Kids Kids Kids

I teach first grade now.  I love it!  I love these kids so much!  All 28 of them!  I wish I could post a million pictures of them and tell you all of their favorite things and how awesome they're all doing, but I can't (privacy laws).  I can tell you some funny things they've said though!  

Me: Hey Josh, are you following the instructions?

Josh: Yes, I'm following the destructions! 

While reading with a kid:

Book: Where did the piglets go? (The picture had little curly tails sticking out of the hay stacks)

Student: They made them into pork chops!!  

I was dying at this one!!  

While walking away from reading groups:

Student: Miss Teichert, you're a pretty good teacher.  

I just wish I could tell you these lines in person!  As I was typing them up I realized that their facial expressions add a lot to these quotes! Haha

Don't be fooled though by the up-beatness of this post.  First grade is hard too.  28 kids is a lot.  Five of them are pretty hard.  But that means that I have 23 that are pretty great!  And let me tell ya, when the stars align and one or two of those five boys have a great day, I am pumped!  So far they've made me smile more than they've made me scream :)  

Also, if you ever need a good confidence boost, teach first grade!  I get told at least 20 times a day that they love me, get about 40 hugs a day, and am constantly told how funny, smart, pretty, ect I am :)  Six and seven-year-olds are the best!

And, because I can't get enough of kids I went home to spend time with my nieces and nephews this weekend.  

Kids+a ski hill=GOLD!  

We had so much fun up Pine Creek!  It was a warm, beautiful day!  Few things make me happier than seeing kids learning to love skiing, and when it's my nieces and nephews it's even better!  

Back At It!

I just started my fourth week of my last semester at BYU.  So crazy to think about that.  I don't say my last week of school, cause who knows?!  I just might be crazy enough to go back someday, but probably not to BYU.  So I feel like I'm safe to say that.  I'm really loving school.  More that I thought I would.  My last in the classroom experience was hard.  Really hard.  And I questioned if teaching was for me or not.  Well, I've been through 3 weeks in a second grade class at Barnett Elementary School in Payson, UT, and I'm loving it!  I feel like I'm thriving down there instead of just surviving!  I'm excited about my lessons and I LOVE those kids!  Who knew you could love a bunch of 7 year olds in such a short amount of time?!  I'm also loving actually getting ready and wearing teacher-y clothes :)  Still had to take a first day of school pic to send to my mom!  Ha

While I'm loving my schooling part of being back at it, school most definitely does NOT rule my life!  I've been loving the things of my single/college/BYU/Provo life.  

One of my favorite things of being back is the gym.  I got a pass to VASA this semester and it's been so nice!  I don't ever have to wait for weights or machines, and it's literally a block and a half from my apartment.  

I'm loving my roommates!  I knew Ashlee (the super cute blonde on the left) a little bit, and we both met Jessi (the babe on the right) when we moved in.  We had a fun ice cream party on Wednesday night with a bunch of our friends, and it was a hit!  It was so fun for me to meet more of their friends and to see some of mine.  We're definitely doing it again next month :)  I also really love our apartment and ward.  Everything about it is great!  

My mom has already been down to visit twice, and there's no complaints here!  I LOVE when she comes!  This past weekend we hiked Timp and did our center street walk.  We found this fun bookstore down there!  Pioneer Book.  So great!  I'm not a lover of reading, so for me to say that is a pretty big deal...

I'm enjoying concocting my own meals again.  I've had some interesting ones.  The most random one was probably taco meat with spinach, brown rice, and plain greek yogurt.  It was actually quite a bit better than in sounds!  I also have no clue what I would do without eggs.  I've eaten at least one every single day.  

I've also just loved being back at the Y.  I really do love BYU.  I love the campus, I love going to the games, I just love the spirit of this place.  I'm not like a psycho fan or anything, but I'm so so glad I came to school here.  I've met so many good people here and while I'm not going to stay here forever, I'll forever be thankful for the time I have spent here.  It's definitely special to me.   

