Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Week 2 of Summer


The second week of summer seems to be a lot slower (thank goodness!).  We've had plenty of chances to relax and spend some much needed time together.  Last week we made sure to fill the time with lots of fun things:  the movies (twice), some live theater (twice), shopping in Indy, shopping in Muncie, put together a bookcase for our office, read novels, got a haircut and dress fitting for my sister's wedding (only me, obviously), ate out too much, and Stake Conference.

This week is a little bit less planned-out.  Yesterday we finished some house-cleaning and then went to Menards to pick out some landscaping materials.  I helped for a little bit before going to work, but Kyle ended up doing most of the work.  My poor husband was exhausted after making our little yard look beautiful and making dinner!

I fell asleep pretty early last night but woke all too soon.  I had an awful nightmare and couldn't get back to sleep.  I dreamt that the Department of Education invalidated the Praxis exam that I took in January and made all English teachers take a summer course instead.  I woke up at about 5 AM terrified that I hadn't really graduated and that they were going to take my job away!  Luckily that is not the case, though.  Then I couldn't get BACK to sleep because I began worrying about how much time it was going to take me to get my license straightened out (long story...too long for a blog.  Let's just suffice to say that I am not friends with the Department of Education right now).  

So now I'm up and blogging.  There's not much new to report here in our lives--except for the fun we're having!--so I think I'll just feed the cat, give Kyle his adderall, and take my book back to bed with me. 

Oh!  And here's one of the graduation photos I promised in my last post:


You might remember from my activities from last week that I got my hair cut.  Don't worry; only an inch!  I want to keep the long look for awhile...

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Sweet Summertime

So it's summertime.  Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssss!  Life has been pretty good to us the last week or so.  Let's catch up on what all happened :)

I've finished my student teaching.  Last week consisted of tying up loose ends, which meant finishing my grading, getting kids caught up on assignments, taking home some sample projects that I'd asked my students if I could keep, cleaning out my desk, getting pictures with my classes, and handing out candy.  They might not miss me, but I think they appreciated the candy :)

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One of my desks before I packed everything away (I had two classrooms and two desks) 

Mr. Maple, the best student teaching buddy ever!

The greatest mentors and classroom teachers of all time: Mrs. Retherford and Mrs. Walker

Once Kyle finished all his finals, he began a new writing project.  His goal is to complete a 50,000 word novel in the span of a month.  As I'm blogging, I'm looking at his progress calendar, and he's not doing too bad.  He's got 10,000 words already (about 40 Microsoft Word pages) and is going steady.  He's very excited because he hasn't had the chance to sit down and write a novel since freshman year (and that one didn't get finished).  I'm doing my best to be supportive.  As long as I leave him alone so that he can reach his writing goal each day, I get him to myself the rest of the time.  And that means twice as many hands to clean or be useful for other projects!  Or, you know, hanging out and watching movies can be twice as fun...

As many of you know, my sister has been living with Kyle and me until her completion of campus classes.  She's now ready for her student teaching in the fall and is getting married next month and has OFFICIALLY moved out.  We didn't mind having her around (she did the dishes every once in a while!), but the house just seems so much bigger now that she's left.  We have converted her room into an office and we love it!  It's now our new favorite room in the house.  Tiger also can't get over how much extra space he has to run around...

The other last exciting couple of things...GRADUATION and NEW JOB.  Kyle and I graduated with academic honors this past Saturday (pictures to come from various family cameras).  We are also celebrating the fact that I have been offered a full-time teaching position at JCHS for 2011-2012.  



We are very, very excited!  Not only do I get to do what I love, but I also finally get paid for it!  This means lots of things to us: purchasing our home and continue renovating, possibly getting a nicer vehicle, an actual summer vacation next year...endless possibilities!

Hurray for summer!





Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Curriculum Guides

This is something that my sister needed posted to a public forum:

Curriculum Guides Created for Social Studies Settings

As course work for Social Studies 392, Betsy Knittle and Kristen Jana, both seniors majoring in Elementary Education at Ball State University, have recently designed Social Studies curriculums for organizations around Indiana.  Some of the agencies for which curriculums have been created include, the George Rogers Clark Memorial, the Lanier Mansion, the Maplelawn Farmstead in Zionsville, the Ball State Digital Archives, and the Indiana Historic Landmarks Association.  The curriculums that were created for the George Rogers Clark Memorial focus on the life of George Rogers Clark and his influence during Western War. In the Lanier Mansion curriculum, students were encouraged to envision life during the 1840s.  Students were able to debate the topic of building updates and whether energy efficiency was a logical reason to change the original structure and integrity of historic buildings.  This curriculum set was created for the Indiana Historic Landmarks Association.  Each curriculum set includes a cluster of 5 to 7 lesson plans and 1 or 2 assessment tasks.  If you would like more information related to any of the curriculums, or a copy of any of the curriculums that were created, you may contact Betsy Knittle at eaknittle@bsu.edu or Kristen Jana at kljana@bsu.edu.