June Wrap Up

So, It's just about the end of June and I thought I would give you an update about how my summer is going and how my search for trying to find a job. 

I worked on my cover letter earlier in the month and have sent attached that to my applications. At first I wasn't sure about doing a cover letter since most of the other girls in my cohort weren't, but I decided, after taking with some others, that I would. I just felt that then they would get to know be better as a future educator and what I want to do in a classroom. This way they can know if I am what they are looking for or not. 

There are two girls that have gotten jobs about the same school where they interned, but nothing else about the other girls. Honestly I am not worrying about a job right now because it is still so early. Teachers don't have to say if they are staying or going until mid July. 

I think late July is when I will hear more back from the schools. Now if it's August and nothing is happening, then I will start worrying. Just not now. I am enjoying my summer off and trying to stop myself from buying things for my future classroom. 

Update: Late last week I got a phone call about a job, but I think it is for a preschool position and I don't want to teach that grade. I am going to go for practice and there might be other openings that I don't know about that they might keep me in mind for or for other schools them might know. The interview is on July 1 and I will let you know how it goes. 

If you read my post called Books, Books, and More Books then you know that my mentor and another teacher at the school have given me a ton of supplies and books for my classroom. 

I now have a little over 300 books, an easel, activity books and ideas, pocket charts, calendar chart, posters, and some other things.  

I have been watching some tv series like House and now I have gotten into Pretty Little Liars. I had read the books before the tv show, so I kind of know some things that are going on. I enjoyed the series House until about season 4 when new cast members came in and after some episodes I got over it. Then during season 6, I got a little bored and began watching PLL. 

Also I began watching this new tv series called Unreal on Lifetime and I love it. Lots of drama going on and it's kind of about the Bachelor. It makes me wonder if they things really go on on the show.

I have been reading what feels like a lot this month. One of my favorites was Take Heart by Lauren Michelle Smith. My goal for the end of the year is too read 80 books and I keep track of my book goal on GoodReads. Though secretly since I am not working this summer I want to try and read 100. As of right now I am at 43 books and according to the cite, I am 5 books ahead of schedule. 

Books, Books, and More Books

Last week my one of my mentors sent me a text asking if I still wanted books that she didn't want anymore and of course I said yes! Any little bit will help me and save me money in the process. Back when I was interning she had asked me and I was really happy to hear from her with the offer still.

So later that week I stopped by the school and got to see the students from both classes and it was great. All the students were really happy to see me and had so much they wanted to share that I ended up being there later then I planned. 

While I was there my mentor said that she still hadn't gone through all of her books and said that I can come back next week to get more. I couldn't believe it, the first time I went there she was getting rid of a little over a 100 books. 

Then I went again the next week and she had said this other teacher had somethings that she was going to give me too. I had no idea that I would end of up leaving with my car looking like this:

I also had stuff in the passenger seat. 

I can't even begin to tell you what everything is because there is just so much and I have not even gone through all the stuff myself. Some of the items are posters, magnetic numbers, an easel, foam things, lots of books, baskets, activity books, stickers, and pocket charts. 

I was up late at night going through almost everything. I just wanted to weave out anything that I knew for sure that I didn't want. 

I don't know have many books should be in a beginning teacher's classroom library, but I feel like I am pretty much set. I have a little over 300 books, though I do plan to stop by the thrift store from time to time maybe after I get a job and grab a few other books, but not many. 

To keep myself organized about what books I have when I go shopping I download this app Booksapp to help me and that's how I know how many books i have. I will admit that the app is not the best and maybe I can't figure this out, but not all books have a bar code, so I wish I could type in the code to look it up instead of putting it in manually. 

I am just so thankful for everything they gave me and really hope that I get a job. 

College Graduation Memories Box

I had all this little things that I had gotten for my graduation that I wanted to keep. I kept my graduation announcement box that I got in the mail because I knew I could us it for something. 

I decided then that it would be the perfect place to store all of these little items that I had from graduation. Like my graduation cards, commencement books, graduation party invitation, graduation party balloons, and extra graduation announcements. 