My cousin Sadie is finally down here at school too, and it's been fun to do some things with her!  I just love how comfortable I can be around here and we've had fun on a few hikes.  I've also been able to do some things with Liz Dayton from Cokeville, and that's been fun for me to get to know her better.  She's a great girl!  

Life is really good right now.  I'm really feeling content with what's happening, and I feel like it's God's way of letting me know that I'm on the right track.  I'm thankful for that.  

Teaching School

Well, I've been learning about how to be a teacher for quite some time now, and here in the Philippines I was THE teacher.  The only one.  The head woman.  I messed up a lot, I did a lot of things well, and I learned a TON!  

We started school every morning (Monday-Friday) at 8:00 am.  The first few weeks start time was rough.  We were never starting on time and I was getting kind of frustrated about it when I remembered a promptness incentive that one of my high school teachers, Mr. Wilson, used.  If everyone was present and on time we would earn a letter to spell "Popcorn Party."  When we spelled the word out we got to have a party day.  So, I decided to tweek it a bit to fit our situation and I decided that if everyone was on time and had begun writing in their journals at 8:00 sharp we would earn a letter to write out Late Start.  

Once we earned all of the letters they got to start school at 9:00 the next morning.  They bought into it and promptness improved dramatically!  They earned 2 late starts in the last 5 weeks of school, and I was pretty proud of them.  

We held school down in the kitchen/dining/living room.  It worked out pretty well.  Here are "the guys" working hard in the other part of the room.  

So, the curriculum was basically just reading, writing, and math.  Rix and Lillian, the 8th and 7th graders, were signed up through BYU's Independent Study program for English and Math courses.  They were able to basically self run those.  I would make sure they were on track and tell them what they needed to accomplish each day.  I helped with concepts they didn't quite understand and quite a bit with their writing sections which was fun for me.  They have large vocabularies and write with great voice which makes it fun to read their work.  The finals for their courses have to be taken once we get home, so I will go down to Provo to help them get set up with that and get those classes finished up!

Reed and Faith, the 3rd and 4th graders, took more of my time, and it was so fun to be able to work one-on-one with them.  They had some morning work that they had to do together that worked on general Language Arts things like the difference between "it's" and "its," pronouns, adverbs, etc.  Then one of them would stay and do math with me while the other one went and did their individual reading.  Then they'd switch.  Math started out as coming straight from the book.  It was fairly boring, but they were doing pretty good at it, so I didn't worry too much about it.  Then I taught one lesson to Faith using the concept from the book, but I just put it in different, more real life context, and she did so much better with it!  So, I decided to do more of that the last few weeks and it made math much more fun!  

Their reading improved a lot just from reading to themselves for a good 30 minutes every day and then a mixture of them reading out loud to me and me reading out loud to them for about 10 minutes each day.  It was fun for me to see their improvement just from spending time reading.  It's so important.

  

After the first couple of days with the younger kids I knew that I was going to need some kind of incentive to get the younger two students to cooperate and stay focused.  Luckily, I had been taught about these awesome positive/negative charts by my CFA at the last elementary I did my practicum at.  Each morning during journals I would hand them their positive negative chart.  

They would write their goal and then they would get awarded positive or negative points based on their behavior and the work they got done.  It worked marvelously!  If they met their goal they got to do whatever our afternoon activities were, but if they didn't quite meet it, they didn't get to go.  Luckily we only had one or two days where they had to stay home.  

One of my favorite parts about school was science with Faith.  At the start we had to do the water cycle and measuring weather units to cover the standards, but after that we got to learn about whatever she wanted.  It was fun and we learned about many things from whale sharks to how rice is planted and harvested.  

Finally the two younger kids would end each day doing multiplication facts on Oswego.  At the start this was maybe the most dreaded part of their day, but as they got better at them they LOVED Oswego!  Most of the time they would do it more than their required number of times.  They are super good at their multiplication facts and have both passed of mixed multiple times.  I was so proud of them!  

