Classroom Management

Monday will be the 5th week of school. I think that we are finally falling into a routine, but as always there are good days and bad days. I have 28 students and have been told that it is the most difficult of the 4th grade classes. I am really working on classroom management so that we can have less interruptions while teaching/working. I have been attending ENVoY classes about management by using non-verbal signals. http://www.michaelgrinder.com/education-professionals/envoy/program-research/ This has given me many skills to practice and a good group of teachers to share ideas with. I am also introducing a clip chart to help track behavior problems. http://www.newmanagement.com/ebooks/pdf/clip_chart_ebook.pdf. My mentor has been meeting with me weekly checking in to see how things are going and observing me teach. I am so thankful that Salem-Keizer has the resources to have the mentor program! Hopefully they will receive another grant so that they can continue it next year. You'd think that with all the observations I have had while student teaching and with my mentor that I would be used to people watching me teach, wrong! My principal observed me teaching a math lesson on Tuesday and I was so nervous. I had a really rough day on Monday and was concerned about all the behavioral distractions in my classroom. I also realized that this was the first observation that really mattered. This was the woman who interviewed me, hired me, and would now be checking to see if she made the right choice. Since I am temporary, this first observation would help determine if I could get a permanent position in the future (maybe I over thought it all, but I was still really nervous). I should have realized that by the time kids get to 4th grade they are used to having the principal observe classes and know how to behave because they were perfect! It was the best lesson that I have taught so far. I was so relieved! To top it off, there good behavior continued through the week. The 5th grade teachers told me that they had heard that my lesson went great and that it might get used at math night! Now I just have to keep it up.

More from the Garden

This was one of my garden harvests. I was too impatient and unsure of weather conditions to leave my peppers on the bush until they turned orange. They kind of got a late start this year but now the slugs are out. The powdery mildew destroyed my pumpkin patch and 5 of my pumpkins did not survive leaving me disappointed with only 2, oh well.

I was skimming through a book of my moms about growing food on a 1/4 of an acre. It recommended using raised beds for gardening. I am considering building them for next year because it will look nicer, keep down weeds, and could possibly be a selling feature of our house. We have all winter think about it.

One of my many tomato, squash, eggplant harvests

The rest of my carrots

One of my only surviving pumpkins :(Raspberries are finally producingBiggest pepper I have grown (so far)

Week 1

School started on Wednesday, September 8th and it has already been a crazy, crazy week! There were some events that happened this week (before school even started!) that has created a lot of distraction for all of the staff. Technically, I don't think I am allowed to share what is going on yet...but I will definitely update when the cost is clear.

If you put that aside, my first week has been better than I expected. I have 28 4th graders in my class. And yes, everyone was right who told me fourth graders are just big first graders, they really aren't that scary. My class reminds me a little of my fourth grade year (only I hope to be a more exciting teacher). We are boy heavy, and there are a number of students that have behavior problems, that is to be expected now days. I also have a handful of girls (and a couple boys) who are pleasers, and want to do extra work or read me everything they write. So far it has been pretty fun. I only teach for about 2.5 hours a day so it has also been fairly easy. Even if I have behavior problems I know I can walk away from it at 12. I have a feeling it will get more stressful as the year goes on because I do not have the flexibility of finishing a project up after lunch or keeping kids in from recess. I teach math and writing everyday for the most part and that means lots of assessing and lots of grading, but I am hoping to make it a fun positive year for all of them. My biggest struggle right now is what to do about spelling when they are writing. I think I will need to give a lesson on using dictionaries and I have some kids who I am pretty sure won't even be able to do that... Right now I have a pile of math assessments (with no key) that I need to grade. I hope week 2 goes as smoothly!

Newport

We went to Newport for the weekend before school started to set up the apartment. Near by is Agate Beach. We went there for the first time and it was really quiet amazing. I don't know what caused it and if it is always like this, but there are lots of mini sand dunes. It was really fun to play on (and my legs got really sore from walking up and down them). Previously, I had only been to Nye beach and the wharf. We are working on scouting out some new areas and restaurants. We found a cafe by Nye beach that serves a lot of vegetarian and vegan food and of course we couldn't pass up saltwater taffy and caramel corn from the Candy Shoppe on the wharf. I'm looking forward to trying out the drive in the outback. It should be much better in a new car with a working defrost and mist setting on my windshield wipers!

