Student Teaching

Student Teaching is over! 

Now I'm busy trying to catch up with EVERYTHING. Spring cleaning, blogging, cooking, etc. etc. I loved those kids and it was so hard to leave but I have really enjoyed my newfound freedom and only having self appointed assignments and deadlines. 

As I've mentioned before, student teaching was a wild four month long roller coaster. One day I'd be on top of the world loving every second of what I was doing and the next I'd be down in the dumps pretty sure I was accomplishing nothing. And I didn't even get any pictures of any of it! 

I was amazed through the entire experience how much I grew to love those kids. Yes, some of them made me want to pull out my hair and drove me absolutely batty on a daily basis, but I really did love them all. They made me laugh and cry and smile and definitely kept me on my toes. 

A few things that I don't want to forget:

1. "How much stuff can you stuff in a stuffie til your stuffie's stuffed full of stuff?"

2. Being so proud of the power class' stories after they worked so hard on them and I had read through thousands and thousands and thousands of rough drafts. 

3. Standing at the door to welcome them in mornings and getting some smiles, some "Good mornings!" back, some grunts, some no eye-contacts, and some ignoring me completely. 

4. Every Monday morning when we would share what we had done that weekend. Some of the stories I was a bit skeptical in believing. Especially when one kid told me he had been to court after jumping his motorbike too high. Still undecided on that one...

5. I would also share what I had done on the weekend prompting one kid to exclaim "You always say you clean your house." Yeah kid, growing up is not all that fun. 

6. Our dirt bike gang. 

7. When a sub would show up and the kids would be absolutely out of control and I would become Mrs. Grumpy in Residence. 

8. Giving 5 boys a serious behavior/attitude talking to and having my hands shake before, during, and after because I had been so nervous. 

9. Reading The Westing Game and having the kids be so dang excited about it. They would talk about the book outside of class and would groan and sigh and completely fall apart when I told them we had to stop reading for the day.

10. Teaching my Adjectives Unit with my freaky bobblehead cat, cinnamon rolls, poems, and being so proud of how well they did on the final test.

11. Constantly getting the best advice and help from Brianna.

12. The power class kids asking me almost every day if they were going to play dodgeball. 

13. Getting asked at least 5 million times if they were going to change seats. 

14. Going on the night skiing trip and giving Kolton a little taste of what I did every day. Also Kolton being embarrassed when I asked the kids to please not break their necks. 

15. Painting fierce stripes on the kids' faces for football day. 

16. Laughing about their antics (The only other option was crying or going crazy)

17. A group of boys' whose sole purpose was to try to get a reaction out of me. 

18. Getting letters back from the authors we wrote to and how excited the kids were about it. 

19. Our snowball fights. 

20. When you could absolutely and positively tell that it was either Monday or Friday based on the kids' behavior. 

Okay so that was more than a few, but there are just so many things that stand out in mind. It was such a great experience even through all the good and the bad and I tried my hardest to soak up every minute of it. I am so grateful for those four months and getting to spend so much time with those kids. We all learned a LOT (I hope they did anyway...)