Happy Halloween!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE! Today I was able to make it to my clinical site in time to celebrate Halloween with the first grade class I'm observing!! OH MY GOSH THEY WERE PRECIOUS! They all looked so adorable in their costumes! I came dressed as a pink crayon and they all loved it! I cannot even tell you how many times I was asked "Miss Elmore, can I color with you?!" Too cute!!

As a little surprise before they left, I brought them all little spider suckers that I made! Here's what they looked like:

They were a huge hit! Last Friday was an awesome day for observing as well! I gave my first spelling test and they were all super excited that I was giving it! And it was so funny because one of their words was "but" and as soon as I said it, the class could not stop giggling! It was adorable. Then I also took a group of three kids out into the hallway and worked on math games with them! These three have trouble recognizing numbers past 10 so we just worked on that as well as putting the numbers in order up to 30! They had tons of fun and didn't want to come back in when my cooperating teacher told us it was time to move on! It makes me feel awesome that they are learning and having an awesome time while doing so. That is going to be such a big thing in my classroom!! In my opinion, nothing establishes a motivation for life-long learning like making it enjoyable for the students! :)

I think that's pretty much it for today! I am dead tired and my room is a mess from crafting and searching frantically for the supplies to make those little spider cuties! 

How were your Halloween parties? Or just your Halloween in general? Hope everyone had a fantastic day!

-Michelle

Pilgrim Craftivity!

Okay guys this is my first shot at making my own craftivity! I'm sure there is something just like this out there that I could have bought but I wanted to do this on my own!! Plus I'm not selling it so no biggie :P This is my pilgrim craft! She's a rough draft, obviously her body needs to be bigger so you can tell she has one, but I'm pretty proud of it! I also make the little response sheet she's holding! I am also planning on making a boy version as well! :)

Let me know what you think!!

-Michelle

School updates and my first official follower!!

Hey everyone! Just wanted to check in! This week is midterms for me and I am STRESSED! Two of my hardest midterms are tomorrow and I feel like I haven't been able to study at all! Fingers crossed I do well, haha!

Also, I have BIG NEWS!! I officially have my FIRST FOLLOWER!!! So excited and many thanks to Heather's Heart for being my first follower and offering me your input and advice! I appreciate it more than you can imagine and can't wait to hear what else to you have to say!!

If anyone else happens to be checking out my blog, you should also check out hers! I'm excited to get the chance to really sit down and go through it all her posts! :)

Also, here's a picture of the bulletin board I made during my first day of observations! I wish I could have added more leaves to the bottom because looking back at this, it's kind of bare there! But hey, what can you do?! I had to work with what she gave me! :) (Also don't laugh at my fat tree!!) Each student has their name on a leaf and then there are some extra so the tree doesn't look too bare! Pretty cute :)

Anyway, this was just a quickie post! I've got a lot to do this week and will be observing my first graders again on Friday! I'm sure I'll be back around then with another post about how awesome it was!! :)

Enjoy the rest of your week!!

-Michelle

Day two of observations!

So today was my second day of observing the first graders! I am in LOVE! Today I had a moment where I was sitting and watching some lessons and I just had this weird feeling, like, I just knew that this was the right place for me and that I am definitely on the right track. It really felt good to have that moment of reassurance. I never really had that while I was in dental hygiene so this is really exciting for me!

I began to talk with my teacher today about the lesson that I am supposed to prepare and teacher for her classroom! It is going to be presented right around Thanksgiving, so YAY FOR ME I get go present a Thanksgiving related lesson! She hasn't given me any specifics yet of what exactly she wants me to do it for, but tonight I kind of came up with my own idea and then I'm going to show her and see what she thinks! Right now it's a lesson involving pilgrims! Basically learning who they were and just a little bit of history about them that would be understandable to a first grader! Then I made this really cute worksheet where I plan on having them draw their own pilgrims and then write three things they learned about pilgrims during my lesson! I really hope she approves because this would be the perfect thing for my portfolio :) I'm so excited about it!! I'm so stoked to show her :)

Anyway, I really need to go to bed! Tomorrow is my boyfriend's brother's wedding! It's the first wedding I'll ever have been to, so I'm super excited to go!! Tonight I spent a little too much shopping for accessories to go along with the wedding/every day items. I got this ADORABLE leather jacket which I want to wear with my dress (edgy feminine!!!!) and plus the weather is saying it's going to be pretty cold and the reception is in a barn! I also got these super cute bootie/heels as well as a black cardigan and a chunky necklace to go with my dress! I hope the whole outfit looks super cute tomorrow :) It does in my head, haha!

