The year has finally come to an end. I have been home now for a week and a half, and am in a position where I am looking back on the events of the year. I am really proud of myself for making it through the year, and am really excited to get started again…

The week of truth has finally arrived. The success of the year will be determined through a series of 3 tests in language, reading, and math from the Mississippi Board of Education (known as the MCT2 tests)… not that there’s a lot of pressure on the students and teachers or anything. I am proctoring the…

In recent weeks we have been studying the history of NASA (since the Mississippi Department of Education thinks its a great idea to have one of our standards make students justify the funding of NASA). My students, needless to say, are not too enthralled in this. Last week our quiz covered Copernicus and his buddies…

Lately I have felt more like a zoo keeper then a teacher. My students seem to be more then eager to do anything that does not involve science. Luckily I have progressed enough in my standards that I am finally on space science, which holds students a little better then things like continental drift. After…

So by surprise I was given a 5 day long easter break, which was awesome! I was able to go home and visit my family and see my sister in Columbus, which was great. There is something to be said about distance making the heart grow fonder. I miss Ohio and whenever I go home,…

I realize I have not written on my blog since before spring break…. which was wonderful by the way…. Some highlights have been: 1. Photosynthesis song and music video courtesy of They Might Be Giants 2. Having to reprimand a student for telling me I was getting in the way of his game 3. I…

Yesterday we had Saturday academy at our school. The best part of the whole day was going outside to play football together during break. The version of football we played was very interesting though. First, it was played with a nerf basketball. Second, we were playing touch (but some of the boys decided touch included…

Review baseball. Fun in theory, crazy in actuality! First and second periods were the loudest they have ever been today, but it was a good, semi-controlled crazy loud that was mostly on task (which is pretty good for first period since a student who has been on suspension for 10 days for throwing a rock…

I am so glad that I decided to use the movie the Lorax in class. My students seem to really be indifferent to the topic of the environment. So I thought that watching The Lorax would be a good way to rope them in. Luckily it was! The first few minutes of the movie they…

This week we are working on food webs in my class. Now the good thing is they really seem to actually have some background knowledge on the topic, however they also have a lot of misconceptions. For instance, when I was trying to lead my student to understand that without our meat sources (cow, chicken,…

Sitting out on my porch at 9 o’clock at night on a February evening without and shoes on. I love this weather! This weekend was very relaxing overall. We had a wonderful dinner with our landlords on Friday night (mexican for those of you who are wondering… and yes it was delicious!) on Saturday my…

The thing keeping me sane this week is the fact that at night I get to watch the olympics. Getting a rock thrown at me during bus duty seems like a smaller deal when I see an olympian wipe out going 70 mph down a mountain. Also I am still riding the high of having…

I feel like that little engine that could. It may sound cheesy but I really think I can link my life to that story. Right now I feel like I am climbing up that really big hill at the end. I am almost in reach of getting to the top of the hill. Right now…

I was told multiple times by many different people that after awhile the students behavior gets better and its easier to control the class. However, in the last few days it has gotten progressively worse. We had a major fight yesterday between two of my students. Today I couldn’t get through all of my material…

I don’t think I spend enough time thinking or talking about how beautiful the Delta is. Driving home yesterday, the sun was setting and it was beyond gorgeous. All there is for miles are fields, which right now are empty, but that just means you can see all the colors of the sunset (or sunrise…

So the good news is I think that mitosis is finally cemented into my students heads… the bad news… K was drunk in class today. I finally thought I was getting through to him and he was making such progress academically. Then today he comes into class acting crazy and his eyes were bright red,…

Mitosis is now the bane of my existence…. I will be spending the first 2 days of this week reteaching mitosis… since only 12 students actually passed the quiz on Friday….. the lowest scores ever in my classroom…. this is depressing But on a better note, my weekend rocked…. some highlights 1. I sang karaoke…

Mitosis rap. Check New schedules. Check Pretty ok wednesday. Check Mosquitoes back in the middle of January. Check Crazy freaky storm happening outside. Check

I love weekends… and this weekend was no exception. Basketball game on Friday, parade (in the rain) on Saturday with the band, movies, hanging out with the roommates, and getting my lesson plans for this week done! I say it is a success. Tomorrow we are getting new schedules at school which means it will…

So love and logic worked so well last week, but for some reason this week is not shaping up the same…. I think I need to read more then the first 3 chapters of the book…. I was so excited to start a group project today only to be greeted by an assortment of inappropriate…

This is the first week back from break and we are embarking on our biology unit. So far my students seem to be really engaged in the material… I also have started reading this book called Teaching with Love and Logic, and I have to say it is helping me tremendously with my classroom management.…

This post is dedicated to my grandpa, I think he is the only one who checks my blog daily…. Break has been wonderful! Christmas was great! We went to my grandparents house and got to see family and had a special visit from santa. I don’t think I have ever eaten as much good food…

It didn’t really hit me until about an hour after school was over today… but I am half way done with my first year of teaching…I am still alive and so are all my students! looking at my data it seems that students have learned some information this year, but not quite as much as…

Since my first list of things done in December was met with a scathing comment from an anonymous person and I couldn\’t get the stupid comment off… so first list deleted… here we go at the top 12 things of December! 1. Christmas parades are now over… of the three we were supposed to we…

Basketball game tonight! Which of course meant a great live rendition of the song ice cream paint job…. I love when the gym breaks out into song it is fulfilling my dream of being in a musical. It’s so cool to see everyone join in a song… and the basketball game was awesome… we didn’t…