A little humor from the classroom

So.....

Obviously the blog has taken a back burner to - oh, I don't know - everything else in my life!! But I blog in my head ALL the time - about everything. Too bad I can't just upload it all at the end of the day real quick, though you might get bored hearing about planning lessons and cooking dinner and nagging the kids to clean up or put their laundry away - real exciting stuff, ya know?

Anyway. I - well, Juliana - was just watching "Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That" and they were talking about camouflage and it reminded me of a little funny at school today.

My not so little kinder babies are all growed up now and working on writing sentences on their own - spelling phonetically the words they don't know. We decorated fish today and then they had to write a sentence about their fish. My favorite was:

"My fish has kamofloss."

Not that I could spell camouflage right {seriously the spell checker had to fix it BOTH times I've typed it here}, but it brought a little chuckle. At least he didn't take the easy way out and say "spots" or "dots" like most of the class (because we know all the sounds in those words).

Life here is good - We've only got 11 days of school left! Crazy, can't believe the year is almost over. And I am getting a real room next year - though only because my good friend is moving to mainland - but I'm more than happy to hand over the portable classroom to whomever the "new" teacher will be. I kind of feel bad for her (him?) but not bad enough to give them my new real room:) But the point is I will be working hard to get my things packed up and ready for the custodians to move {Man, I wouldn't want their jobs - they work SUPER hard all of the summer to get everyone's stuff where it needs to be all the while deep cleaning and dealing with stressed-out and crabby teachers that want back in their rooms already!}. And I have LOTS of ides for next year swimming around in my head - I can't get them out fast enough. It doesn't help that I've discovered a whole new reason to be addicted to reading blogs - teachers!! So many great ones out there and they are more than happy to share what they do and how they do it.

I'm excited for next year - now that I've got a year under my belt in a super environment with a great team of teachers to work with. The dynamics of the school will be totally different next year for many reasons (new principal - we don't know who yet - new curriculum coordinators, 2 new kinder teachers - 7 of our current 9 are returning next year - AND new standards - Hawaii is switching to Common Core for K-2 next year) , but at least I've don't it all once, kind of:)

OK, got to get this last little lamb to bed so I can load the dishes and get myself to bed. Thank my lucky stars that I have a dishwasher now..... I think I would die without it!

Isaac's Baptism

Well, I'm only a week behind on this post and it's been a doozy of a week, plus I have lots left to do to get ready for school tomorrow - with it being Valentine's Day and all. But I wanted to take a quick minute and share Isaac's special day with everyone.

As most of you know, Isaac had his 8th birthday on Christmas Eve 2010. This is a big birthday for families that belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Once you are 8 you are given the opportunity to be baptized and become a member of the church. Isaac has been anticipating this day for a while and has been preparing himself and made the decision to be baptized. Normally he would have be baptized in January, but we decided to wait a month so that Cameron's parents could make it out for the big day.

So, Isaac was baptized and confirmed a member of the church on Saturday, February 5. Lucky Grandma and Grandpa were there because the one family picture that we did take at the baptism on my camera we accidentally deleted when an unnamed son was playing with my (cheap interim) camera. (Remember, can't find the charger....though good news - we found the card reader!) He felt super bad, but Grandpa Peterson to the rescue. He took lots of pictures and was will to share.

Isaac and Dad (who did the baptism).

Isaac with Grandma and Grandpa Peterson (who did the confirmation).

Isaac with Bishop Bowers.

We're so proud of our Isaac - he's growing up so fast and he's developing into a great boys. He's starting attending Cub Scouts since his birthday and well and he's just over the moon about it! His Wolf Den Leader is the greatest and they've already been on a field trip and Isaac's working to have his Bobcat badge by the Blue and Gold Banquet - ours in in a couple weeks!

Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!

I know - probably the last 3 words you would ever expect to read on my blog, but so it is:

I wish that I had taken my own photo, but we were on the way to school and looked up to the mountain (Haleakala, a dormant volcano - but it has erupted more recently than some volcanoes on the Big Island) and what do we see? SNOW!