(No balloons in the picture because they still had air in them.)

I wanted to decorate the box and painting it would take to long, so I decided to spray paint it. I decided the paint it white since the box was already that color and I had white spray paint. 

Once it was dried, I put everything safely inside and perfecto! I saved money from not having to buy something to put everything in and I recycled that box for a good use. 

I also plan to add my university's logo on the top of the box with modge podge, but I will do that later. For now it is good enough. Hopefully you can do the same with your box or find something equally as useful to use it for. 

St. Patrick's Day Math Activity

Back during my pre-primary internship, I had to create a math lesson that was St.
Patrick's Day themed and this is what I came up with. 

I began the lesson by reading this short story called five leaping leprechauns that my mentor had found. After reading the story, I called on five students to be the leprechauns and act out the story while I read it. 

Next I had a big pot and told the children that they were going to steal some of my gold coins. I would count out the amount of coins in the pot before the student would come up and then the student would say how many coins they stole. Then we would say the subtraction sentence. I did this a couple of times with different students. They had a blast being able to steal my gold coins. 

Next I gave students a small gold pot of their own and some paper coins and they worked with partners doing what we did on the carpet. They would also use the dry erase board and marker to practice writing the subtraction sentence. 

Lastly, the students had to decide how many coins would be in their pot and glue them down and then decide how many gold coins the leprechaun took by drawing X's on them. Lastly they filled out a piece of paper attached to the bottom talking about their pot of gold. 

I made these pot by using this link and printing them onto construction paper. For the gold coins was yellow construction paper and I used a circle cutter that my mentor had. For the paper attached I created and you can get that here.

Below is a few examples the independent activity the students did:

Problems with Mentor

Let me begin by saying that I did not have any problems with either of my mentors. 

This is about the other girl that was with my pre-primary mentor that had problems. 

So at the very beginning of the of the second rotation I was getting ready to leave the school when I was walking past the copy room and the girl stopped me to talk. She asked me if I ever wore jeans when I was with the mentor and I said yes. I know what you are thinking, you should not wear jeans, but my mentor, supervisor, and principal said that it was ok. I only ever wore jeans once a week and only on the day that we were told that we could. 

Anyways, she begins to tell me that the mentor went off on her, yelled at her she said, about wearing jeans. I was confused and said she really yelled at her to the point that she wanted to cry. She said that the mentor said that she had to force me to wear jeans and another intern ,now teacher there, never wore jeans when she student taught. 

I was kind of taken aback when she said I was forced because she didn't force. She just said that it was ok. I talked to her on a Friday I believe and late Saturday I got an email from that mentor asking for the supervisors email, which I give to her. I ended up texting the girl to give her a heads up.

The intern talked to the supervisor and everything seemed fine I thought. Then during the second to last week in the semester I talked to the other intern and she said things between the girl and mentor was tense. I was surprised to hear that since when I would see the girl and ask her how things were going and she would say fine. 

The other intern told me about how the girl was lying about things to the mentor and that it was so bad that the mentor threatens her about her evaluation. I was shocked to hear about the evaluation and how bad things seem to how gotten. Though the girl was keeping in touch with the supervisor who was supposedly on her side. 

My mentor was making the girl do things that I did not have to do. Like she made her turn in her plans every Friday for the following week. I got to turn mine in the night before. She was having the girl stay until 6 or later almost all the time. I only stayed till 6 one time and the rest of the time I left around 5. When the girl went to pick up her cap and gown which is about an hour drive away, she went there and had to come back to the school to still help the mentor. 

At first with everything that I was hearing about what was happening was such a surprise because the girl is really nice and very charismatic. But then I found out she was lying and not getting things done like she was told and then I understood why the mentor would have been frustrated. I always felt there was something off about the girl when I first met her. 

I would have thought with after the jeans incident she would do everything right. I can tell you that she never jeans again. I began to feel awkward wearing jeans, but my mentor stilled said it was fine and the other intern was wearing them. I felt bad for the girl, but it seems that she dug her self into that hole. 

