Christmas Family Time

After Christmas Eve service, we dropped dad off at home, them Mom, Grandma and I went driving around looking at lights. When we got back, my sis and niece were here. They spent last night over. We got up this morning, and dad made pancakes for breakfast. My niece read the Christmas story from Luke 2, then she and my sis passed out the presents, and we opened them. One person opens all of their presents at a time. After they were opened, both my niece and I went on a scavenger hunt following clues to find our last presents. My niece had two to find. Then we played Apples to Apples. My dad won the game, then we, without grandma, went to see Timmy. Came home, got food together to eat.







There is a pic of my sis, niece, brother and myself. Another one of my niece wearing her new Elmo hoodie. My brother in his new Cookie Monster shirt, opening another gift. My parents sitting on the couch while one of them is opening a present. We just got him clothes this year.

Merry Christmas

If it weren't for Christmas, then we wouldn't have Easter! Have a Blessed Christmas! Remember the greatest gift that was given to us.

Getting a Crown

For the past month or two, I've had problems chewing the right side of my mouth. I have a dentist appointment in March and knew I couldn't wait until then to see the dentist. I called a couple of weeks ago, and got in this morning, after get blood work done at the Cancer Center, where I saw my buddies. My dentist took an xray of my tooth, and did a couple of quick tests, and he had three theories as to what was wrong. His theories were wrong. He was surprised to see I had a crack in one of my molars. I have an appointment in three weeks to start the process of getting my tooth ready for a crown. He re sized my bite, hoping that I should be able to chew on that side much easier now. The right side is still sore, but able to chew some on that side.

I will be taking my first "sick" day on the 12th to start the process of getting my tooth ready for a crown. I will be at the dentist for 2 hours. The lady there, couldn't find a convenient time in the afternoon or a non school day, so we went with a morning. She said my mouth will be sore for a while when they are done.

Christas Break

First day of Christmas Break!!!!! I had been looking forward to Christmas break. The school year is about half way over. It is hard to believe that. My favorite part of my two snow days earlier this week, was just sitting there reading. I read, Francine River's "Her Daughter's Dream". I had actually started reading it the week before, but with it being over 570 pages and I not having much time to read, I hadn't gotten very far into it.

We had our party after lunch yesterday, and before they got to eat the cupcakes and cookies that were brought it, I played Connect Four against each of my kids. I played against the 17 who were there, and won like 10-11 of the games. They enjoyed playing against me.

I do have a bit of grading to do, and am hoping to get it done this weekend. I had lunch today with two girlfriends, and that was nice. Going to have supper with my best friend Monday night. Getting a couple of massages over break, going to Curves about 3 times each week, getting blood work done, going to the dentist, picking up my new comprehension stocking, seeing the eye doctor, do some cleaning, celebrating my niece's birthday, and spending a lot of time with a friend, and doing some reading. Those are my plans for the next two weeks.

Snow Day

The first snow day of the year! This is the second snow storm this month. We had a storm last week, but still had school. Very few schools are opened today, just about everybody is closed today. It is bitterly cold outside! I know, since I walked down the driveway to get the newspaper and to take pictures. I even got all of my presents wrapped this morning. I did not take any pictures last week. Here are a few of the pics I took this morning. I have gorgeous views outside my windows.

Wordle

I am at a technology staff development, and I used the words to "You are God alone" by Phillips, Craig, & Dean in wordle.net. Here it is.


title="Wordle: You Are God Alone"> src="http://www.wordle.net/thumb/wrdl/2817879/You_Are_God_Alone"
alt="Wordle: You Are God Alone"
style="padding:4px;border:1px solid #ddd">


What do you think? You have to click on the link above, and it will take you directly to the website.

Christmas Tree

Here is this year's decorated tree. My niece and I play a game where I put my two Pittsburgh Steelers ornaments on the front of the tree, she takes them and hides them on the back. I find them and put them back up front. I hide the lowly browns ornaments in the back.

Master's Project Presentation

Here is what my presentation board looks like. I was going to do a prezi on www.prezi.com, but I can't find my flashdrive where my graphs are located. The letters are actually post it letters, and the tops don't stay down very well, even though I used poster tape on the very toop.

I am presenting this Tuesday night.

Still Working on my Project

Last week, I spent about 6 hours, over two nights working on my project. I sent it to my professor to read it and edit it. I took it with me to Columbus, and my friend read it, and suggested some changes. This past Tuesday, I spent about 4 hours working on it, making the changes, and I sent it back to my professor. Some how, the changes I had accepted, that my professor said to make, didn't take. I have no idea what happened. I can't work on it at home, since I typed it up on a PC. I will work on it again Monday.

Next weekend, I will work on my Presentation board and my Prezi that I will do for it. My project is due, Tuesday, November 30.

I'm Related to a Stinker

I went to see my brother this morning. I took a bunch of library books with me so I would have a bunch of books to read. He was awake when I got there a little after 10 am. He wanted to wear my coat, nothing new, so I took it off and put it on him, and zipped it up. By the time I was done reading the third book, he was asleep. I woke him up, and he moved over to the mat to go back to sleep. I made him get up, so I could get my coat back. He is a real stinker!!!!!!!!! Going to sleep on me. I will see him again sometime next week.

Working on my Master's Project

From the thirty-emails I sent out, only 10 responded back to me. I did not ask my principal for permissions, I just told her I was going to do it. I knew she was supporting me. Another school and my own, I had problems sending out the email, but I was able to do so, with some help. I gave the teachers two weeks to take my survey. I got 19 responses, and I am pleased with that. Last week, I emailed three teachers about setting up a time for the interview. I need to call a couple of teachers, and I keep forgetting to do so.

