Five for Friday.... rodeo-style

Today is Friday? I call it my First Saturday of the week! ha! We don't have school on Friday anymore this year. Woohoo!! Five for Friday. One of my favorite linkys. I think about it all week... what am I going to put in my five this week? Should I take a picture in case I put this in my five? Maybe I should take more pictures so that I can put this in my five. Hop on over and read about everyone's week, visit Doodlebugs and maybe even link up.

Seriously I am not sure how much of this is school related and yet, this week in my town everything is somehow related to the events of Pioneer Days and the rodeo.

1. Going to Slack. Tuesday morning we went to something called slack. These are qualifying events for the big deal on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It is about 10 blocks and we walked together with the other classes from our school.  Tuesday is the day that temperatures reached the 90's. So I had encouraged sunscreen, hats, and water bottles.

This little guy here had so much fun and spoke to me in English more than
he has all school year! It was so exciting! 

I love her hat! :)

2. Outdoor activities! In the afternoon, after walking and being the sun all morning we took naps! Nope, just kidding. It was an action-packed day and we played games outside with the other Kindergarten, First and Second grade classes at our school. We did a relay with dressing and undressing, an egg toss, a stick horse race, and a bucket relay with water.

Karsyn with her clothes on except she forgot her hat! 

Cooling off and getting drinks! Ah! 

Than Zaw Tun wanted me to see how much of his water he had consumed! 

I love this for so many reasons,but the biggest reason is that it shows the teamwork involved! 

"teamwork!"

Aaron is looking good! 

"It's heavy Ms. Horn!"

3. Wednesday afternoon we had a special visitor! Jose Gonzalez brought his 5 day old miniature pony foal to visit his daughter's Pre-K class! He asked if we would like to see her also. My Kinders did a great job of asking questions and after he left we made a list of all the information we gained about the horse and caring for it. This little girl is named Cookie and lives with her Mom and Dad at Mr. Gonzalez' home.  Mr. Gonzalez carried her on his shoulder like a puppy.

Look at her in our class! She's really that small! 

Students came up to meet her in groups of 3 or 4.

The first time she whinnied in our class Mr. Gonzalez said that
Cookie was saying "hello."  

We will still journal about this and include it in some writing.  This is was a fun and exciting way to learn! 

4. Kindergarten Rodeo. All the Kindergarten classes get together and do activities, usually outdoors, but it was so cold that morning! Yep, snow on the ground this morning! So activities were in an activity gym.

My station was face-painting. Unfortunately I didn't have a parent take photos of my students at all the different stations. I had 6 volunteers from a high school art class, my daughter being one of them! So... I only have photos from my own station. My students did a great job rotating with a parent and a grandparent and the volunteers did a great job also! Special thanks to Ms. Patterson's art students for helping out: Shaniece, Aurora, Felicia, Karli, Shyla, and Carolyn. 

PRCA rodeo royalty

High school volunteers.

face painting

This is my Carolyn. I was so incredibly proud of her and how she
talked to each student and engaged them and made them feel special. 

5. Rodeo! Thursday night we went to Slack in F-f-f-f-freeeeeeeezing cold! But watched some bronc riding, steer roping, and saw the Clydesdales! Whoo! It is really cool to watch those horses work as a team. Wow. 

My folks came out from Kansas. This is my Dad and I.

Aren't they beautiful?!

My daughter and I! So cool that she went and stuck it out in the COLD!
Did I mention that it was COLD?! 

May Currently

It's time to hook up with Farley for May Currently! I am only on my first cup of coffee and I have a super busy weekend.  But I am in LOVE linky parties, so I can't resist!

Listening! I'm listening to My Name is Earl.  Why? Well, I am not sure. I'd tell you what a great parent I am and that I don't let my children watch inappropriate television, but since I just listed what I am listening to, you now know the truth. Maybe when we move I will get my dish back and we'll HAVE appropriate shows to choose from, but there is a pretty good chance I'll bury my head in the sand and pretend I don't know what my kids are watching. 

Loving! I am loving the four day work weeks. I feel guilty about that.  Because I have tons of end of the year assessments to do and plenty of teaching that just hasn't happened yet and we only have 12 days of school left. Yep, 12. This both exciting and frightening at the same time. But Thursday being the new Friday is really exciting.  I had a hugely exciting day yesterday as was the entire week, but that is a different post. Right now I am drinking my coffee and web surfing. Happy Saturday to me, only it's still just Friday. 

Thinking! I am worried about marketability.  I took a (?leap of faith?) and resigned my job.  It's complicated. Okay, not that much. I moved four and a half hours away from my home, my friends and my family to take a teaching job since there seems to be a shortage of teachers out here and I am can't seem to get people to look at me where we came from. And since I am in love with teaching, I did it. Then I had the harsh reality that it's not doing God's work if you can't pay your bills. I am trying to follow the logical path and believe it's God. I am really struggling. I miss my house, my friends, my community. But I am not experienced enough to get a second look where I come from. I am terrified that I won't get a job, which will affect my bucket list. 

Wanting! I am wanting to sleep in and stay up and pack and clean and wash and paint and..... swim and hike and fish and, and, and.... I am wanting summertime. I want assessing and report cards to be finished. Even though I know I will cry when I send my kiddos off the summer. I am wanting Kansas heat and wheat fields golden in the sun, ripe and ready for harvest and a chance to ride the combine.

