I'm On A Boat!

Boat Trip on The Colorado River! 

Some of the kinder team (along with some stragglers like me) went on a trip to the Colorado River for some tubing, beach relaxing, and all around fun on the water.  On a day that was 118, it was a great way to spend the afternoon.  We had two tubes pulled by the boat and we cruised around the river (that and flying off of our rafts).  We also did a float down where the boat was carried by the river and we jumped in the water with lifejackets and followed the boat.  It was a very good time.  I got a lot of sun (not TOO much burnt skin, but some...) So all in all a grand old day.  We ended the night by going to an authentic Mexican taco stand via a parking lot.  It was called Monster Tacos which literally had the monster energy drink logo...Not sure if a no shame ripoff of the logo, but either way it was mad good!  Great after a day on the water.  

Another short story this week is that I played the guitar at a Church called Vertical Church.  It was pretty rad, and it is a really sweet venue.  Essentially an old movie theater turned into a church.  Anyways, now it is Sunday (AKA DaybeforeMonday) so time for the lesson planning / getting ready for the next week!  

First Week of School!

Random: 

So Google likes my photos.  I am on Google+ and so they made a cool slide shows with some photos with timestamps and locations.  This is one they made for the Trip to Fortuna Foothills and Yuma County.  Feel free to go though and see what Google does with my photos.  I just wish the pics were a bit cooler.  But either way, well played google...A little unsettling on how much info they can access, but it's cool!

https://goo.gl/photos/gQNEBhpYgWAxFKqXA

First Week: 

Now, first week of school is now completed.  It was good, it was long though.  MAPS testing made instructions easy for the week, most of what I said was "be quiet for those of us who are testing!"  Easy enough.  But days were drawn out without doing things.  So all in all, good, but I am ready to actually start into the curriculum.  A story from this week that was pretty funny was a student at the end of the day recognized a staff member from a previous grade they were in.  This 3rd grader was a very excited and energetic individual and saw her and gave the teacher a hug.  Now, the teacher was an older individual and she was fairly slim as well.  Once when the student hugged her, she came back to the 3rd grade teachers and exclaimed "Ahh, she's sooo skinny that in my hug I felt every one of her bones!"  Yeah...The teacher who received the hug I think was out of earshot of that one, but still...Good ol' tactful 3rd graders! 

Essential Oil Party

So on my 3rd grade team we have a individual who sells essential oils.  So we had a party that had all sorts of essential oils.  We could try them in water, smell them, use them to cure headache and other ailments.  So it was pretty chill.  It was interesting as well, however, because I was (and in general this is true) the only male.  Not to say essential oils are only for women, I would just say they aren't the most "manly" thing to do.  Either way, I got some and will use it on my house.  The one I am most looking forward to (As you all are eager to know) is one called White Fur.  There isn't a specific reason or aspect of it I like other than it smelled really good.  That was pretty much the basis of the night.  There's this key of what they help out with, how to use it, and most of the participants (excluding me and the 5 or 7 year old kids) went based off the usage of it.  I, on the other hand (with the kids) based my purchases off the smells.  

Sidenote:  If you are ever bored and want a terrible human smelling oil, get the cumin essential oil.  It smelled like a nasty person's foot.  It was...Intriguing.  

Continuing the Teaching.

First Full Days: How do we fill it? (MAP Testing....)[yaaaaaay]

So we are just on our first full week and full days.  How do we spend a lot of our times?  MAPS tests.  Hopefully you understand me well enough that my yaaaaaay is sarcastic.  I mean, MAPS tests makes planning easier, but they are not fun to give out.  I feel like an official teacher now, I'm dishing out tests! But going through these first four days, I'm starting to get used to this whole teacher thing...It's a lot more than just teaching the contact all right!  I have a bunch of piles of documents to sign and sticky notes to answer and finish.  It's busy all right, but even through this business, I love doing what I do. 

Parent Orientations:

We also did some orientations of parents.  It's so great to meet parents and see the similarities of parents to their offspring.  It's a lot of fun!  It probably comes from my people watching skills but it really is great to meet parents.  Today was also one of my 13hr work days....In at 6:30am, out at 7:30pm.  Guess I'm earning my summer hours!  

2nd Day & Telegraph Pass!

2nd Day:

So we had the second day of school happen on Friday.  It was another half day, so it went by quickly but went really well.  There wasn't anything crazy or major that happened, which I will take over something crazy or major happening!  The students were good again, I could tell they were starting to get comfortable here.  Not to say being comfortable is a bad thing, I want everyone to be comfortable, yet they were a bit more testy of the rules.  It was good though!  Got through most of the things I was planning on doing, now it's just about getting the full days in and beginning the MAPs testing next week.