This evening, I spent a couple of hours at Akron U's library. I went through the data of the survey, and made 7 different graphs. The graphs are either bar or circle graphs. I made a graph for the different grade levels being taught, the benefits and challenges of using thematic units, how many people answered certain questions. I also started to change the verb tense from present and future to past tense. I didn't finish that, since I had to email my prof a question. I think I also have to rewrite certain parts, since I made a few changes after I wrote my proposal this past summer. I am presenting my project in 4 weeks from tonight.

Respect Contract

Tomorrow morning, will talk with my kids about respect. What does it mean? What does it look like? How do you show it? ETC. Then as a class, we will write a respect contract and they will all sign it, and I will post it up on the empty word wall, as a visual reminder for them.

I am also planning on being tougher, not accepting talking back, disrespect, and tattling. They act like they are in Kindergarten, when in reality they are in the sixth grade.

God is on the Throne During the Good Times and Bad

The title of this post comes from a Phillips, Craig & Dean song, "You Are God Alone". That song has meant a lot to me for about 4 years. I remember singing it at church, when I was still living in Dallas. It means a lot to me now. I know that what I am going through, God is on His throne. God will be glorified in the end. God will judge these people and they will receive the negative consequences that they have earned. But, until then, it is hard. I have never experienced this before. In all of my years of teaching, I have never had anybody call me "racist". The respect I am getting is not good. It is affecting me, and I am hurting.

Green vs. Teal

This afternoon, I went to my niece's basketball game. It was game 3 of her season. I didn't go to last week's games. The first basket made was 12 minutes into the game. Each quarter is 8 minutes long. At half-time, the score was 2-0. My niece's team scored their first basket in the 3rd quarter. Final score was 14-8. Her team, scored all of their points in the third quarter. Green lost the game.

Both team tried to make lots of shots, but as you can see from the score, not very many went in. A few were close. One thing, I noticed, is that they didn't pay too much attention to who they were passing the ball to. There were lots of steals because of this. My niece stole the ball a couple of times, tried to make a couple of baskets, and did well, driving the ball down the court.

I didn't make it to any games last year. My niece has made lots of growth in her basketball skills in the past two years. She did make a few baskets last week. She has one more game, that is next Monday, not sure if I will go or not.

This Month's Port Flush

Last Wednesday, October 13, I had my port flushed. It had been 5 weeks since the last flush, and so I was concerned, wondering if I would have any problems. I had no problems whatsoever. Maybe that is behind me. Afterwards, I got to see one of my buddies.

Starting My Action Research Project

Last Friday, in the mail, I received my letter saying I was allowed to do my action research project, with stipulations. One, was to contact the different principals and to show the letter, I was sent, to them. This evening, I sent 32 emails to the different elementary principals. I will personally talk to my principal. I explained briefly who I was, and what I am doing. I asked each Principal's permission to contact their teachers next week, asking them to participate in my project. Will see who responds to my email and what kind of response I get. Hopefully, I get a good response, then I can send out my emails to the teachers Tuesday night, while at class.

Anniversary and a Scare

Yesterday, was September 25, which marks my NEDiversary of 3 years of being cancer free!!!!!! I had a scare about 10 days ago. On the 16th, I had my yearly appointment for a mammogram. A mass showed up on the pictures, and 5 days later, I was at the Breast center at the hospital for more pics and an ultrasound. The mass was in my left breast, which I had a biopsy in the spring of 2008. According to the ultrasound, the mass was a 4mm (millimeter) cyst filled with fluid. They said to followup with my doctor and they would see me next year. That is two scares in one year. I am very thankful that I am still cancer free.

It is Kinda Funny Now

Last Sunday and again this afternoon, I volunteered at helping backstage with their current show, "They Are Playing Our House". Next weekend is the last weekend of the show. I opened and closed the curtains, moved props, and the door. That door is hard to move and in the dark hard to see where the door is supposed to placed at. Last Sunday, I kinda shadowed somebody. Today, I did my stuff by myself. The one time, I was supposed to move the door back, I did not get it in its right spot, and when the actor went through the door, the curtain was there, in the way. I couldn't tell if it was in the right place or not. Ooooops, a mistake. Oh, well. It wasn't funny at the time, but it kinda is now. I haven't done backstage since high school. (That is over 20 years.)

Still Don't Have...

...Teacher editions for social studies and part of the science, with only one TE for language. We do have math and the cd for it. We do have a Reading TE and one language TE. We do have science that we are to use for the majority of the time. Did get a social studies cd for teachers to use. We do have our scope and sequences to use. They are helpful, but we really do need all of our teacher resources. They make it easier to teach. The kids do have all of their textbooks, they go them last week.

First Day of School

Today, was the first day of school. I had 21 students show up. I am about even with the number of boys and girls in my class. A few that were on my list, I knew wouldn't show up, and a few more were added to my list. We went over rules, procedures, passed out papers that had to be signed by parents, did an icebreaker, went to gym, worked on leveling colors for 100 book challenge (still have 7 more to do), and after lunch, took a math pre-test of skills. Tomorrow, have to talk about fire drill, because we will have one tomorrow and again on Friday, and I forgot to talk about that today. Also, hoping to start in on the academic schedule that I made, and will do work in both reading, math, science, and social studies.

Still don't have all of our text books and teacher editions. Our AP, is only at the school 2-3 days a week, and she will be there tomorrow. I think the rest of our books were supposed to have been delivered yesterday and we should hopefully get them in our classrooms by the end of Friday.

Did this week's lesson plans today after school. Will do next week's tomorrow after school, since I get to spend the weekend with my best friend and her family.

Let's see how tomorrow goes.