questions and answers!

 

 

I have been nominated for The Leibster Award by two lovely ladies, Tania (Mrs. Poultney's Ponderings) and Rae (Mindful Rambles)-how kind!! I will answer 5 questions from each  blogger so that you don't have read too long!

Here are the rules: (eh...it's up to you how you do it)

1. You must answer the questions set for you.

2. You must create 11 questions for the people you nominate.

3. You must choose 11 other blogs with fewer than 200 followers to nominate and link them in your post.

4. You cannot “tag back” the other blog, but leave a comment on this post with the URL of your Liebster post so I can learn more about you & see who you nominate.

 Questions:
1. If you weren't a teacher/educator/your current occupation, what would you be? OH! A job that I always thought would be amazing would be to do soundtracks for movies. Not like the composer, but the person that picks the songs for the scenes, etc. ya : )
2. What is your favorite genre of music? You may have gathered that I like music from the question above. I lOVE many types of music. Fits the mood. 

3. What was your favorite subject in school? What was your least favorite? Fav-reading/spelling. Least-science.
4. What is one way that you do to ensure a healthy lifestyle?

No soda, no fast food.

5. How many hours of sleep do you get a night? 7-8

 6.What is the scariest thing you have ever done?    Getting married: being the center of attention, doing it without my best friends (in another country). Worrying if everyone would have a good time. (it was great!) 

7.Do you play a sport? I played volleyball, basketball and softball in high school. 

8.How many stamps in your passport? I am a blessed girl : ) 

9.What is your favorite season? Fall/Winter 

10.Who was your favorite teacher when you were a student? I loved my third grade teacher Mrs. Nakamura. She was sweet, nice and I learned how to do my times tables really well.         

 

Katie's great blog is here!

Renee's fantastic blog is here! 

Here are my questions:

1) What word annoys you?

2) What is the best movie you've seen recently?

3) What is your idea of a perfect Saturday morning?

4) What is the best concert you've seen?

5) 3 things I always have in my fridge are...

Have a great day!!!                                              

Thanksgiving Sale!!

Hello teachers in the States! I hope your Thanksgiving holiday is great! Thanksgiving is my favorite dinner ever-turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and pumpkin pie...YUM! Check out my sale if get a minute!

Kelli xx

Writer's Workshop {10 & 11 yr olds)

I've been inspired by Tammy over at Forever in First. She was talking about spelling the other day, and it's something I've been thinking about as well. Go check out her post.

That leads me to........I love learning about Writer's Workshop with the older kids!! We are continuously working on Revising & Proofreading. I am so happy to see them finally do this a bit more independently now (circle words you want to look up later for spelling, and underline words you want to 'upgrade' in vocabulary later.....in addition to editing for punctuation, etc). 

Here are some photos from the weekend (before I graded them):

Hope you have a nice Thanksgiving week! I wonder if I can find some pumpkin pie around here...........

Part time work sounds pretty great

The last few years, I've been thinking how great part-time work sounds. Now, in a sense, that is what I've kindof been doing. 

Because of my lifestyle (loved one--deployments, long-distance relationship, several moves overseas)..........I have had an erratic career.

Day-to-day subbing, long term subbing, really long-term subbing, etc. I have not had my own class, from start to finish, in several years. 

The above jobs mentioned (long term subbing and really long-term subbing), while being wonderful, they have also been ALOT of work.

How could a long term be a lot of work?

Depending what the job is, there are not always plans, contrary to belief.

Depending on the school, the approach could be completely different.

Depending on the grade level, there could be a whole lot of curriculum you've never taught before.

The latter seems to create the most amount of work for me.
 

the journey is the reward

Let me reiterate: I would never change the experiences I've had for anything.  I am positive that God has placed me in every class purposefully. There have been some messed-up situations that I've walked into where students were crying out for stability. Other situations where students were sad and confused about why their teacher had left. 



Anyway, cut to my current job. September to Easter (not sure what month that is), covering maternity leave. Covering the English Coordinator. At the top of the school.

I'm a K-2 teacher.

However........
I'm loving this year with my Year 5 and Year 6.

Of course it helps that it's a private school, and for the most part they are literally angels.    

But the curriculum.

There is so much new curriculum that I've never taught before. It takes all my time to reteach myself the curriculum, but don't forget there's all the writing to grade! In all fairness, it's not that much grading because of the wonderful Writer's Workshop (Ros Wilson's Big Writing model)........but it's a lot more than I've had in K-2.

Anyway, I do not have a balanced life. Who does I guess?

But I want more of balance. 

Do you feel this way? Perhaps this is mainly in part to switching grade levels all the time?

I've been thinking a job share would fit me perfectly.

Especially after this week of report writing and conferences and getting ready for Friendship Week and our Christmas Fair coming up.

And the fact that I'm sick all the time does not help.
 
I could cook again.
Go back to the gym.
Bible studies with the ladies group again.
Have more time to focus on my portfolio business.
Read.
Clean the flat.
Not go to sleep at 7 at night.

I am very interested to see what happens when the teacher comes back (that I'm covering). Perhaps she'll want to go part-time?!?! 

Would love to hear your thoughts--

I know the money would be less. But I feel like a hamster on a wheel.

I'm off now to London to check out Churchill's Cabinet War Rooms (WWII) for our history field trip next month. Have to see the museum to plan, etc.

And then maybe I'll do something for myself.

If I'm not sleeping : )     

To all the new bloggers out there..........

I just noticed that it's been about a year since I started blogging. Technically more than that because I started in the summer, got frustrated, gave up, and started again.

It was soooo hard for me at first, all the codes and jibber jabber to get my blog going (I'm still learning). Then I saw these other blogs with thousands of followers and thought, how will I even get 1?

I still don't leave comments on other blogs as often as I should (I will get better at that!), but I am very happy about all that I'm learning from you great teachers out there and the fact that I don't care anymore how many comments or followers I have.

Don't give up new bloggers! It will get easier!

Kelli xx 

2 {small} journal freebies!

Hello!!

I've returned from a two-week trip to the States (fall break) and I'm trying hard to kick this jet lag!

I'll just share these 2 freebies quickly, and share my reflections from my vacation in another post.

 
Hope you're having a nice weekend!

Kelli xx