  My oldest son is a senior this year and we just finished up football season with him.  I am so proud of my son.

Before I know it he will be on his way to college.  He had a rough season dealing with a knee injury he received on homecoming night. November was a rough month all three of us as well.We dealt with illnesses, injures, a fire and serious burns( my youngest), but with faith and God's angels watching over us we made it through. 

TEACH

I finished watching the special series that was on TV last night about teachers called TEACH.  I don't know how many of us teachers watched it and what they think about it.  The show brought up many good and bad points of teaching.  I personally was inspired when I watched it.  It did bring a tear to my eye and I knew how they felt cause I have had those feelings many times.

I am glad Bill and Melinda Gates put this together to show America just a taste of what we teachers go through every day.  The show followed 4 years in 4 different schools in for different areas of the country.  We teachers walk into those classrooms everyday wanting our students to be successful.  How do we do it day after day when we as faced with so many challenges from low students, being tested to death, to budget cuts left and right.  These four teachers had students in their classrooms that were almost 2 to 3 years behind their peers.  This is happening more and more everyday.  We struggle to teach to all the students and to insure their success and growth while in our class.

Each teacher had to examine themselves and how to reach all students.  Each of them felt they failed their students.  The series showed how we test students progress so many times and that progress is then reflected on the teacher and their teaching.  I have many days where I feel I am failing to reach kids.  But like these teachers did they persevered and found ways to better their teaching and their students, I too get up everyday to continue making a difference to reach each student.

These teachers used new ways to reach their students.  One was 360 classroom.  The room is full of white boards all over the room 360 degrees.  The students then worked their math problems on these boards while the teacher was in the middle of the room turning to see each student's work.  (Traditional math we teacher don't get to see their work when they just sit at the desk working on their own.)  The teacher and the assistant principal tracked their progress with the districts tests.  Then mid way through the year the teacher was struggling with following district expectations or teaching at the students pace.  She chose their pace but in the end data showed her students out did the district in those taught areas but was behind on the material she didn't cover.

Another teacher received training and a grant (i think) to have her students participate in the Khan Academy. Students all received new laptops then the teacher could have groups(the middle students) work on assignments through Khan, or another groups(the higher students) peer teach, while she work with the struggling students.  This teacher had her struggles as well but in the end she had to think like a student and learn how Khan works for students in order to understand what her students needed.  Her data showed her students moving up 2 years to be able to enter the next grade at grade level.

Another teacher was great at teaching math but her struggled with teaching reading.  He had students who were almost 3 years behind.  These 4th graders were at 2nd grade levels.  He finally learned that he needed to find what interests the students.  He went and bought books for his students that were of their interests.

Overall teaching is a hard profession but a rewarding one too.  Each year I reflect on the year before and look at what I could do better or change about my teaching and how to reach my students.  Last year I had to do that day to day and adjust.  For those of you who are not a teacher please don't just look at us "Oh they get summers off, etc"  cause teaching is a 7 day a week job and not an 8 hour job either.  Please vote for those who will help education and not "Think" they know best when they have never walked in a teacher's footsteps.