If I was the girl I would be very worried about the recommendations the mentor will write about her to the counties she is applying for. Eek!

Gifts From Mentors

Again this post is going to be quick and is about the gifts my mentors gave me. 

My pre-primary mentor gave me a caddy full of teacher items and books. She and the students wrote a thank you letter. Also she made a vase with the students fingers as bugs that she gave me at the on my very last day of internship. She was making one for the intern and she said that the students wanted to give me one also. 

My primary mentor gave me a flowering pot with teacher items inside and a gift card to a Reallygoodstuff.com. Then she had the students write to me about how to be a great teacher. All the kids wrote really sweet things. 

Sorry I don't have pictures of the school supplies that them gave me. It was basic normal things that every teacher will need; pens, pencils, post it notes, etc. When I received them, I put them away into my teacher box.

College Graduation Party

I had a small graduation party at my parent's house with mostly family and close family friends. I thought I would share some pictures of the decorations because I thought everything turned out really great. Also sorry about the quality of the pictures and for the fact that I didn't take that many. 

The party took place outside. We worried all day about when the rain was going to come. Lucky it was just a little shower at the very end of the party. We set up two food tables, a cake table, and one drink table. The day was suppose to be very hot, so we set up two tents where people were going to eat. 

As your going to tell from the pictures, the color scheme was black and gold for my university's school colors. 

Below are the pictures that I have of the decorations from the party:

This pictures are so close up of the decorations after the party was over. I wanted you to see them closer in case it wasn't clear in the pictures:

 This is a banner that you can see in the two of the pictures. We had this wrapped around the pool deck. It was the perfect size. It looked amazing. I wish I had taken a better picture of that. 

This was what was hanging from the ceiling in the porch along with black and gold curling ribbon. I wish I had gotten a picture of that because it looked amazing. I got the idea from my mom. She had decorated the ceiling one time for my birthday party and I loved it. 

These are two little containers I made to put the candy in. It is just candlesticks and dishes that I found from the thrift store. I then bought paint to paint around the bottom of them. I had gotten the idea from here. I also plan to use them in my room for something. I don't know what yet. 

BTW. My mom had this brilliant idea to buy a table cloth and then cut it to make runners. That is what you see on the dining tables with the graduation caps. This turned out perfect and were able to make four runners. We also ended up using one for the cake table. 

Mentor Gifts

This post is going to be about what I gave to my mentors at the end of each rotation. I gave both my mentors bracelets from Macys and a $10 gift card. The bracelets value at about $55, but I think I got them on sale for $25. 

For my pre-primary mentor I gave her a bracelet about the beach and a gift card to dunkin doughnuts. She really loves the beach and dunkin doughnuts coffee. 

For my primary mentor I gave her a baseball bracelet and a gift card to kohls. Her family is obsessed with baseball and I wasn't sure about the gift card. Last time I gave her a target gift card and wanted to get her something different, so I picked kohls. 

To be honest I was not sure how much to spend. The other girls in my cohort all had varying prices on how much they were spending. One girl just made her mentor a scarf and gave her some chocolate. Then another girl was spending $50. 

I recommend doing what you think is best, though keep in mind you will need them to write recommendations to the different counties you apply to. Just a reminder. 

Student Gifts

This is going to be a quick post about what I gave the students in both my pre-primary internship and primary internship. Below is a pictures of what the gift looked liked all packaged up. Sorry the quality of the picture is not very good. 

I got most of the gifts from oriental trading and just bought in bulk because it was cheaper. In total for both classrooms, I spent about $50 or $25 for each classroom and about $1 on each kid. 

Inside the bag there was:

                                             bubbles                                                                   erasers 

                                               pencils                                                       mini beach ball

2 freeze pops

personalized bookmarks

Then I also typed a small thank you note to the students on a green piece of paper and tied up the bag with red and blue ribbon (school colors). And that was my gift...nothing super fancy.