Relevant

http://m.relevantmagazine.com/life/whole-life/features/25956-11-things-to-know-at-25ish

Go to the above link and read the article.

I stumbled across it and ended up agreeing with every single point the author made. It was a nice refresher to remind me of where/what my priorities are right now. On a rare occasion I find myself thinking I'm behind in my life and I should already be married and making that "next step to grown-up life," but then I realize (with reminders like these) that I am still so young (and the fact that I do not want to have a boy roommate! Gross!). I still have 2 more years before I even reach the "25" mark!

I feel blessed to say that I've already found the job I love and will consider myself "lucky" to have it, especially with the way education looks right now.

And to me #s 7 and 8 really go together. I think if you are really and truly "part of a church" then the "spiritual disciplines" will come with that. I am looking forward to moving in July and really finding my new church! Now being a minister's daughter, I'm going to be a little picky; I have certain things that I'm looking for! However, I have confidence that God will lead me to the right place and I can't wait to start serving him.

Then I really enjoyed the last one, "Don't get stuck." Simple, yet it can mean so many things. I'll let you interpret it how you want! :)

Big Apple Adventure

Welcome to Vacation Bible School week! It really is one of the weeks I look forward to most during the entire summer! This is one of the boards in the room with our students names on them as well as our wonderful group of "M" teachers - Mindi, Mollie, and Morgan! The theme is New York City and we have been teaching our students all week about NYC as well as putting our faith and trust in Christ. Our 3 year olds have already said some of the cutest things ever, and it's been a lot of fun! On the first day we having our snack, which was an ice cream cone with a fruit roll-up wrapped around the top to look like the Statue of Liberty's torch! One kid proclaimed to everyone else, "You can eat the crunchy stuff!!!" (talking about the cone!) We've also been transporting ourselves to every activity in a different way every day, so far we've been: airplanes, ferries/swimming, and taxicabs!! After we got out to the playground and I was tickling some of them as they crossed the bridge one of my girls yelled, "Hey grumpy old troll, I'm gonna cross your bridge!!" Needless to say, I think Morgan, Mindi, and I have all been trolls at some point now! ha

Our sweet little ones is what brings me to my next point. I recently finished my book series I was reading and was needing something to make me sleepy the other night. That is when my mom tossed me this book:

I said thanks and headed off to my room to read. It is similar to the book 90 Minutes in Heaven, if you've ever read that one. Except its about a 3 year old who can tell his parents how heaven is for real. It is simply amazing to see the "child-like faith" throughout the entire book (I read it in 2 days). Especially being with 10 3 year olds for the past couple days has put the book in a more real perspective. I can literally see this little boy saying these things. It is surreal to know that we can still learn things from 3 year olds. So add this short, quick read to your list if you haven't experienced it already!

I want faith like that, and my prayer for the last couple nights has been to make my faith more like a child's.

Blessed with Reminders!

This week I have been blessed with several reminders in my life.

On Sunday after church, Hannah, Morgan Wood, and I went to go meet my dad for lunch. Our moms were busy with VBS stuff and Caroline had a choir practice. We just knew that was an excellent time to call upon my dad and have him treat us to lunch. We had a fantastic time and afterwards the girls took a trip to Tuesday Morning to return something for my mom. We had decided as we were leaving that my Dad would fill Hannah's tank up with gas sometime later before she left for Waco. After we went to Tuesday Morning, we were taking Morgan back to the church to pick up her car when the crazy-ness happened. In Carrollton, we have these weird blinking yellow arrows -- they have taken the place of no green arrow, but just the green light for turning left. In both cases you have are supposed to YIELD!!!! We were driving straight and had a green light, when a guy decided to turn left in front of us. There was no swerving that was going to help, we were going to hit him. It was the longest 2 seconds of my life and its been replaying in my head for the past 3 days. After the impact, we all checked on each other and made sure everyone was ok before reality set in. We had hit this guy going at least 35 mph straight on. Thankfully, besides some bruises and extreme soreness, we were doing ok. Hannah's car, however, is totaled. The reminder here was that God is always looking over you, even when you are least expecting it. 

The second lovely reminder I had this week was at a conference I attended. 

I listened to an amazing speaker who was really just reminding us of simple, common sense teaching strategies like: Be Nice!!!! I love the reminder and I wish some of older teachers would have been in attendance as well! :) The top three reminders I got from the session were 

1. Structure (kids do better with it!) 

2. Correct gently (even if it's the 20th time) 

3. Praise (verbally and non-verbally!)

Even being a first year teacher, there are still things I can learn and be reminded of and I feel blessed to have these reminders in my life. 

Everyone have a wonderful rest of the week and watch out for people turning left!!! :)

It's Official!

 

I am coaching next year!!! :) They are giving me 8th grade A team volleyball and track for sure. Then I will either coach basketball B,C or Cross Country. Either way, I am happy and very excited to have this opportunity! The athletic director wanted to make sure I knew what I was getting myself into! I told him this is the best time of my life to be doing this and I knew exactly how much time I would be putting in. I am also excited to be doing 8th grade athletics because I will already know most of the students from this previous year, so I will already have those relationships established!! 

So just call me Ms. Coach Lindstrom!!

Are YOU the next Math Idol?

I have completed my first year of teaching!! Yaaay!! My kids were fantastic this year and I cannot wait to have a new group next year! :) My principal came in during my last period of testing and gave me a knuckle pound and said, "What's up one year veteran?" I had a work day on Saturday, but I was able to leave by noon! So I am officially on summer break! Yaaay!!

Extra credit is a big deal to my 7th graders, so I decided at the beginning of the year that each six weeks I would give them one extra credit opportunity and that was it! I really like all the activities I chose and believe it was a well rounded depth and complexity assignment! I have to say that the 6th 6 weeks took the cake though! I wanted to give my students the opportunity to create a song like I did for the Justin Bieber Area Style. I also wanted to make sure that my students could hear the songs that their peers created, so I made it a requirement they had to perform them or create a video for the class. I offered 2 free quiz grades as hopefully a huge motivation. The results were awesome spectacular!!

A few examples:
     - To the tune of "Friday" by Rebecca Black:
                   "Fractions, Fractions... gotta reduce my fractions.
                    Lookin forward to my test grade, test grade!"

     - To the tune of "Rollin in the Deep" by Adele:
               "Circumference, It's so easy.
               you just multiplyyyy, pi and the diameter."

     - To the remix of "Whip My Hair and Teach me how to Dougie": 
                   "Teach me how to solve em,
                   Teach me, teach me how to solve em
                               Erbody acute
                               Er - Erbody obtuse
                               Erbody right,
                   You ain't messin with my angles."

     - To the tune of "Forget You" by CeLo:
                     "I know the formulas by heart and I'll tell you why,
                      It's cause I love math, oo, ooo, ooo.
                      How to find volume its not really hard,
                      Cause I love math
                      and Ms. Lindstrom too"


There were many more, but these are the only ones I can remember from memory! I cannot wait to do this again next year!!


Happy Summer to everyone!!!!!! :)