Half way through our home school experience I had each of them write down things they liked and things they would like to see change.  One of the main things they liked was that they got to do school in their pajamas :)  I don't blame them one bit!  One of the things they didn't like was doing work with their sibling.  We talked about families and how sibling relationships are so important.  The partner work improved drastically afterwards, and I learned about how important it is to see how your students feel about how school is going. 

I will most likely never have another teaching experience like this.   I lived with my students.  I lived with my boss.  I lived with my student's parents.  It was interesting.  Some parts were hard, some parts were nice. I learned a lot about a lot, but I still have so much to learn!  Overall, it was a very good experience and I'm so glad I have it to look back on and learn from.  

Periodicals.

This happened today:

Complete claustrophobia.  This was my first time in five years venturing down in the periodicals section, and hopefully it's my last.  The book cases are so close and big, and they move, and I've always been scared of getting squished by one.  Today I faced my fears, found a journal I was looking for, snapped a picture, and got the heck out of there!  So long periodicals! 

1st Graders Rock!

So, I've taken about a month long hiatus from blogging, and basically everything else of normal life.  The reason: I've been doing a month long practicum (field experience) in a first grade classroom in Hobble Creek Elementary up in Mapleton.  What a fun month it's been!  

I went to school every day like a teacher would, arriving thirty minutes early, but I left about an hour before school got out.  I was blessed to have an awesome mentor teacher.  Miss Johnson was so sweet and helpful.  She is one of the most patient people I have ever met and I admire her so much!  She let me take on quite a few responsibilities and it was such a great experience.  I taught the morning routine each day, which in first grade takes about an hour.  Then I would teach one or two other lessons that I had planned throughout the day as well as help with any activity that we were doing.  While teaching was fun, the kids were definitely the best part!  I love those little kids so much.  They are so patient and forgiving.  We all truly do need to become as little children.  They just captured my heart.  

Seriously, BYU's elementary education program does an awesome job of getting you prepared.  If I ever needed questions answered, someone was there to answer them for me.  They came and observed me teach lessons and gave me super helpful feedback.  I gained a lot of confidence in my teaching ability this past month, which was very needed.  I've been questioning my decision of major on and off the last year, but this experience helped remind me I'm making the right choice for now :)  

All of my education classes went on hold for the month, and today it was back up to campus.  I actually quite enjoyed it.  I also got to return to my beloved Upholstery Shop.  That place just makes me so happy.  Here's to the last (roughly) 4 weeks of school!!  

The Cokeville Miracle

Last night I had the opportunity to go to a screening for The Cokeville Miracle at the LDS Film Festival.  

You guys.  It was so good.  I'm having a hard time putting into words the feelings I had last night as I watched the film, and the feelings I've had since, but I'll try.  

I've grown up hearing the story, and I've always believed it was a miracle that those kids and teachers survived that day.  I knew that the events of that day were very tramatic and very real.  Because of that, I was pretty nervous to see the film.  I didn't want to be more scared about the events of that day than I already was.  Well, the exact opposite happened.  I came away from the film knowing without a doubt that angels intervened that day.  Those children and teachers were being watched over.  My testimony of divine intervention, forgiveness, and repentance grew immensely in a short two hours.  I'm proud to say I know many of the survivors of the events of that May day in 1986 and I admire their courage not only that day, but all of the days that have followed.  

So please, spread the word about The Cokeville Miracle.  It comes out in theatres June 5th and I encourage all of you to go see it.   The filmmakers are true artists.  

God lives.  He loves us.  Miracles happen.   

Sundance

It's hard to believe that four months have gone by, but it's true.  The ski season is over at Sundance, and oh was a season it's been!  I absolutely LOVED being a ski instructor up there this year!  I learned so much--about skiing, and more importantly, about myself.  I had the opportunity to meet so many great people who came up for lessons.  Those kids just made my day!  I had so many great lessons and great experiences that taught me so much!  Each day was an adventure.  