Subaru

Well, it finally happened and I still can't believe it! For the past 6 years I have been looking at every Subaru on the road (mainly outbacks) and dreaming about how someday I would own one. I always imagined that I would get a used 2000-2004 outback. But I noticed that the price of them never really got cheaper and they were getting older. Erik convinced me last year to think about getting a new Subaru outback since they were not all that much more expensive then the old ones. I said that I would consider it, but that I really wanted to test drive them. Now if you have seen my Geo Prizm, you would know I was getting really anxious for a newer car. The Geo was a bare bones 1995 that we bought for $2,200. It now has 199,000 miles, no AC, and a cracked windshield, needs new breaks and new tires. We were hoping to sell it for $500-$1000 on craigslist if we were lucky. With winter coming and frequent visits to the beach, we decided it was time to start test driving Subaru's (plural?). I wanted to look at Carr Subaru in Beaverton because they are "salary salesmen". Last weekend Erik and I drove up there and test drove a 2011 Subaru outback in graphite grey. It had 6 miles on it, a moonroof, backup camera, and the all weather package. To be expected I fell in love. The problem: the price. They would not take my Geo as a trade in and they also could not get the car in our price range. The salesman was great, the sales manager not so great. He would not let us leave and I was starting to panic! Finally, after 3 hours of being there,I stood up and said we couldn't do it (he knew I was the one in love and a push over). We left empty handed and a little discouraged. However, Erik had made us an appointment at Capital Subaru to talk to the Costco sales rep. (If you didn't know Costco can give you some good deals on cars). Well it turns out Capital Subaru is also salary and everyone there is nice (and not pushy) their cars are also more reasonably priced. It just so happened they had a 2011 graphite grey Subaru outback with a moonroof, backup camera, and the all weather package with only 4 miles on it! It was meant to be. I was the first customer to ever drive the car :) Capital also traded in our Geo for $500!!! While we were in the process of getting the car Carr Subaru called and left a message saying they would take the Geo for $1000 if we bought the outback today. Guess somebody was desperate. We went with Capital for many reasons: they were nice, cheaper, and closer to home. So now Erik and I are proud Subaru owners and I have a feeling I will be a Subaru owner for life!

Isn't she a beauty?All wheel drive and partial zero emissions
Excited to go for a drive
Yay! First time new car buyers and so happy with our outback!

Update on Teaching

I finally got a hold of the teacher that I will be teaching with. We met in our (weird) classroom on Monday night. The classroom is kind of small but it has a great storage closet that we share with the neighboring teacher so that makes up for it. I think I am going to get a long with Debbie really well, although it was a little awkward since it was the first time we had met and there was SO much to discuss. She has a 2 month old baby boy and will be teaching in the afternoons while I teach in the mornings. Because of the school schedule there wasn't much say in what subjects I am going to teach. Get ready for it... Math, Spelling, and Writing! Quite possibly my three weakest subjects! The good news is she wanted to know if I would teach Art once a week and they have a kiln! I also have to teach a very scripted bullying program. But back to the main subjects. The math program they use is called Invisions and looks horribly confusing. There are a bazillion teaching manuals that are very wordy with few examples. Help! The writing tools they have are not as straight forward and easy to follow as Lucy Calkins was, but they also allow for a little more creativity. All I know is that I am really glad I am only teaching part time so I can have the rest of the day to plan/ prep/ and read all these manuals! Next week on the 24th-27th I start my beginning teacher mentor program and then inservice the following week. School starts on September 8 and I am already nervous! I was hoping to feel more confident and that the classroom was mine too, but right now I feel like a sub and that I am just visiting. The upside, my name is already on the mailbox! My goal for the rest of this week is to read over the material Debbie gave me and do some research so that I can go into this feeling a little more prepared!

One year :)

Sunday we celebrated our first year of marriage and it has been quite a year! Erik and I like making celebrations into weekend long events so we started off on Saturday with an interesting trip to Lincoln City (where Erik proposed to me). It was going to be 98 degrees in the valley and so I figured it was the perfect day to take off to the beach. I checked the weather and Lincoln City was going to be 79 and sunny! So off we went in our t-shirts and shorts to hang out and picnic on the beach...

Apparently everyone in the valley had the same idea and traffic was awful in my little unair-conditioned car. After almost two hours we made it to Lincoln City to find a very heavy layer of fog hanging over the town and ocean, not to mention it was FREEZING! We stopped at a little grocery store to buy some food and get a park pass to go hiking. The cashier told us the trail was closed (and they don't sell the passes there anyway). I had a back up plan and decided we would hike Cascade Head, a 4.5 mile round trip 1,200 ft gain with spectacular views.