Danielle saw it first. She says in the car, "Hey mom, isn't that snow up there?" And I don't even look and replied that I didn't think Haleakala was tall enough to get snow. Then I looked....and sure enough, there was snow. The picture above is sort of the view that we had, zoomed in of course, from the highway on the way to school. Unfortunately you couldn't actually see the snow from school - the school is right off the highway, but kind of sunken and has LOTS of mature trees, normally a great thing:) And there was too much cloud cover today, so I don't know if it melted or not yet.

But let me tell you - a weird feeling to be dying of heat in 80 degree weather, and then looking up and seeing snow on the mountain peak. Though, I have learned that it is 10,000 feet above sea level at it's peak, WAAAAY taller than I thought! But it only snows here on Maui every few years or so when the conditions are right. However, it snows on the Big Island pretty much every winter - all winter long. Strange what elevation does to weather!

Now that's some snow that I can love - from a far!

Merry Christmas

OK, ok, I know I such a slacker when it comes to blogging lately. Don't worry, I've been chastised and I'm looking to mend my ways, but I can't promise anything - whatever time I do find on my hands I usually spend sitting on my rear end vegging out on TV or reading a book (or solving the Rubik Cube, a new favorite pastime) - I gotta have a little down time to myself, ya know? I know you do. And I know you won't hold it against me.

And just so you know, I was totally prepared to blog about the few Christmas-y things that we've been doing around here, but I can't seem to locate my card reader, so I can't upload the pictures off my camera. It has one of those annoying SD cards that DON'T work in my 5-in-1 card reader on my laptop, of course. And to make matters worse, we also can't find the battery charger for the camera (which, of course, doesn't take any old regular battery), so I can't even take more pictures that I can't upload.

So since you can't see the pictures or videos, I'm not going to blog about it....yet. There's really no point, is there? I know you want to SEE what we're doing instead of just using your imaginations, right? Right, thank you.

But I will say that we're doing good, keeping busy. We're almost ready to plant grass in our backyard - Cameron's been working on that FOREVER and it's looking fabulous (before and after pics to come - darn camera!). I'm enjoying my 2 week break from school, though I need to get planning next week so that I'm not so stressed once school starts up again. The kids have been enjoying their break, too, though we've been making them work at home - it's good for them, builds character.

And I will share my favorite moment from this week (not counting all the ooohs, aaahs, thank you thank yous, and general Christmas excitement that just can't be heat). We were eating lunch the other day - it was corn dogs (see, I was thinking and actually bought lunch foods - most of us usually eat school lunch), which I know Juliana has had before. But she took her first bite and looked up at me with complete amazement and happiness on her face and said:

"There's a hot dog in it!!"

Aah, the joys of a 2 yr old.

PS: If you thought jet skiing was fun....

Google maps again - get directions from Laie, HI to Seattle, WA. Look at #7.

Oh, and if you're parking at Turtle Bay, don't forget to get a validation.

I promise a more life-filled (though maybe not as humorous) post soon:)

Need a little laugh?

Try this - a great end to my not so smooth Friday:

1.Go to Google maps.
2. Go to “Get Directions.”
3. Type Japan as the start location.
4. Type China as the end location.
5. Go to direction #43.
6. Laugh, and send it on.

Do it - now - trust me, you'll at least chuckle a little:)

Halloween Rerun

Well, life is certainly keeping me busy here on Maui. I feel like I don't have time for anything else beside school and family. We still have boxes that haven't been unpacked or found a home - good thing it NEVER rains here:)

But we did have some Halloween fun. Since I knew that I wasn't going to have time to make new costumes, and since no one here had seen them, we opted to rerun our Harry Potter costumes - and they were a hit (of course). Here's a run down of our Halloween activities:

1. Thursday Night was our ward Trunk-or-Treat. There was a good turn out, though it was really dark - not many lights in the parking lot - it's an old building - but it was fun enough. One of my students attends the ward and it's always fun to see her outside of school - it takes her a second to remember that she sees me at church stuff, too.

Here's the "trunk" of our van. The lighting effect of my cool battery operated candles isn't as spooky when the camera is flashing, but you get the picture. Nothing fancy - just whatever decorations I could find before we left.

