Highlight of my day.

I honestly love my major!  Teaching little children somehow gives me the greatest joy!  It's amazing to watch a concept all of a sudden click with a student and to know that I helped them understand it! I get teased a lot by a lot of people about how easy my major is, and they wished they had my homework.  I don't think anyone realizes the amount of work that goes into teaching!  But it's ok, cause I love what I do.  I just can't wait to graduate and get a real job!  I wish I could post pictures of my class up here!  But alas, that is against the law and I would get into major trouble.  But know that they are just the cutest 5 and 6 year olds! It is way neat to see how innocent they can be and watch them just figure out the world.  Elementary Education is what I was cut out for.

Student Teaching!

Well, I am two weeks down of my first block of student teaching! Five weeks left and then I'm off to New Zealand!  For about the past hour I have been looking at pictures and regularities of New Zealand, and needless to say, I am SUPER excited:)  I will be teaching there for 7 weeks and touring for 1 1/2 weeks.  I am nervous to be on my own, but mostly anxious and excited!  I am in a kindergarten class right now and I am loving every second of it!  Every day I have one of my kindergartners say something quite clever and just plain funny.  However the last couple of days I have had two little boys say something quite funny to me.  We were talking about teen numbers and the turns to me and asks, "Hey Miss Chelsea, are you a teenager or a Mom?"  I answered saying that I was neither, and he looked at me in a confused way and then asks, "then what are you?"  I just said that I was somewhere in between and I was a college student.  He just was like, "ok!"  and then we went on with the lesson.  Then the next day, at centers, a little girl told someone that I was the teacher, and someone else says..."NO....she is a STUDENT teacher."  and then this little boy sitting right next to me corrects them all by looking at me and saying, "no, she is somewhere in between a teenager and......hmm....a woman.  Right?"  I had to stifle my laughter and just say, "something like that...."  Oh the life of teaching.  I do love what I do!  I just can't wait to have my OWN classroom.  I am looking forward to graduating May of 2011!  I wish I could put pictures on here, but I am without any of my pictures!  all of my pictures are on my laptop and my laptop is getting fixed at the moment.  But for sure when I go to New Zealand I will be putting lots of pictures up here!

My last year of what we call college.

Well...as all of you can see, i am horrible at keeping up with my blog.  But, the good news, is, is that i am writing right now!  This summer went by so fast, and now the semester is almost at an end too.  I seriously can't believe that this is my last year of college!  I actually have to grow up.  However, I am super excited to get a job teaching and so I can actually get paid to do something that i love.  I am now done with university classes, forever, and i am solely in the classroom teaching!  I am doing my student teaching next semester, It consists of two blocks, one block I will be teaching in Cache County somewhere...and the other block....I am going to be teaching in.......... NEW ZEALAND!!!!!!!!!! I'm just a tad excited about going;)  I finally got my passport, and i have already paid half of the amount that it will cost me to go.  This trip is def going to be  awesome.  I also am going to be staying an extra week down there so i can just tour the place....lord of the rings anyone....? I will be leaving at the end of February, and be getting back the 27th of April!  Woot Woot!!!  I know all of you that are reading this are pretty jealous of me.  And I can't blame you.  It actually all seems pretty surreal to me still. I'm nervous.  But excited!  This will look amazing on my transcript. while in NZ I will try my hardest to keep up  on my blog. But until then.....? Who knows the next time I will post.

beginning of summer 2010

Yes. i am still alive...all of my avid readers were starting to get worried..."is chel alive?...i miss her blogs"  is what everyone is thinking. i'm positive.  So i'll give you all a priceless update of my amazing summer.  I have been working...and working...oh and working.  I work at a small gift shop in a small town, springdale, right before Zion National Park.  I meet a lot of weird peeps.  And a lot of old men flirt with me. possibly cause i got my braces off...or they are trying to get a discount.  and it's usually that. as soon as i say no. that is the price it is...they stop being nice to me. HA!  who woulda thought.  So i decided to try it out...just an extra 5%...and you would have thought I would have announced to a new father he had twins.  Their face lights up and starts telling me about their life and will even make jokes to try and make me laugh...Now...i have to think, is it worth it to lose a couple dollars every now and again to make a conversation go somewhere other than trying to get a discount?  maybe just that once.  Cause I would probably lose my job if I was giving discounts right and left.  So i just stick to my books from the library and call them my friends.
Well i start school again in three weeks...i know right? it blows, but it's worth it to graduate in may 2011. I wish i had some pics to share with you about my awesome summer...but...i don't have any!  Goal. take pics. to share with blog peeps.