We ate our picnic in the parking lot of the trail head and then began a very fun steep hike (with no views). The fog was so thick you couldn't see very far, but it still was beautiful. When we got to the top we were sitting in the sunshine above the fog layer looking out at the ocean but all we could see was a thick blanket of fog. We decided we will have to come back and do the hike on a clear day because the views would have been amazing!

When we got home I made us a delicious fondue dinner and we had our wedding cake for dessert. Not the frozen freezer-burnt year old wedding cake, but a fresher version of it I picked up from the Konditorei.


On Sunday we had waffles with strawberries (I had picked earlier this summer) and whipped cream. Yum Yum! Erik made us reservations at Portland City Grill for dinner so we got dressed up and drove to Portland. They had reserved us a table with a great view of the city, we could see Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Adams. The table was sprinkled with rose petals and heart glitter, then the waiter brought us delicious champagne. It was definitely a once in a life time celebration!

Erik in Alaska

Erik went on a fishing trip to Alaska with some of his coworkers last week. He had a wonderful time and came home with 100 lbs of fish! He also caught some monsters.
These two pictures are hanging on the lodge wall for the trophy fish. I can't remember what type of salmon the first one is, I think it is a Coho and is 15 lbs. The second one is a King Salmon and it is 25 lbs.

I Got a Job!

Well, I got the 4th grade part-time job I interviewed for! I found out on July 22nd but thought I would wait to write about it till I knew more. It is now August 4th and I know just as much as I did to start with, very little. It is a job share position which means I will be teaching mornings and the other teacher will be teaching afternoons. I still don't know what subjects I will be teaching but I should find out any day now.
I was very excited when I found out. It is really hard to get into Salem-Keizer school district and now I have my foot in the door. Unfortunately, the excitement quickly turned into other emotions when it finally dawned on me that this would mean Erik and I would only see each other on weekends. We are trying to think about all the positives instead of the negatives. For example, we can still see/talk to each other through skype, elementary schools have lots of days off and holidays, we can get all of our work done during the week and have weekends completely free, I can go to the gym at whatever time I want and have tofu for dinner :)
I am trying to go back to being excited but I can't help feeling nervous too. I am so used to first graders and fourth graders seem so much older and I have no experience with them! I am looking forward for in-service so that I can meet the other teachers at the school and see what my room looks like. Luckily, I have subbed at the school so I know a little bit about the layout and where things are. I really wish that I had a full time permanent job, but at the same time this is a good way to ease into teaching and it will provide me with great experience to get a permanent job next year. I will be on contract, have an ID badge and finally feel like a real teacher!
The biggest downside is that my contract only goes until March 9, so if the other teacher wants to teach full time I will not get to finish the year out with my kiddos. I am really hoping she will like me and want me to stay to finish the whole year, if not it will be back to subbing. Only time will tell.

Oregon Grape Jelly

Last year my mom discovered you could make delicious syrup and jelly out of Oregon Grapes. Yesterday I went over to her house so she could recreate it and teach me how. My mom is a wonderful cook and great at experimenting, however, she rarely writes down what she does. I picked some of our Oregon Grapes and then with the help of David picked a whole lot more at my parents house. We ended up with 12 cups of berries! I was trying to decide if I should keep the recipe secret or if I should share it, but since we don't know the proportions of what my mom did last time, there is no guarantee what we made this year is the same. I decided I would share the basics like in the first graders how-to books.

Oregon Grapes from my house

How To Make Oregon Grape Jelly

You will need: Oregon grapes, water, sugar, food mill, stove, kitchen pot, canning pot, jars, and lids.

Step 1: Pick desired amount of Oregon grapes

12 cups (from my parents and my house)

Step 2: Wash Oregon grapes

Step 3: Put Oregon grapes in a pot with water and boil them until they are fat and have popped.

Step 4: Run Oregon grapes through a food mill to separate juice, pulp, and seeds.
(for some reason the picture insists on uploading sideways even though I have rotated it!?)

Step 5: Take the liquid and pour it back into the pot on the stove

Step 6: Add sugar

Step 7: Bring mixture to a boil

Step 8: Ladle into sterilized hot canning jars and put on sterilized lids

Step 9: Water bath cans for about 10 mins

Your lids should pop and Voila you have Oregon grape jelly or syrup depending on water and sugar ratios. Ours is not 100% solid yet but it is not as runny as syrup either. I am looking forward to trying it!