2. Friday night was the school's Fall Festival - basically a Halloween Party. We stayed for the costume parade and contest (which 2 of the kids won in their grade level) and then headed out - it was hot and crowded in the small cafeteria. There were games and crafts, but I was ready to go home and Cameron didn't argue with me about it:)

Here's a picture I had one of the other kindie teachers take for us before we left.

Not quite as cool as last year, but close.

3. Sunday night - well, I wasn't really too excited about Halloween being on the Sabbath, so I decided to nix the traditional trick-or-treating (I was really mean and didn't even hand out candy), but instead we all watched cheesy Disney Halloween movies all afternoon and then went to bed. Terribly exciting, I know, but I just couldn't do Halloween on Sunday. And since we no longer live in a predominantly Mormon community there was no trick-or-treating on Saturday (like most of my Utah/Idaho friends had). We survived, and the kids didn't seem to care too much, they still got to gorge themselves with candy and stay up late since we didn't have school today (Monday - I did, but they didn't). However, I am looking forward to a non-Sunday Halloween next year where we can walk around the neighborhood. I better start figuring out what we will next year - we're running out of ideas that involve the right mix of 6 related characters. Suggestions???

And just because I haven't blog in like FOREVER, I thought I would give you all a little treat and include a few pictures of my classroom. Not the greatest pics, but there was an afternoon a couple of weeks ago where all the kids were playing so nicely during center time - basically free play time, but I assign the center they go to and then we rotate as time allows. Usually I'm dealing with someone or something, or reminding everyone to play nice or quiet down. But this day for some reason everyone was getting along and actually doing the activity they were supposed to. You know as opposed to building towers with the books, throwing the blocks, or chasing each other around with the play food. Seriously - you'd think I was in a room full of 5 year olds.....oh wait, I am. Well that certainly explains A LOT!!! Just kidding. I'm learning to love it all - even the annoying crazies brought on by the full moon. (Seriously, full moon=crazy kids....it's true, ask any teacher.) And you'll notice that I blacked out the kids' faces that were showing - their my kids, but not really mine, so I want to protect their privacy - I also blocked out any names that were on the walls and readable for the same reason, so excuse the dots and blurs.

This is the front of the room and our main learning area (on the rug). The blue tape are the kids' spots on the rug. They usually get mangled or torn off pretty quickly. These have been on for a few weeks, I'm impressed that so many are still there. This is also were we have our reading center with our class library. I would love to have pillows and beanbag chairs, but I'm not sure that the kids (or my classroom budget) can handle them right now. Maybe after Christmas break.

This is the favored side of the room. It has the play kitchen and the puzzle centers. As much as I LOVE that I have a kitchen, it takes up so much space in my tiny, tiny room. But we make it work as best we can.

This last picture is of the block center (that you can't really see) and the math center, which is just connecting cubes in different colors that the kids can make different patterns out of. I have pattern strips in the box with the cubes that they can copy, or they can make their own. I had originally planned to change this center out to different things, but the kids keep requesting this one, so if I don't have anything else specifically planned I get out the cubes.

I've added a few things to the room since I took the pics, but not too much. I should really take more pictures, I just don't remember to bring my camera to school. Though these were taken on my camera phone and they turned out pretty good.

Well, this has taken a lot longer to post than I thought it would, of course, but I wanted to get something up for Halloween. And I'll leave you with my top 3 reason I love being a teacher so far:

3. I get to work when the kids are in school (well, except for Juliana). We get up and get ready and go to school together at 7am and then they come to my room and supposedly do homework while I prep and then we all head home together at 3:30.

2. Scholastic book orders! It's like Christmas every month. We have an additional program that allows most of my class (17 out of 20) to order books from Scholastic for free each month. And Scholastic has great programs for teachers to earn free books for their classroom library. (Side note: If you're a teacher reading this and you don't do Scholastic book orders - yet - let me know and I'll give you referral info and we both get FREE points for books.) I just got our October order in today, so I'm a just a little excited about all the free books right now!

1. I have 20 more kids (you know, besides my own) - 20 kindergarten babies, that I love to death, who whine and cry and tattle and complain, but at the end of even the worst day they give me a hug I get to send them home to mom and dad, hopefully a little bit smarter than I got them in the morning:)