Teaching

My mom was saying that since I am using this as our scrapbook /journal I should really write about some of my teaching experiences. Friday is the day I look forward to. Don't get me wrong I love what I do but by the time weekends come lets say that I am a little more excited than the students.

I love my first two classes they are fundamentals of algebra -these are students that have failed math and struggle quite a bit. There are 25-28 students in both of these classes. Many of the students have a hard time adding, subtracting, multiplying, and division is completely foreign to them. It takes some a little while to figure out what 2*2 (for those of you thinking it is four). They are doing great and we are up to almost the whole class with 90% or higher on their multiplication tables 1-12. Hurray -we have been working on it since August. Some students are in my class because of behavioral problems -one of my students threw a chair at his last teacher (who was a big guy) so they transferred him in my class -(no worries though he is great in my class and my top student). About 1 in every 5 of my students have a parole officer for various things. While these student are a challenge -sometimes the bigger the challenge the greater the reward.
My last three classes are Geometry with anywhere from 32-37 students in a class. My Geometry class are pretty good the students work well individually and I don't usually have to monitor behavior problems as much -but there are always a few of those students that like to be the exception.

Here is a little brief summary of a few things that stand out in my mind so far this year (names are fake but the stories are definitely true).

"Veronica" -stood up and called me a whore last year out of the blue -she was suspended and kicked out of my class. This year she is back in my class and after a brutally honest pep talk she is on of my best students and is always eager to begin :)

"Kiley" -Wrote a note about me (because I needed her to finish her quiz and not write notes -go figure). It was full of profanity and calling me all kinds of things -she is now suspended and will probably be kick out of my class (we'll see that happened Friday). But I have to laugh when many of the words are spelled wrong -you'd think at least she could spell them right. This happens once a month with her talk about PMS.

"Rudy" -has an extremely hard home life..he has decided that he doesn't want to turn out like his parents and is doing all he can to take as many college classes in high school. He came into my class so I could help him look over different classes he could take. Even summer school because he would rather be at school than home.

"Darley" -got in her second fight this year (outside of my classroom)and now has assult on her record. The girl she hit miscarried and the other one was black and blue. She did not consider it a big deal to have an assult on her record -after pulling her to the side and explaining what an assult is and how it will affect her she has decided that she will not fight again. Cross your fingers!

"Georgia" -got upset that she was sitting by a particular girl one day and walked out of class. I called administration to let them know. Five minutes later she shows back up and is standing in my doorway. I ask her to wait for me in the hall -she ignores me drops her backpack and told the other girl "I will take you down right now" as she starts walking. I interveened and had to grab both of her arms and push her out of my class -where another teacher luckily walked by and walked down to the office with her. Needless to say she is no longer attending our school.

"Sara" decided to try out for basketball. I would ask her how it was going because they try-out for three days and it is pretty tough. She had mentioned to me how worried but that she was going to run until she passed out if it ment making the team. On the third day when I arrived to school she was waiting by my door for me to get there to let me know that she made the team!

While I am sure I could think of a hundred more stores these ones stand out the most. All in all you have try to remember the good and to laugh off the bad.

Crawling!

A couple day's ago we posted a video of Ian as a beached whale. Arms and legs moving frantically about as he lays stuck on his tummy. Well not anymore!
Tonight after dinner we put Ian down on the floor to play and all of the sudden he was rolling everywhere and crawling. Yes crawling, our 5 and almost a 1/2 month old. Ok, not from wall to wall but from one side of the blanket to the other. He thinks that it is hilarious. We are excited but at the same time I am suddenly realizing that we need to child proof our home. As I am typing this he is roaming around the office grabbing cords, etc (don't worry as he discovers them I take most of them away).

Video to come soon -we are unfortunately out of video tape but will pick some up tomorrow!

Ian Video 6: Jumping and Crawling (well trying to crawl, sort of)

Ian has been trying to crawl as of lately. Here is some old footage of him jumping and some new footage of him swimming..... I mean trying to crawl.

Rollin'

On Wednesday Nov, 5th Ian finally discovered that he can roll over from his back to his tummy. Hurray, he can now roll over two ways! He must be doing it at night now because I sure don't hear him anymore (although according to Tim I will answer the phone and carry on a conversation in my sleep -even respond to questions and answer most of them correctly too). So maybe I am just not hearing him anymore. Either way we are both alive in the morning and the sleep is great!

Sleep at Last!

This blog goes out to William Willett who advocated tirelessly towards implementing daylight savings time. I myself have never been a big fan of the time changing all around -until now. The last couple of weeks we have gone through an hour or two crying and screaming (sometimes from more than just Ian) trying to get Ian to go to bed for the night, and actually stay asleep for more than a couple hours. It has taken a toll on the two of us and lets just say we were not the most pleasant people to bump into.

We have stopped giving him rice cereal (even though he likes it) and it seems to have help, he is still drooling constantly and I believe there is a hard spot on his gum where a tooth might be coming in.

Then on Saturday night Ian was in bed and asleep at 9:15 pm -hallelujah!!! Given he did wake up at 5:40 am -not a big deal I feed him, put him back to bed, and he slept until 8:45 am. So thank you William Willet for helping to make daylight savings offical you have made my life that much easier. Although I may not be thanking you come spring, for now I say "thank you." Here it is 9:30 pm and Ian is in bed -although wouldn't you know now that I have been saying how wonderful it has been he is fussing and is probably going to wake up...cross your fingers :)

Saturday Stroll

This Saturday I was able to pull Tim away from his Chemistry to go for a walk outside with my family -by family I mean my mom -since the rest of you were lazy. It was such a nice afternoon, I thought I would share some pictures.

The Logan River Trail (it is about the only place in Logan where dogs are allowed).


Ian slept 1/2 the walk then was awake and looking everywhere the last half.

1st Halloween!

Ian was a pumpkin for Halloween this year. While he did not go trick-or-treating he did have fun watching the dog run back and forth from the couch to the door waiting for the kids to knock.I was trying to take pictures of him in his outfit and was really annoyed because they were all turning out blurry. I finally gave up -so sorry they are a little blurry. Later I realized that the camera was on a different setting -opps.

But by the time it was actually time for Halloween his outfit was much too wet for him to wear. And no not from his diaper, but from his incredible amount of drool. So we put him in his teddy bear pajamas and called him a bear.

Even the dog was dressed up too. A ten legged spider.


Cornmaze!
This post is a little late but given the lack of sleep we get these days there is really little else I want to do but sleep. Yes our sweet little boy still is not sleeping well. The last few days have been a little better but not enough. The doctor says he is probably teething because his bottom gums are swollen -and that it could last for months. Months???? Kill me now. We are still hoping it is just a phase.

This past week we went to the cornmaze with our neighbors . As always it was fun -good company helps. The corn was a little short given that we went so late in the season this year. But it was nice and warm and we did not even need a jacket -ella was in her sunglasses most of the time.Tim decided to be a scarcrow. Not sure if he was actually supposed to climb up on this but oh well it made for a good blogging picture.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween. It will be Halloween at our house for months because we have way to much candy left.