So, yeah, that's pretty much it for tonight! I hope every one has a fantastic weekend!!

-Michelle

First day of observations... was a SUCCESS!

Oh my gosh you guys, I am seriously in love. The kids are adorable, and my cooperating teacher is seriously the sweetest person ever! I had so much fun! I cannot even wait until next Friday! She even had me create a bulletin board for her already! She already had the basic idea of what it would say, but she let me create everything else and put it up how I wanted to so it was so cool! And she really liked it and I even got compliments from other teachers passing by on how cute it was! I meant to take a picture of it, but I for sure will next time I go so I can post it and and also have it for my portfolio!! But man, oh man, I am just in love. Just seeing all the cool things they were learning and seeing them understand and point out observations they made was so cool! I was even able to take them out one by one and test them on how well they were able to read their spelling words! It was just an amazing experience, and it was only day one!! 43 more hours to go, and I will probably continue to go past my hour requirement! Seriously so cool. I can definitely tell I'm in the right major :)

In other news, I've been shopping all day today with my mom looking for a dress to wear to my boyfriend's brother's wedding that is on October 6th!! I seriously didn't find anything until about 20 minutes before the mall closed!! How crazy! But I'm in love with the dress and I'm really hoping I have other opportunities to wear it because it's just so dang cute!

Right now, I'm about to get cozy and maybe just go to bed! I am so tired! I don't think I've even fully recovered from how worn out I was from yesterday! I don't know how all you teachers do it; I wasn't even TEACHING! I need to learn the secret! Although I'm guessing it's coffee for most of you... :) So yeah, cozy time, possibly doing my nails, and then bed time for me! I hope everyone is having a great weekend! :)

-Michelle

It's finally time!!!

Yep, that's right! It's finally time for me to start my observation hours for my clinical edu class! I got in touch with my cooperating teacher today and found out I would be able to go in tomorrow! I'm so excited! I'll be observing a first grade classroom at a nearby school! The teacher seems super nice and I'm super excited to meet her and her students! Hopefully they all like me, haha!

I haven't posted in awhile but I've been somewhat busy with school and also the injection I got in my eye a couple weeks ago! I was referred to a rheumatologist to check if maybe some sort of auto immune disease may be an underlying cause to my Pars Planitis! Blood tests came back the other day and apparently everything is normal except one test is moderately elevated! And of course this is one of the markers for an auto immune problem! So I'm scheduled to go back in a month and then possibly get another injection in my other eye in two weeks! Ugh! This and I also have to find time to squeeze in a visit to the Chicago Art Museum for my humanities class, as well as write a critique for it, study for midterms, write a paper, and do my observation hours! Things are getting pretty hectic! But hopefully I can handle it ;)

My boyfriend's brother is getting married on the 6th of October as well and I'm so excited! I've never been to a wedding before, can you believe it!? 19 and never been to a wedding! I'm stoked because it's going to be very casual and the reception is going to be in this really cute barn and they are getting customized converse to walk down the aisle in and just UGH so cute! Can't til the day it's my turn ;)

Well, I better end this post now! I've got to get ready for bed so I can be ready for my day ahead of my with some (hopefully) awesome first graders! Wish me luck!

-Michelle

Eye Problems!

Hey all! Just checking in to tell you about my super awesome day yesterday! And trust me, I'm saying that with as much sarcasm as humanly possible.

For the past three months, I've been dealing with flashes and floaters in my eye due to inflammation! I've since been seeing a retinal specialist and after two months of trying a steroid drop to fix the problem, my doctor decided to go ahead and try out a steroid INJECTION. IN MY EYE. Well, behind my eye, which is still pretty bad. I literally felt like my eye was going to dislodge in the process! This whole shot thing ranks up there in horrible-ness with the kidney stones I had two years ago. Sheesh, I'm only 19 and I've already had kidney stones and now eye inflammation with floaters! Whenever something goes wrong with me, it can never be something normal! :P

So after that painful experience, today I am just resting. I forced myself to go to class today because we are working on a really important group teaching project that I needed to be apart of. And good thing I was there because I felt like without my help, my group would have no idea what they were going to do or how they planned on splitting up the work :P

The eye I had the injection in in extremely blurry and I can barely read to type this and I will not allow myself to drive. So I got someone to cover my shift tonight and I just plan on relaxing all night. Thank goodness my school week is over and I don't work again until Tuesday!

I think that pretty much sums up my lovely day yesterday! How is everyone else's week going? Hopefully much better than mine, haha!

-Michelle