It's hard to pick, but here are three of my favorite experiences:

One day I had a group of four boys, three eight year olds and a six year old.  The six year old could tell he wasn't doing as well as the others.  I was giving him most of my attention to ensure that it would be a good experience for him.  As we were skiing I asked him if he was having a good time.  Slightly frustrated he said, "Yes, because everyday I get to choose if I'm going to have a good day or a bad day, and I'm choosing to have a good day!"  What great parents that kid must have?!  

I taught so many determined kids.  I had a little 5-year-old girl over President's Day weekend who became my little buddy.  She did so well!  She was always happy and willing to try whatever I asked her.  Her parents were great, and I was so sad when they left.  I didn't know I could grow to love someone so quickly.  What a great experience!  Then, on my second to last weekend, a little girl came up to me and asked if I was Olivia.  She then told me that she was Caroline's neighbor back East and that Caroline says hi!  Seriously made my day!  

The season was winding down and there weren't too many lessons anymore.  I taught in the morning Saturday and figured I'd get the afternoon off.  That's always kind of nice.  So, I was standing at line up when I got called over to do a lesson.  My supervisor told me that the student had some learning disabilities as well as a few physical disabilities.  He was ten years old and about as big as me.  Needless to say, I did NOT want to teach the lesson.  I taught the lesson, and I think it ended up being the highlight of my season.  This boy was so determined!  I worked so hard with him, picking him up each time he fell (literally), staying positive, and convincing him that he could do it!  When I started the lesson his mom told me that she'd be happy if he lasted an hour of the two and a half hour lesson.  We made it the whole two and a half hours and he wanted to do more!  I was so proud of him!  When I got into my car, I collapsed.  My adrenaline was gone and I was exhausted, but I had just had an amazing experience, one I will never forget.  

More important than all of my lesson experiences is the friendships I made with the people I worked with.  There were so many great people up there!  Each day I went up, I was so excited to see them!  They always made me feel so good about life.  So many of them made a huge impact on my life and I'm so glad to call them my friends :)  I can't wait 'til I can see them all again!  Sundance was good to me.  I think I'll go back.  

The "Three Musketeers"  Oh how I love these girls!! 

  Last day!!  Ski/Snowboard crossover. What a fun day with some fun people!

First Day of Spring

I absolutely LOVE this time of year down here in Provo!  Here's what I did on the first day of Spring :)

Zumba

Spanish

Gymnastics

Attended a guest lecture about social competency in elementary students--very interesting

Made myself a taco and ate it

Taught a four-year-old how to ski

Made a quick stop at Lo-Lo's for ice cream for a roommate party tonight :)

Filled my car with gas

Went to the temple with some peeps from my ward where I took this pic:

(I love flowers SOOO much!)

Finished my Spanish homework

Wrote a blog
Plus, I've been GLUED to  my ESPN app all day because I made a bracket, and let me tell ya, I'm stinkin' it up right about now...

Nothing extraordinary, but seriously, what a great way to kick off spring!

Sometimes Dreams Don't Come True...

When I came to school here my freshman year I was pretty certain that I was going to be an Elementary Education major.  I went to all of the meetings and declared it my major.  One meeting at the end of my freshman year they told us that the department offered a study abroad program in New Zealand your last semester of practicum, or the semester right before you student teach.  I was sold!  

So, since then I have been saving my money, dreaming, and, conveniently enough, staying single :)  (you can't go on this study abroad married).  As my dream was getting closer, I was getting more and more excited!  I was so excited to go to New Zealand and experience a different culture, see how their school system works, and just have an adventure!  Then on Monday I got an email telling me that the study abroad for 2015 is cancelled.  I was devastated.  (I still kind of am…)  I cried a couple of tears while I read the message on my way from the JFSB to the Library.

