Baby Lexie Pictures

This is the first day home for baby Lexie. Big sis loves her new baby sister!

Such a cute picture of both my nieces and nephew!

It's Auntie Christy!

Baby Lexie was born last Tuesday, the 2nd of September. She was 6lb. 12 oz. and 19 in. long. She is so tiny! I went up to Bountiful after school to see her that day and when I held her, it was like her eyes took up her whole face! She is the smallest baby my brother Scott and sister-in-law, Kim have had! I have not been able to see her since then, but hear she is doing great, and so is mom.

I would have to say that that was the highlight of my week! The rest of the week, last week went okay. I am getting more into the "swing" of things and I do enjoy the students I have. They are all so great! I just have a few challenges with a boy that is ADHD (the "stare into space" kind) and really cannot focus on his work and getting it done. He is also a little behind in reading, so I am having to work with him to build up his fluency in reading. There is also a girl that does not turn ANY homework in. She is sweet, but has social behavior issues and is behind in reading as well. So, this week I am trying out a contract with her to see if the incentive will help her with her behavior issues. Other than that, it is just the continuous struggle of planning, preparing, and correcting papers! I have wonderful aids that help me out with a lot of correcting and other paper work though, so I am lucky to have them!

The week right now has been really good so far. The kids have lunch workers for the first time this year and boy were they excited about that! All of them wanted to do it, but I could only choose 6 names out of a hat. Who knew that being a lunch worker would be considered fun! I can imagine that they aren't that excited to help out at home! I think they are so excited because they get to go to lunch early and get out of class work. :)

Another Week Down!

Phew! It has been a crazy, but fun week this week. The kids continue to be great students, although I am having to get after them for not turning in some of their work, now that we are really getting into all the nitty-gritty stuff. Also, I started spelling this week. I am doing a new way of spelling that I learned at the university and did while I was student teaching. It is a little different than the regular way we all did it, like write words 3 times each, use them in a sentence, etc... I put them into groups based off of where they are at from a pretest I gave them. There are 4 groups and each has a different list of words. Each week the words have some kind of pattern in their spelling that help the kids recognize them easier. Each night, they have to do some kind of activity with their words with their parents. Well, some of the parents are getting confused about what their kids are doing and the kids are a little confused too, because it isn't the "norm". So I have struggled with trying to explain it all, so hopefully next week will go a little better. :0
Other than that, I have been teaching a lot about Utah's Geography, multiplication fact memorizing, and they are writing an "autobiography" about themselves by using the writing process. I really am having fun, it is just a lot of work keeping up with all of the paper-correcting and recording scores, and making sure that students are turning in their work and all... A lot of planning every night too!
On Wednesday, it was my birthday, and the kids were so excited about it. A lot of the girls brought me little presents and wrote me funny notes and drew pictures. My mom also brought in balloons and doughnuts after lunch. They loved that part! All in all, it was a fun day. I got to hang out with the fam afterward by having dinner at the Olive Garden and homemade cheesecake at my house. By the way, I finally got my very own camera for my birthday, so I was able to take some pictures of my classroom.




This is the front of my classroom. The desks are arranged in groups of three and yes, I have a stove/oven in the corner next to the TV! ( I most likely will not be using that, but who would have thought to put a STOVE in a classroom!)

This is my desk. Notice everything I own is on metal rolling carts, so I can move from one classroom to another! FUN, FUN, FUN!

This is the side of my classroom where the kids hang up their backpacks. It is also my "word wall" (vocabulary words) and my classroom rules/helpers wall. And yes, that is a piano too!

This is where my kids put their textbooks, take lunch count/attendance, do "think time" and get books to read.

This is the other side of my room where all of the EMPTY storage cupboards are because it is pointless to store anything in them when you are just going to have to move it all in 9 weeks! The kidney-shaped table is where I will do reading groups.