Telegraph Pass: 

So there's been a hiking trail I've wanted to go to for so long, yet never found the correct way until this Saturday.  In Yuma, it is hot.  Fun fact.  So if you are doing hiking / things outside in the summer time, you have to start very early or late when the sun isn't all the way out.  So I left my place at 5am in order to be there at 5:30am to start the hike.  For those of you who have Fitbits and such, I earned a badge for climbing "150 floors." Obviously it wasn't steps actually, but that gives an estimate of how high it was.  It was 15,000 steps which is about 7ish miles or so.  So a good hike!  I have some photos on the top of the mountain, as well as a photo of me and a buddy from my school, Jan.  So yeah, good day, afterwards I took a nap for a good while!  Oh! and exciting news:  I finally purchased a mattress!  I am no longer on an air mattress or futon!  I'm sure I'm more excited about that then you, so to show you in text how excited I am, please reading my all caps "woot" as that depicts my excitement...
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WOOT!

WOOT

First Day(s): Kinder Wednesday & First Day on Thursday!

Kinder on Wednesday:  

So this Wednesday the whole DVA staff help out at kinder for their first day of school.  Lets just say, I am glad to be in 3rd grade!  They are very sweet people, but so young!  There's a lot to teach them about being....A human!  It takes a lot of patience to be a kinder teacher, so mad props to all of them!  

First Day on Thursday:

SO today was the big day!  First day of school!  Woot!  It went very, very well!  It was great to finally see everyone in class and it went by very quickly and, for the most part, smooth.  We essentially went through the rules and management of our class, so it was very laid back and fun to meet everyone.  We have something called the "complement monster" where if we get complemented by someone else, whether a single student, group of students, or the whole class, it will "eat" a ping pong ball with that student(s) name.  This awesome monster was created by one of my very creative coworkers, and so here's a comparison of my "attempt" at some sort of smiley face to the monster we have now!

Anyways, it was fun to have the class be all about it, and we even got 4 complements from teachers because of our great lines in the hallways!  So a story that had the whole class giggling from was a student who had something to say...We just went through some rules and how rule number 2 is "Raise your hand for permission to speak" if that rule is not followed, then I would then call out "rule number 2!" and the class would say the rule and interrupt the interrupting student.  Soo that happened, and after that, I wanted to still call that student, so I call out his name and raised my hand to remind him to raise his hand, he then started to try saying the rule so I said "no not the rule..." then gestured to my hand to communicate he needs to raise his hand...He then look super confused and almost started talking again, so I said "no raise your hand!"  So he did, and then I told him "thank you for raising you hand what did you want to say?"  He thought about it, then said "I forgot..."  I pretty much lost it in laugher...We shared a lot of great memories and I am super happy and excited for my class!  At the end of the day, however....I am exhausted!  It is a lot of work to be a teacher, but I couldn't imagine doing another job that isn't working with young people!  

Tiring but so worth it!

Open House & The Struggle of Food

Open House:

So open house was amazing!  So many great students and families!  It was so much fun to meet almost the entire class!  I even had a student bring in flowers for me!  A very kind gesture, and a great change of foliage from the typical cacti seen around Yuma.  It was very fun.  I am thrilled to have such a great class, and looking forward to the first day on Thursday!  Tomorrow (which is Wednesday) is the first day of Kinder, so I get the honor of helping out and hanging out with some fantastic kind kindergarten students!  It will be a joy to see our youngest learners at our school!  

The Struggle of Food:

I think this whole blog could be an epic saga of my continual struggle with cooking.  Yesterday I decided to be somewhat lazy (but not completely lazy which is ordering a pizza), and decided to make a can of chicken noodle soup.  This was a cheap discounted Walmart can, but nonetheless it was still simply soup that needed to be warmed up.  So I poured the can out into the pan and I cooked it.  Fairly easy process.  When I started to eat it, however, I noticed that it was surprisingly salty.  Now, because my Dad eats a low sodium diet, I was thinking that I was just used to less salty meals, but it even in that, it was fairly salty.  I ate about two-thirds of it until I could not stand the salt and threw the rest away.  I then checked the can to see how much salt it was. This is what I saw.

So it had around 2,000mg of sodium, and I ate a good amount of it...I discovered the valuable cooking directions of Condensed soup:  add water.  Yeah....Forgot that step. Whoops.  Learned my lesson, and I will read what type of soup I get next time!  

San Diego!

So we (the Crown group that went to Yuma for jobs in education) decided that the weekend before school started needed a fun trip to the beach.  Thus we went to Mission beach in CA!  It was rad.  I have some photos of our trip.  But we stopped and ate at a bar and grill right by the beach, walked a ways to a pier, found an ice-cream joint called "baked bear" where we had ice cream sandwiches with freshly baked cookies and brownies as the  sandwich part.  It was great.  Total trip was about 10 miles of walking, so we were tired by the end of it!  but it was a ton of fun!  I also caught a small fiddler crab (or some sort of crab) it was adorable!  It also didn't pinch me, which was fantastic.  So yes.  All in all a great day!  Tomorrow (Monday the 3rd) is our open house, so all the families and students should be there to see the classrooms!  So looking forward to finally meeting all the students and families!  Today will be my final day of touch ups in the room, as well as grabbing the last components of the room.  Everything is coming together!