Family Tree Fun

This is my cooperating teacher for my elementary student teaching stint. She is awesome.

I'm done working with her, and moving onto middle school, but I wanted to share her blog. It's fantastic and full of some wonderful teaching ideas.

She even wrote a post about ME and my family tree lesson. It was a crazy-fun project to do with the kids and they LOVED being able to learn more about their families, their histories, and get a little creative with it.

It was all part of an introduction to history. In 2nd grade, students don't get into much history with the social studies curriculum. It's mainly just introduced. But because it's such an abstract concept for them, I thought I would make it more relatable by tying it into their own lives and telling the kids that everything and everyone has a history - including each one of them. (A few of them were blown away by that revelation.) SO... we talked a little bit about our family histories (traditions, customs, stories, etc.) and what we knew about them. To tie it all together I had them create a family tree.

I sent home a worksheet asking their parents for help in filling out information about their families. It looked a little something like this:

Me: __________________
My Mom:__________________
My Dad:__________________
My Mom's Mom:__________________
My Mom's Dad:__________________
My Dad's Dad:__________________
My Dad's Mom:__________________

Words that describe my family and the things that they value are: (circle at least 7 or come up with your own!)

Loyalty                  Education             Charity                   Creativity        
Love                      Honesty                Celebration             Hard Work
Faith                      Togetherness        Humor                     Fun
Laughter                Hope                    Music                      Truth
Tradition

Heritage or Nationality: _____________________

Once this worksheet was filled out, the students set about creating their own family tree. They put their name on the trunk and each branch represented a member of their family. The circles that served as leaves for the trees contained the adjectives that described their families. They turned out super cute -

 I encouraged the students to be creative with their trees. They could draw them horizontally or vertically, but I wanted them to keep the tree one solid color and the background a different solid color (to create a uniformity to the pics but make them pop at the same time). After drawing their trees and filling out the names with pencil, they went over them again with a dark colored marker, then filled in the trees and background with crayon. Then they selected whatever color circles they wanted, wrote down the adjectives that described their family in a dark marker and glued them around the branches of the tree. When they were finished, we created a display:

Don't they look great? I loved this project. It was super fun to create and the kids had a blast with it. Oh, the joys of second grade.

Nighttime...

Is not the right time. For anything. Nighttime is the time for over-thinking things and obsessing over things and panicking about things and just feeling downright miserable.

But only at nighttime.  Never in the daytime. And only right before bed. Why is that? It has resulted in a hatred of nighttime,  particularly bedtime. And in an effort to ward off these feelings I've resorted to increasingly silly and stupid sitcoms and mystery novels. Which is what I'm about to do now. 

But it just makes me wonder if anyone else feels the same about nighttime... or if I'm just a weirdo.

Darn you, "The Following"

I'm tuning in again. Why???? I hate you. You and your spear gun murders... why can't I quit you?

Minnesota March

 

This isn't funny anymore.

Top 10 Reasons I Will No Longer Be Following "The Following"

#1. It's creepy, yo. Have you seen this show? Soooo creepy. And yes, I know that's the point but... really? We have to get this creepy just to get the creepy point across? Really?

#2. The characters are aroused by their own sick dementedness. So, they have sex. A lot. 'Tis creepy.

#3. The good guys never win. Ever. Ever, ever, ever. And more than likely they will be killed. It's very unsatisfying.

#4. Just when you don't think it could get any creepier, it does. No. Really. It does.

#5. The bad guys masquerade as the good guys. And then kill the good guys when they least suspect it. It's maddening.

#6. The bad guys like how creepy they are. They revel in it. And yet, they seem to think they have the capacity to "love" other people (people they more than likely will end up killing too...) and it's like inviting psychotic killers into your living room every weekend. That's just not normal. In fact, it's downright creepy.

#7. You know that at some point, the good guys are going to become the bad guys, because they can't resist "the following", so you never get around to rooting for anyone. This? Is very unsatisfying as well.

#8. The good guys make stupid mistakes so that the bad guys are bound to succeed. It's one thing to let the bad guys keep winning. It's another thing entirely to base this notion on the premise that stupid, ridiculous mistakes like these would actually be made.

#9. The blood and gore is quite notable, especially for a show airing at 8:00 primetime. Lots of blood. Lots.

#10. Kevin Bacon doesn't dance to any awesome Kenny Loggins tunes. What's up with that?

Bad Teacher, Good Teacher

So, for those of you still following along (which is pretty much no one, since I'm absolutely horrible about writing things on here...) I am in the midst of my student teaching. Which I love. And hate.

