"So, are you gonna be laid off?"

I'm really tired of hearing this question. I don't know and I'm not going to worry about it. I am confident in my teaching ability and there's nothing I can do to change the 5 million dollars of debt, so I will be patient and see.

Well, that was my one moment of venting in this blog. The rest will be happy things! I had a wonderful spring break hanging out with my best friend! We watched a ton of basketball and never ran out of things to talk about, but none of that surprises me. It's the reason why she's my best friend.

The week back was not as crazy as I thought it might be. I had some interactive lessons planned and it kept the kids entertained (for the most part!). One of the lessons we did was called the "Human Bar Graph." I had the students complete a survey about my class, then so it was anonymous they folded their surveys into paper airplanes and flew them around the room for 2 minutes. When time was up they picked up the closest airplane to them and sat back in their desk. We then went outside to the track to make our bar graphs. They stood in front of the sign that correlated to the answer that was on their new sheet. From left to right their options were Never, Rarely, Often, and Always (use that when you're looking at the pictures below).I wasn't sure how the whole thing was going to go, but it worked very well and I'm excited to show them their pictures tomorrow. They will also be on my school website for parents to see. 

I hope everyone has a fantastic week. This week includes one of my favorite days of the year: Opening Day of the Texas Rangers.

1st Period - "I ask questions when I do not understand something."

2nd Period - "I turn in my homework."

5th Period - "Ms. Lindstrom's class is my favorite class."

7th Period - "My words and actions create positive affects on my peers."

 

Teacher Spring Break 2011

My favorite quote from Friday was "I am JUST as excited about Spring Break as you are!!!" ha for real, the students were not as bad as I thought they were going to be! We ended the day with the faculty student basketball game! I was not going to play until they came to me 5th period and bombarded me!! :) They found me clothes and shoes and I acted like I could play basketball for 14 minutes. I actually almost made a basket!! ha I held my own, so I was proud of that!!

I'm going to enjoy my break and go visit my best friend in Lubbock. I am so excited to have time to spend with her. When Hannah was home for Spring Break we watched a home video, and there I was in kindergarten standing by her side in choir! :)

If you need a little bit of entertainment, check out the awesome way Hannah and I motivated Caroline while she was out for a run! Just go to Hannah's facebook page and it is on there titled, "Caroline's Tiger Blood."

Happy Spring Break!!!

Old-Fashioned Paper Chain

It has started. The countdown to the TAKS. I always have girls wanting to help me with things and today when I didn't have anything for them, I got a brilliant idea: make a paperchain!!! I know it's old-fashioned, but it's still just as much fun!!! So there it is, our class paper chain. There are 33 school days until math TAKS! Ah!!!

But like so many of my Blog Titles, this old-fashion trend is about a lot more than just our TAKS paper chain. I have made a discovery about myself and my teaching style: I am an old-fashioned teacher with new, modern tendencies. I have no idea if that sentence makes any sense, but I'm not really worried about it. The first thing my mom said to me before the school year was, "Mollie, this is the era of entitlement." Well, you're not entitled to anything. I've also learned I am not an enabler. I am not going to just hand you the answers because you get "special services." You still have to put work and effort into earning your grade. My one goal for this year was to just make it without stepping on any toes, and I don't know if I can do that anymore. I'm much more fed up with the special services department and the "help" that they're giving. I know I can't fix everything, and I'm honestly not trying to; I just want the kids to be successful. If we hand everything to them now, how are we preparing them for the future?

Onto happier topics: I've had my bridesmaid flowers in my room since my best friend's wedding in July and I took a picture with just my little camera phone and I love it. They were ivory roses that dried into an awesome rustic color. This picture is not in sepia tones or anything, just normal color. They are right by my bed and are a good reminder to see everyday when I come home after one of those more difficult days at school.

This paragraph is going to be anything BUT old-fashioned. One night when I couldn't sleep, I decided to write a song about area to Justin Bieber's "Never Say Never." The next day I went to Waco and sang my song for my cousins; they loved it. So obviously our next step was to make a music video!! It was so much fun to make and my kids have absolutely loved it. I haven't even played it for my on-level kids and they came in already knowing every word! Hopefully that makes our area unit that much easier! Area, area, area, area -a -a -a

Enjoy: Never Say Never: Area Remix

The last old-fashioned I'm going to talk about is my kind of old-fashioned. I love looking at pictures of my sisters and I growing up and the other night I came across a good one. Right before this picture, there was one where we were holding up our Easter presents. Hannah and Caroline were holding up candy; I was holding up a book on patterns. Go Math Nerds!!



I'm 7, Hannah - 5, Caroline - 3