Role Plays of Technology

Wale....my blog for today is for my technology class so I receive points for our last class period (woot woot! the semester is almost over!!!)  So.  Me and a couple of my fellow classmates had to read about this scenario where a teacher wanted i-pod touches for her classroom for some of the applications that it has to offer.  We had to record our discussion pretending to be one of the people in our certain scenario. hence. role play.  Personally I thought the teacher was being quite selfish as she just wanted i-pod touches for just her classroom.  however, if the teacher had her own funds, it would be pretty neat if the students had such commodities.   Also today I finished up my inquiry lesson plan.   finally. I've been having troubles uploading it and such.  Well...this will be my last post about this class...so long and farewell. It has indeed been a great ride.

Alright...Alright...

So...due to my recent post (look below) I have been claimed to be boring...me? boring? HA!  So this is to make up to all you little freaks. 

Tonight I had a sneak attack bbq. Sneak attack you may ask? How? Where? When? Why weren't you invited?  Thats just it. you weren't.  I went over to my brothers house to get one of his free coupons for a smoothie so I could go and study for my praxis exam (for all of you non elementary education majors: a HUGE test we have to pass to student teach/teach.  its life or death.)  Anyhow, I was going over to get a free coupon not planning on staying for the bbq...when in fact...I stayed. just to have a burger and then go get my smoothie but then these wreched freshmen came (who knew that the "freshmen" title still applied in college).  So i had to save a couple of my girlfriends and take them with me to go and get smoothies.  Trinity however was stuck grilling the burgers so we just had to bring him back one.  Those freshman were still there.  It amazed me at how high their voices were and how good they looked for a bbq. how did I look you ask?  well I was the prettiest boy there.  that sums it up.  Anyhow, we slurped our smoothies and I called it a night to come back and study...but now I'm blogging. hmm.....anyways, a couple of other events that i feel that are worth the blogging life is that of:  I have been eating at justin's house a lot lately.  I LOVE eating there. because he makes the best food.  seriously.  love the burgers and chicken...even andy got to try some of the delishness i am always raving about. that lucky bass:)  speaking of good ol andy...we got to go to baby animal days with trinity, kendra, justin, tasha, mylah and marek.  the whole lot of everyone.  And...you'll never guess what was there. Baby. Bears.  easy you are wondering if I got to hold one. and the answer is a very sad no.  The only people that could hold them were their trainer people.  HOWEVER we did get these awesome bear masks.  Andy kept saying that I looked exactly like a bear. haha that crazy boy:)

Anyways, we had a really fun time there, and we even got a chance to ride a train...granted it was for little kids. but...we pretended we were taking mylah and then let her go with her mom so tasha could have an excuse to get on the train.  now...here is a confession...this next pic is actually really hard for my to put up. cause of my sweet grill...but it's the only pic of us on the train. so...just make your eyes fuzzy if you want to see the pic but not the brace face;)

Alright...so it's not the braces you were expecting...i actually did put it up but it honestly was just a bad pic all together. so this is a sweet pic of a peacock at our logan zoo.  haha it was pretty neat cause I had never seen one before with all of it's feathers like that. it was cool.

So...just to save my pride now, because i didn't put up a bad pic...here is even a better pic.

Well...now I'm going to study and get ready to register for my classes at midnight. 

Visit to Edith Bowen and Web Site Evaluations

Well, today in class we had the opportunity to go next door to an elementary school.  This elementary school is very well funded by the university because it is indeed a "laboratory school" hence the name "Edith Bowen Laboratory Elementary School".  Here, each classroom has at least 13 computers (Macs) and the exact classroom we went into had an ipod for every student in his classroom. Shocked? yes. I was too.  I think that it is pretty neat that he can find all of these crazy grants for his class to get all of these modern commodities.  He uses the ipods as a reading tool.  Remember all of those read-along tapes we used to listen to in elementary school? well  not anymore.  We are no longer in the tape or even the cd mode. We are upgrading to ipods....wow.  He had us go one on one with one of his students and his students showed us the ropes of learning in his classroom by showing us the computers...etc.  Those little guys know a lot. More than I do...which is kinda embarrassing.  but, I think that it was a great experience to go over to the school and see first hand how he is incorporating technology into today's classroom

On to blogging about the web site evaluations.  We had to look up four different web sites and use four different types of evaluations. All of the sites that I used to evaluate happened to all be very credential, which was pretty lucky for me.  The web evaluation sheets that I used were just fine...I don't really have a preference to which one I use.  They all got the job done.  However, as I get farther in my profession, I am sure that I will be able to form an opinion on what evaluations I like/dislike.  I thought that it was interesting, some of the forms brought to my attention some characteristics that web sites should definitely have.  It was crazy insane at how a web site can seem to be great and awesome, when in fact it may by giving you false info (hello Wikipedia).  There are times where I would and would not use an evaluation sheet.  Times that I would:  When it involves other teachers, students or parents, or school districts.  Times that I would not:  When I was just checking out the web site just for myself.  Well...there you have it. A couple of hours on Monday in the life of Chelsea.