My week

Starla is obsessed with coloring these days.





Rae, our Parents as Teachers liason came for a visit this week. Starla is actually graduating from parents as teachers to ready for kindergarten now that she is 3. Rae brought us this backpack with two sets of counters to sort and pattern with. One are people, and one are bears. Starla loves playing with them, and is so good at figuring out the pattern and finishing it. She amazes me.














I really like my mentor teacher on so many different levels, she is really nice, she treats me as an equal and not some "gopher" to do her dirty work, she lets me do whatever I want in the class, I have the same authority as her, she has some wonderful tips and advice on teaching and such. But then, there are other areas that I am not so thrilled about. Like that she is a bit harsh with the kids at times when it's really not necessary. She likes to rip up papers and throw them in the trash when they don't have a name or made lower than a c and need to redo it. My profs at UCO have always said there is no reason to ever rip up a kids work, that it is inappropriate. She told me I should rip up some of the science papers for those that need to redo it, and I told her that I couldn't do it, and just what the profs said, and she sorta bristled. She also makes some comments about gay people that I don't really like during lunch, repeatedly. And although she hasn't actually said anything outright about black people, the way that she talks for them when she is telling a story about them clearly shows that she thinks that they are ignorant. I just bite my tongue.

Choctaw is a whole different world though. I have seen all of like 3 black students in the entire school thus far. And it is a huge school. They have 6 classes of each of the 3rd, 4th and 5th grade classes. They have just a few more hispanics than that, and a handful of native americans. And I've seen one Asian. It is whitebread country. Everyone on the staff is white. The students, most of them live on some sort of farm type home. Most of them own horses and ride motor bikes and tractors and 4-wheelers. Even the not so well off ones have horses and lots of animals. It's just a different world than I am used to I guess.



This week was stressful because my 2nd meeting with my supervisor was wednesday, and I had to have like 3 different assignments revolving around my unit that I am going to teach. Which of course, I waited until the last minute to do. Not because I am a procrastinator, but beacause I just don't have time to do much of anything when I am home, other than take care of the house and kids! I'm going to try to stay caught up this time, but we shall see. Anyways, he was coming to watch me teach a lesson as well. So I did my batteries & bulbs lesson that I did last year, because I really liked it. My supervisor showed up 30 mins early, and then left 15 mins into my hour long lesson. Whatever. I also think I am doing way more work on this unit than is really required or expected, but yet they would like it to be as in depth as I am doing, it is a bit confusing.


I did my Batteries & Bulbs science lesson with the kids on wednesday, but this was today when they got to do some further investigation with them. I am getting so attached to these kids, I'm not going to want to leave them in Dec.!!













The Tiger Safari came to our school today, which was lots of fun. The lady brought like 6 animals, and the kids loved it. This is just the 4th graders here. They did assemblys by grade.







This is the vice-principal Mrs. Stearns and the Principal Mrs. Hosford at my school
















I got to hold the snake for like 10 minutes while she talked all about him. The 4th graders thought I was the coolest thing ever. Lol



Now I am gearing up for Bourbon's birthday tomorrow. He's with his dad right now, it's his weekend. But he's bringing Bourbon back for his party, although I don't think he's very happy about it. It's not like I planned for Bourbon's birthday to fall on his weekend. He hasn't said he was unhappy about it, but Bourbon told me he was. Oh well. Bourbon is having the rockbank rock star party from 6-9pm, with a few of the guests sleeping over. He only invited 12 kids, so it should be a rather small event, thankfully. I tried to make the little drumset, guitar and microphone out of fondant for the top of the cake, but they don't look all that great. The kids will like it though. Now I have to get my house clean. It just falls apart during the weekn when I don't have much time to devote to housework.

Then sunday we are heading to the fair to see Disney on Ice. I was thinking about it, this will be the 12th year in a row I have gone to see it. I took my neice the 2 year before Bourbon was born. Actually, back when he was born the fair was here for 3 weeks or so, back before they changed it to like 10 days. So I took my 2 nieces when I was pregnant with him, and then he was born like a week and half later! I did take him to the fair when he was like 3 days old though. I was so young. :) So he missed it that first year. :) The boys actually didn't go the year before last either, because it was Disney Princesses, but I took Starla. So I guess they haven't gone their whole lives. :)

As always it is going tobe a full weekend.