Kayaking

Female bald eagles. I didn't get a picture of the males

Today Erik and I took the kayaks out on the Willamette River. We dropped in at Independence and then paddled down to Salem. That stretch of the Willamette is very flat and calm which was perfect for me to get used to paddling my own boat. We were expecting the trip to take us a lot longer than it did, but we ended up paddling most of the way with little resting so it took us about two and a half hours. We saw a couple of bald eagles and lots of blue herons. We also ran into our friends Jenny and Bryan who were visiting Bryan's parents and were water skiing. Sometimes I can't believe what a small world it can be. The kayaks worked great! I absolutely love having my own. It is so beautiful and relaxing being out on the water but it is also a great work out. My arms are sore and so is my back. A couple years ago Erik and I rented a double and dropped in in Jefferson and got out in Salem. Next time we go out we are thinking of trying that and doing a longer trip with a little choppier water. I am nervous, as always, but I always enjoy it afterwards. I can't wait till we go out again! At the end of July we are going camping with my family and we will be able to take the kayaks out on the lake. I'll I have to say is that I am so happy that we finally got the kayaks :)

Interviews

My goal this summer was going to the gym (of course) and getting a job. Most school districts are on a website called EdZapp where you create an application with attachments like your letters of recommendation, license, resume, transcripts etc. Unfortunately, it is really hard to stand out on paper like that and this is what the school districts look at to call you for an interview. Last year I only got interviewed at the school that I was student teaching at and it was more of a pity interview because they were not really considering me for the job. This year is harder than ever. Erik has a job that moves him around about every two years. So far we have been lucky both working in the same area. Next year we will not be so lucky. I desperately want a classroom and to be a teacher, but I am trying to decide at what price. Is it worth it to live separate just so that I can have a job that I enjoy? Or should I just sub again and we could move around together? Erik says that I think to far into the future and to try to get a teaching job. So I have applied all over the Salem-area and heard nothing, until now. I first was called for what I thought was a summer school position. I went to the interview all excited but soon was horrified to discover it was a summer school for infants ages 6 months to 3 years that were Spanish speaking. Well I don't know Spanish and I have no experience with infants so I am still wondering why they interviewed me. I had trouble answering their questions because I was so baffled about teaching a pre-preschool.

The other morning I was called again. This time it was more promising. One of our friends teaches at a school in Salem and they have a part time fourth grade and a possibly a full time first grade position open. Connie must have put a good word in for me because the principal called me first to interview for the fourth grade position! (the first grade one still hasn't been posted). I am very excited and nervous because this could be an interview for two potential jobs. I just can't help thinking of what would happen if I did get a job. It is a mixture of so many feelings. For now I need to get my nerves under control so that I can give it my best on Friday.

Grass

In March at school we always make leprechauns. To make these leprechauns you decorate a green plastic cup and grow grass for the hair. This year I was so busy that sometimes I forgot to water the leprechauns and then of course the grass was planted by 6 and 7 year-olds, but I was surprised at how well the grass grew. It came up quickly and was thick and grew tall. How hard can it be planting grass? well lets just say our front yard is not quite as nice as the leprechaun hair but it will be soon (I hope). Erik and I have been working really hard on making our front yard more to our liking. We leveled it and then planted grass.

It looks so much better than before

Although it is still a little patchy...

My Little Garden

Here are more recent pictures of my garden. We are growing: Squash, pumpkins, cucumber, raspberries, tomatoes (cherry and regular), eggplant, peppers (orange and yellow bell), arugula, cilantro, carrots, lettuce, spinach, kale, swiss chard, and potatoes. We also have strawberries, blueberries, huckleberries, and apple trees outside of our little garden. I would like to go to the farmers market and buy some basil. It is pretty magical to watch the seeds grow and know that pretty soon we will be eating these delicious fruits and vegetables!

We already have little green tomatoes!

Vegetables planted by seed

Camping at Elk Lake

Erik and I met two of our friends at Elk Lake to go camping. It is beautiful, however, if you are considering going in June keep in mind:

• make sure you are driving a truck or a vehicle with four wheel drive that you don't mind getting scratched up.
  
• Saying it is a bumpy road is an understatement. Brie this must be similar to your village roads but with less snow.
• Bring plenty of warm clothes because you are at the snow line
• Beware of leeches in the water
• Do not follow the directions on the website!
  
• Don't go on "roads" that don't look like roads.
  

All in all it is a beautiful lake with a pretty nice campground. It takes an experienced or daring driver to get you there. We had a great time paddling in the kayaks and playing cribbage. The weather couldn't have been better! I don't know what I would have done if it was raining or snowing.