I love the kids I get to work with (well, most of the time), and the teacher I get to work with and the school I'm working in. But I also hate not having control of my OWN classroom, being able to make my own rules and my OWN schedule and my OWN way of doing things. (I'm a bit of a control-freak, and I kinda like things MY way.) But that's student teaching for you. I also HATE the amount of silly (at least I consider it silly) busy-work we are required to do, and the hoops we have to jump through. I'm all for having highly qualified teachers in our schools, but if you're going to be requiring this amount of work for them to get certified, then at least pay them half-way decently. It's not like it used to be, where you take some classes, take a couple easy-breezy, common sense tests and VOILA! You're a teacher. Now there are TPAs (teacher perfomance assessments where you are required to record yourself teaching in a variety of settings and subjects, submit lesson plans and reflections and send this all in to the state in order to get certified), MUCH more difficult and varied licensure exams (common sense they are not, my friends, the contents of these tests DO require a lot of studying in order to pass), plus the 5 months of student teaching and the constant lesson plans, observations and post lesson reflections one has to do. It's exhausting. And even though I'm on week 7 of my 11 week assignment, I still have 4 weeks at a middle school (which I am DREADING) and tons of work still not completed. And I do mean TONS. I dare not think on it too long.

So, anyway... yeah, there's a ton of work to do. And even though I am up to the challenge and ready to tackle it head-on, there are days when I doubt whether I am cut out to be a teacher. These are the days when I want to scream at the kids to just SHUT UP, otherwise I will box their ears if they don't start using their inside voices. (Seriously, what is so difficult about inside voices? I mean, it's as though children have absolutely no volume control what-so-ever. Your friend is standing RIGHT NEXT TO YOU... WHY ARE YOU SHOUTING AT HER???)  And there are days when I am downright dumb-founded to discover how little 2nd graders know about... well, everything. At first, I was wondering what the heck was wrong with these kids... I couldn't figure out why they were so... dumb. And then I had to be reminded... they're 2nd graders, they're supposed to be that dumb. But, still, there are days when I just want to look at them and say, "Really? Seriously? Did you literally just ask me that question? Are you really that stupid?" These are the days when they come up to you with a scrap of paper or a used staple in their hands, asking you what they should do with it. Really? Do we really need to have this conversation? And then there are the tattle tales, and the mean girls (yes, they do start that in the 2nd grade) and the dog-pile of boys wrestling around on the floor because they have clearly forgotten that this is not school-appropriate behavior. And by the time I get home, I just want to take a nap and not talk to anyone... including my husband and my cat. And every time my husband says anything to me, I'm ready to slug him, because I've had 17 children talking at me all day, and quite frankly, I just don't want to hear him talk too.

But, by the time the next day rolls around, I'm ready to go again, and I'm all excited about what we're going to do that day and thrilled to see those silly little buggars. So, I suppose this is a good sign. But still, there are some days...

Hi.

Is this thing still here?

Because if those dates are correct, I haven't been here since July 5th.

It is now January 21st.

That is THE longest break I have ever taken from blogging ever.

EVER.

Ever, ever.

So, you can imagine my surprise to discover that it's still here. Not that anything would have happened to it. But it could have been taken over by trolls. Or poltergeists. Or unsavory characters who want to eat your liver with a nice chianti.

You know, the usual.

I know... "What?!" I don't know either. I have nothing.

But I do have a very good reason for not being on here for 6 months or so.

First, my Dad died.

I know, you weren't expecting that, were you? Yeah, I wasn't either. It happened out of the blue, and yet it wasn't completely out of the blue... if that makes any sense... which it probably doesn't. But that's okay, because death rarely makes much sense. Also? It sucks. A lot. I hate it. And I still have no idea how I got through the whole ordeal, because I was sure I would fall apart, curl up in the fetal position and die if I ever had to deal with it.

But I didn't. And weirdly enough? I'm kind of proud that I didn't. It's amazing what a person can handle when they're forced to.

Long story short, my dad went into the hospital with some heart issues. Complications happened with his lungs. And nine days later... he was gone. It was horrible. And icky. And sad. And weird. Because I think I haven't completely dealt with it.

Nighttime is the worst for me, because as I'm falling asleep, sometimes all I can think about is him in that hospital bed... and that's the last thing I want to think about when I think of him.

Also, it's weird because I wasn't particularly close with my dad. None of us were. I don't think my dad really liked people that much. We barely talked, except when he would answer the phone when I was calling my mom and even then, we'd only talk about the weather. It was weird. (But I suspect not entirely unusual for many children with aloof dads.) So, it's been really weird realizing he's gone. Because sometimes I forget. Because we didn't talk much and we weren't close at all and sometimes? I didn't really like my dad. But at the end of the day, he was still MY DAD... and that doesn't change no matter how our relationship was. You know? It's like after someone dies, all the other crap, the fights, the disagreements, the past hurts... it doesn't really matter. Because no matter what, it was still someone you loved, even though they were hard to love sometimes...

Whew... I sound completely detached as  write this. Sorry about that. Bottom line is, my dad is gone and I loved him and I haven't known what to put on here as of late with that bombshell.

In other news, I am nearly done with school and am now student teaching. Which is a hugely exciting development and yet... weird. Because it means change. And I'm not particularly good at change. And this past year has been all about HUGE changes... so this past year has been.... well... stupid. Good riddance 2012... you will not be missed.

I know, I know... I should be writing more about my Dad and about life and about all the changes that have taken place since I last posted, but I have neither the energy nor the interest at this point. I do want to get back to blogging, but right now? Meh. I'm feeling rather disinterested. (I think it's the cold medicine...) But I WILL post again and I WILL fill all ya'll in on developments AS THEY HAPPEN.  Maybe. Maybe not. You'll have to wait and see.