I was pretty bummed and for a moment I even considered changing my major to Spanish?!  I told Tessa and my roommates when I saw them.  I couldn't get the courage up to call my mom and tell her though, cause I knew I would cry again.  It's just kinda hard when your dreams get crushed, ya know?  Then I went up to the ski hill and taught 5 kids grades 2nd-4th how to ski and everything was right again in the world.  I just love those kids and I decided I really do want to be an elementary education major!  It's okay if I can't go to New Zealand, that wasn't the reason I chose this major in the first place.  

Tuesday I finally mustered the courage to call my mom.  I still cried.  She helped me out though, and since then I've thought of a bunch of really great things I can do with a semester abroad that involve using/learning Spanish.  Really, the possibilities are endless and I haven't had time to look at all of them, but rest assured, I'll be doing something fun next fall :)  

I guess it was about time I received this little bump in my charmed life.  Looking back at it a couple of days later I know that it's going to be a blessing.  Everything is going to work out, and it'll probably be even better!  So, even though this post is kinda depressing, don't feel bummed for me.  (It's just so I don't have to re-tell this story every time someone asks me when I'm going to New Zealand) So, even though dreams don't always come true, sometimes they change, and sometimes the change is even better!    

A New Adventure!!

No, I'm not leaving the country (yet), but I am a ski instructor for Sundance!  

You guys, I LOVE it!  A lot of you already know, but I figured since I picked up my second pay check today it's getting pretty official.  I've been super busy doing trainings and everything for it, but now I'm going to start getting busy teaching lessons! I'm so excited!  I've taught 5 lessons so far, and they were all so fun!  Yes, some of them were challenging, both mentally and physically, but fun nonetheless.  The people I work for and with are great!  It's just so refreshing to be around them.  My favorite part about the job though is probably being outside.  I don't care if it's cold as long as I'm up on the mountain.  I love it so much!  So, if you're ever down in the Provo area, come hit up Sundance :)

The Two Best Classes...

...possibly of my entire life, ended today.  I was actually really sad.  First, Español ended.  I go to that class 5 days a week for an hour.  Because I spend so much time in there I really got to know these people and I really love them.  My teacher is so great too!  I have learned so much!  Way more than I could have hoped for.  Today as our teacher was saying good-bye she started to tear up.  I almost lost it!  I just might have to drop in on her class a few times next semester :)

Then Art ended.  I have learned so much about myself in this class.  It seems so silly, but I gained so much confidence in this class.  My teacher was amazing!  I hope I can be half the teacher she is someday.  I also got this back today.  I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty proud of it!  This started out as a flat slab of clay, and I shaped and molded it, fired it, glazed it, and fired it again, and I love how it turned out!

To finish off the class she showed us a clip from one of my favorite movies, Freedom Writers.  This show had a big impact on my decision to become a teacher.  The clip was when one of the students calls the classroom "home."  Then my teacher told us how our classrooms might be a home for some of these kids.  We aren't going to know what some of these kids live are like and what they're going through, and it might be the only place they feel safe.  Our job is to make school a positive environment where they can feel successful, especially through art.  It was a pretty emotional moment.  This class has had a huge impact on me!  

I'm so thankful for great classes like this!  How many students are truly sad when they leave a class?  I feel so blessed to be here at BYU and to have such amazing professors and to have the opportunity to meet and associate with such great people.  Everyday here is just another confirmation to my decision. 

The First of Many

I'm still experiencing a lot of "firsts" in my life, and today I finished my first lesson plan.  I was kinda excited when I got done!  I'm going to be doing a whole lot more of these too!!  It was pretty exciting for me to see my ideas on paper.  Hopefully I'll be able to use this in my classroom someday.  This lesson plan is part of my final for my art class, and I got to do it on someone dear to my heart,     Minerva Teichert.

I never knew this lady, but my junior and senior years of high school we started to read her letters to her daughter Laurie.  We would read out of this book for part of FHE.  I learned so much about her and she is an amazing woman!  I got to learn even more about her as I prepared this art curriculum unit for grades 2-4.  It's going to be fun to teach some kids about my grandma, art, and the Cokeville way of life --all at the same time!