“Most of the things you worry about never
happen.”
This is what my dad said to me at the end
of our phone call last night. And while
I probably did need to hear it, it is another thing entirely to actually stop
worrying. I will admit, it has been a pretty stressful time for me out here
lately and a few tears have been shed (luckily not on my laptop or on any major
assignments, which is a plus). With planning for Disney, exchange, end of
semester and exams, I have a lot on my plate right now. Now that we are in
April, I have a lot to do and a lot to decide in a short amount of time.
So to flash all the way back to two Mondays
ago, I had my second-to-last day of practicum. Even though I knew I still had one more visit, it was hard to tell my students that I would only be back one more
time. So anyway, that day I had a lesson planned about writing stories on trips
the students had been on but right when I was in the middle of explaining the
activity, the principal came in to talk about the school wide robin hunt. This
led us into a class discussion about robins, which was fun, but completely took
away my students’ attention from my lesson. If it had been my classroom, I
would have completely ditched my lesson and done something with robins, but
since I didn’t exactly have that decision making power, I just took it in as
one of the many lessons I have learned from practicum. After recess, I was
unable to teach the grade 6 class but instead was needed in the grade 2 class, where we had a discussion about robins. We ended up talking about where we
would fly away to if we were robins, so FYI Disney World - if the grade 2 PEES
class turns into robins, they will all be coming for a visit.
After practicum, I had my afternoon class
and then a group meeting with my Spelling team. Vicki, Shayne and Jason were
such a fun group to work with. While I was working with them, I got a message
from my cousin Jaye that she had been accepted to Bishop’s!!! So that was
pretty exciting news! We tried to pick a date for her to come visit, but
unfortunately her schedule is too busy this month, so she is coming out with my
aunt in May. I hope she loves it!!! Jocelyn and Hannah will be here, so
hopefully they can help convince her that Bishop’s is the best! We will see!
Tuesday, I had an early appointment at the
Writing Centre to have them edit my paper for Child Development. It was really,
really helpful to have the ladies there read over it. I even ended up going
back for a second appointment the next day. I went to the library to
continue working on my paper and then had a meeting before class with my
spelling group. After my two afternoon classes, I went to the gym and then had
a meeting for the Empty Bowls event 2014. This was an event I was involved with
last year and the event was so successful that we wanted to start planning
early in order to make next October’s event even better. Following the meeting, I had a quick
dinner before heading to my night class. We had three presentations that night
and the three books covered were: The Giving Tree, The Juniper Tree and Little
Red Riding Hood. For The Giving Tree, we played a game where we had to make a boat out of straws and tin foil to hold coins and the winning team won
homemade applesauce. However, in the spirit of giving, if the winner gave away
his/her applesauce, they got a surprise apple fritter! For Little Red Riding
Hood, in one of the story versions, Little Red is tricked into eating her grandma’s
flesh and drinking her blood, so the group had fake flesh and blood (Swedish
berries, Nibs, and red juice) for us to “enjoy” along with Little Red.
On Wednesday, my Spelling team met to put
the final touches on our presentation and the rest of the day was fairly
typical. I made pasta and shrimp for dinner and put the final touches on my
psych paper. My paper was on achievement motivation and I learned a lot from
the paper, a lot that is relevant to teaching. The main thing I took away is
remembering to praise students on their effort and not their end product. It’s
actually hard to do, especially if you are used to giving product praise. Give
it a try. Anyway, I finished up my paper and was able to hand it in in class on
Thursday!
Before handing in my paper, that morning I
went for a run and then had a meeting with my project team for my K-E class. We
are making a mock school and designing curriculum for said school. We have been
assigned a Vision School, which is a semi-independent school structure in
Quebec. We are doing a unit on food and culture. After my meeting, I went over
to my other class to begin setting up for our presentation, which ended up
going really, really well! We started with a spelling bee, in which we had 4
student volunteers and our prof spell words, with Jason as the host and Vicki,
Shayne and me as judges. After the bee, we gave some information lecture style
and then broke the class into secondary and elementary to try out some specific
activities that can be used in the classroom. We were really happy with how it
went!
Following class, I went to a poetry reading
at the bookstore while I waited for Jocelyn and Hannah to finish class and then
met them at Happy Hour. The poetry reading was cool, but not really my thing.
The refreshments at the end were good though! At Happy Hour, there was a
Nintendo competition going on; unfortunately I did not get to show off my
skills. Instead, Hannah, Jocelyn, Elizabeth and I ended up playing Bananagrams
at our table, while munching on popcorn. I stayed until about 8 or 9’o’clock
and then was hungry, so went home for dinner. When Jocelyn got home, we
continued with our Hilary Duff marathon and watched A Cinderella Story.
Friday, Jocelyn and I went to the mall in
the afternoon together. I was in search for a sock bun donut, but was
unsuccessful so instead got tea and printer ink. Unfortunately, I got home and
found out I needed coloured ink and not black, which is what I bought. Oh well.
The Starbucks made up for it. That night, I was on duty in Mack, where nothing
too exciting happened. My friends were all out bowling, so I was having some
major feelings of missing out. But they (ie Mike) did come and pick me up at
the end of the night, which was a really nice treat.
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| I found a candy and a note saying "Have a great night" in the bum pack on Friday - a nice treat! |
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| The edible art cake! |
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| Pictures of the other art cakes the artist has made |
Sunday, I should have slept in, but didn’t.
I met Hannah at the rink for the final free skate of the year and Jocelyn
joined us after a group meeting. I could barely keep my eyes open, and when I
fell asleep sitting at the boards, I decided it would be best to head home. I
stopped to pick up a reference letter for an award application and then put
myself to bed as soon as I got home. I had been planning on going to see
Treasure Island, but was just too overwhelmed with homework and such, so spent
the rest of the night working and preparing for the week to come.
I didn’t plan on having this much to say
about two weeks ago, so I will stop here for now and fill you in on this past
week on Sunday! I promise I won’t leave you hanging! I will be on duty again,
so I will commit to setting myself up in the common room and get back on
schedule. Also, last week I wrote another post for the Bishop’s Blog Project,
so you can check out my post on the Education Gala by clicking on the link on
the left-hand sidebar! There are some pictures from the event on there as well!
Talk to you soon! I promise!
All my love,
Erica xoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Some pictures from the Education Gala:
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| Vicki and me with our Dean, Dr. Aitken |
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| Me, Kirsten and Janet - the Decorations Gommittee |
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