RMM10K May 13th

I colleague and I have been planning, for what seems like forever, a huge walking/running event in honor of an influential member of the community. Ray Meyers served on the school board and was very active in education throughout his life. Unfortunately he lost his battle to cancer this school year. We began planning our event prior to his loss, just to honor him and in conjunction with our Healthy Schools program in the elementary schools. We decided on a 10k because we had a beautiful path from one of the elementary schools to the JR/SR High School. Although slightly more than 6.2 miles we figured it out with a warm up walk option and bus transportation to the 10K and 5K starting lines. This event took up TONS of my time. I don't regret it at all, minus the delay it put on grading papers and inputting grades. That I mostly consider as a figuring out timing, and working on procrastination. (which if the blog posts don't tell you that, I don't know what would)
 All the planning and worrying and everything completely paid off though! Our event was a HUGE success!

My planning partner in the front followed by the SEA of orange at the 10k starting point

The support for Mrs. Meyers who wanted to complete the 10k for her husband Ray, the inspiration for the event. She did GREAT!

Winners from the 10K and 5K for most enthusiastic to most money raised and everything in between! Way to go kiddos!

After the run/walk we had lunch and a health fair. Here are some nice and healthy PIG lungs

and some not so healthy, smoked out lungs.

And even after the health fair the district held its annual "Field Day" although just an afternoon since the morning was serious work :)
Everyone really seemed to enjoy themselves, we even had some people who found our event online and joined us from out of state! An absolutely amazing turn out for a first year event. I think this will become and annual event for the district, and I plan on helping in anyway that I can from where ever I am.
ONE THING- SUNSCREEN!!!!!!!!!!!! and A LOT of it. I applied sunscreen when I got to school that day, at like 6:00 am and then forgot about it COMPLETELY until it was far too late and I was the most burnt I have ever been in my life and WILL NEVER EVER EVER be that burnt again. High altitude sun on a windy beautiful day on a 4 wheeler does not fair well for my fair Midwesterner skin. It was insane. I ended up blistering that night and boy was I in pain for the weekend.

Seattle Trip; See you later Husband

 So it might be a few months later...
The school year is now over- but lets just get caught up :)
For those of you who didn't know already my husband and I got orders, to the UK!
He needed to be there by mid April, which meant we would be seperated for some time while I finished up my first year teaching. Although I love my husband from the moon and back a gazillion times there was NO WAY I was going to leave my first year teaching. NO WAY!!!
So the time came for Aaron to leave. I did take a day off work so I could go to Seattle with him for the weekend to drove off our car for shipping and then to say good-bye as he flew out.
So we drop off the Hyundai at the SeaTac port- took a crazy long, expensive taxi back to our hotel. By the way we LOVE Hampton Inns. I think they magically became our hotel of choice. We decided to then rent a car and be tourists in town. Aaron had been to Seattle before but this was my first time. And I have no problem at ALL being all touristy! So we ended up buying some "tourist pack" with tickets to all the local attractions. We had a great time, didn't make it to all of the locations but definitely enjoyed ourselves and got our monies worth. It was a great mini-vacation and wonderful time together before our separation.

I might have a SLIGHT obsession with dinosaurs... We tried, and failed at a picture that looked like I was giving this beaut a nice pet.

Aaron and I at the Science Center, at a larger than CLARK sized table. So that is what it is like to sit in a chair and your feet don't touch the floor :)

The weekend was wonderful. It was tough to say good-bye to the Husband but I am thankful for the next chapter.
I flew back home and went into school to prep for a few hours. I swear this was the year of not enough time. Someone tell me that teaching gets, not easier, but smoother, less time consuming maybe... don't get me wrong I absolutely love it but yikes.

Whoops

Looks like almost an entire Quarter has gone by without a single blog post. I attribute this to the following: In-services, Professional Development, Staff Meetings, Data Team Meetings, Moving, organizing a HUGE event for our school at the end of the year, etc.
No excuse I know I know. I HAVE learned a TON in these past weeks though!
Bad news bears! I will be loosing one of my 3rd grade girls in just two weeks. Her family is moving out of town, this girl that started the year in a really rough spot and tried to give me heck through all that to now we are close and have an amazing understanding and she has achieved SO much! Of course I will be sad to see her go, however happy I have made arrangements with her folks to keep in touch via snail mail until I move overseas and then emails after that! This girl and I have made huge impacts on one anothers lives, of this I am sure, and thankful!
Also I have my second student out who will be gone for 2 weeks! TWO WEEKS?! Does anyone out there know how much goes on in 2 weeks? Not to mention we will have spring break right after that, OH and he was sick this whole last week, then I had a professional development day on Friday, when he was there, IT WILL BE AN ENTIRE MONTH that passes without seeing this kid. SAD FACE. I am super sad because he had made major growth lately, I just hope he really works hard on his "vacation" so he maintains that work :)
So our lease on our rental was up the end of February, and Hubby doesn't leave until April, and I will be staying til summer to finish teaching, we didn't really want to sign a new lease anywhere and our original plans fell through. Originally, we had planned to stay in the teacher housing right next to the school, for very cheap rent. However the district went ahead and rented it out the weekend or 2 before we needed to move in. Luckily for us we have amazing friends! So amazing in fact, they were willing to take us, and our mangey mutts in :) so while they are both still deployed we took over their abode! The Mr. Friend will be home soon and we will do our best to stay out of his way and keep the dogs chill. Its a fairly decent amount of time and I want to do my best to respect his space and such. Here's to hoping I don't wear out my welcome!
While I am sure there are a gazillion other things I will stop here as it shall be time for ice-cream and then perhaps snuggling down with a good book!
My goal: more blogging!

Patience

I seriously need more of this.
SO thankful that today was Friday, not sure if I could handle another day without a break.
I try to give a student the benefit but when it's the same problem day after day after day, I  just have a hard time.
Got report cards out today, let's see how many come back signed (by actual parents) next week. I have a few students who have gotten in the bad habit of thinking they can pull one over on me with faking parent signatures. I am so shocked by this because at their age I can't imagine even THINKING of not showing my mom something that my teacher asked me to show her. 
Thank you weekend.

Sign?

Is it a sign when a car battery dies at 166696 miles? I mean I'm not a HUGE believer in supersitions, however that is odd.

I need to do report cards..... don't want toooo.
Done whining now.
I have the greatest husband in the world for sure! So lucky to have such a great man by my side, and such a support during all of our stresses with moving both across town, and across the world :)

Planning

I am beginning to plan our schools Read Across America Day! Oh, how I LOVE Dr. Seuss!
Can't wait, would love to hear about any ideas you have or things you have done in the past to honor the Seuss! We will start a paper count down chain on Tuesday next week. I really want to build up the excitement.

A little quote that I got to start my day from the first student I see "Do I have basketball practice today?"
My response although probably a little harsh was "I have no idea I'm not your mother" Whoops. Some days we handle ourselves better than others.

I was excited to be able to leave school this evening knowing that I already had a majority of things ready for the next day :) Maybe those 8 hours on Sunday really were worth it, especially if I can get home before dark this week!
More rain today, this poor state has gotten an inch in some places causing mudslides. Crazy to imagine for those of us from the Midwest.

2 weeks back

The very first day back after break was an amazingly smooth day. Went by very fast with few bumps.
Our school has welcomed two new teachers that first week back. First hiring a teacher for the 6th graders so they can be pulled out of a 3 grade combination class and get the support and focus they need. They have had a very challenging elementary career with a lot of changes in teachers and lack of skill from some prior teachers. Then, our special education teacher resigned, and believe it or not the new teacher hired for 6th grade got a dual major in special education also. So yet another change for those 6th graders... that teacher to special education, and then a second hired for the 6th grade. Although they took the change a bit rough. I ultimately believe that this will be the best option for them. I am eager to see how things turn out for the 6th graders and the new special education teacher for both elementary schools in the district.

As for our class we have begun a new positive behavior system. I still will be doing our small economy with them, as many enjoy it and truly work hard to earn their money, and love choosing their prize. I have begun a tally system: I have each students name written on the window (as we are lacking white board space and the kids love that I write on the windows) they earn a tally every time I see them doing the right thing or working hard. Or if I see someone not doing the right thing, instead of calling them out I will silently walk over and give a tally to every other student. Once a student has earned 10 tally marks they get a slip to put their name on to enter our Friday Prize drawing. After 10 tallies the student starts over trying to earn another 10. They earn tallies throughout the week and Friday, near the end of the day I draw one slip out and that person wins a prize from the drawer. With extra incentive of double tallies if they get a compliment from another teacher. After drawing the slips are taken out to start each week fresh. I will let you know how this works out for our class.

Today I spent nearly 8 hours at school today finishing grading, all sorts of stuff, AYP exams, Unit test for our reading program, on top of the typical load. After grading I was able to get everything updated into the grade book. Desks were moved around, I am getting brave and trying my first attempt at mixing both grades throughout the room. I hope we last at least one day, with as much moving around and collaborative work we do it should work out alright.

Here's to the new year and the new semester!