Needing! I said a job. But maybe I just need more faith and less fear. I need to remember that my God will supply all my needs and that there is a perfect job out there for me and I am not the one who knows which job that is. 

Summer Bucket List: clean and paint and organize at our Kansas home, pack up and move from our OK home, go antiquing, repaint Punky's dresser, find a dresser for Red and restore or paint or whatever, print and organize centers for next year, re-read the Wong's book The First Days of School.  Figure out how or what I might do to allow for guided reading next year (this year we did centers but I it was too unsupervised and students didn't really follow directions), finish reading The Daily Five, read about other ways to structure reading/guided reading (this will likely be tied to my school district, when and if I find one).... Um, I want to do some things with my kiddos. My bff from forever ago (Kindergarten) is coming out here the first weekend  of June to experience our OK town; when we move home I hope to go to Coronado Heights for a day with the fam; I want to go to the zoo with kids and grandkids; I am hoping to take my children to Amarillo before we move because it is only 2 hours away from us now and would be a fun weekend. Too much to do in one measly summer! Whew. Good thing us teachers get summers OFF.  Hahahahaahaha. I am laughing at that statement! 

Busy, exhausting, rewarding.

I have so much I want to post about it's a little big ridiculous.  But I am so, so tired, I don't know if I can finish this, so we'll see how far this goes.

Yesterday was my first day back after my class finished a four day week with a sub. Yikes. We spent most of the day practicing our five classroom rules and discussing what that meant. Someway, somehow, my class has turned into these mumblers who look at the floor and mumble words and half-ways make motions when doing our rules. So we practiced that. And we practiced again. And again. We had a little time for science squeezed in with all that practice and so we observed our marigold seedlings and wrote about them. They totally didn't follow directions about drawing what they observed. Some drawings I could not tell what they drew, maybe a ferris-wheel?  But that student definitely used five colors on her drawing! One student wrote that they saw a beautiful flower, even though his one plant only has a couple little leaves on it. *sigh* And grrr. One bad day could be barometric pressure, or a bad kid day, but more than that, I say it is the teacher. But then that means that this teacher fails a lot. I am not sure what to do. But we've got to have some good learning days in the near future. Because the near future is all we have left, these kiddo's leave me in three short weeks. *big sigh*

Our class working on their marigold papers.

This is a big week in our town. So today we walked down and watched the cowboys do steer roping at something called "Slack." I don't know what that means exactly, if it is practice or if they are qualifying activities, but we walked down to the arena all sunscreened, capped, and shaded. I told students they would have to be responsible for whatever they brought, and to put on sunscreen at home and think about a hat and some possibly even sunglasses.

 

ever see anything cuter?

This little guy is one I will miss SO MUCH! He is learning so much english and talked to me all the way to the rodeo arena. And he loved the cattle and horses. And when he talked to me and I didn't understand him he would try to say things in a different way.... SO EXCITING! 

We were so exhausted when we got back to the school for lunch! Here is the deep intellectual learning we did when we got back.

That's right! Tom and Jerry!

Here we are, relaxing for a little while.

Then.... ROUND TWO of exhausting activities for the day! Yikes!   Er, I mean, YeeHaw! Fantastic! Fabulous! We did our outdoor Pioneer Days activities. We did a relay where students put on clothes (shirt, pants, hat) run to the other side, the other teach helps them take them off and they put them on, run back... and do it all again. Another relay we played was the egg toss, then we did the stick horse race and lastly... the bucket race (passing a bucket down the line, and dumping it in the trashcan, running up and doing it again).  The last game was guaranteed to get students wet, especially with the "help" of those running the game. Here are a few of the highlights.

Love, love, love to see this smile! 

he was so proud of himself for drinking down his water so quickly! 

Do I think textbook learning happened today? No. But maybe we practiced rule 62 a little bit today and we didn't take ourselves quite so seriously. Maybe we practiced teamwork and good sportsmanship.  Maybe we learned about the horses and steers at the rodeo. Maybe we just had fun.

*so here I sit at 11 p.m. as I finish this post and it is just now dropping into the 70s, but the wind is howling and the high tomorrow is supposed to be the same as the low tonight. Crazy barometric pressure anyway! My kiddos don't know how to act anymore! (When all else fails, blame the weather, not the teacher, right?)

Five for Friday....

It's Friday, Friday! Yesterday was the NEW Friday for me, but I was only in my classroom two days this week because my little Punkin was sick and was generous and shared with the rest of us! Yikes! Link up with Doodle Bugs for the all the lastest! I love Five for Friday, from posting to reading what is going on and gaining perspective, to reading about other people's struggles, to venting my frustrations, to finding the good things to dwell on from my class.

My Five this week feels a lot like a rehash to me. I guess I am stuck on the same thoughts over and over and over. So bear with me faithful few, I have always heard you talk about what is going on and if something is wrong you talk about it until it doesn't hurt (so much) any more.

1. My Punky got sick Wednesday morning and I went up to the school early and wrote sub plans and came home and put my head in the sand and tried not to imagine what was happening in my class without me. Anyone else feel this way? That NO ONE can take care of your kiddos like you can, and that a sub will certainly ruin your class even if for only one day? But it turned into two days.... I felt... sluggish the first morning and as the day wore on I felt less like myself and less like myself. By evening I had such a horrible headache I considered crying but I didn't dare because it would hurt worse. And then I look over at my daughter on the couch and she is shivering and saying how cold she was and she's flushed and I touch her and she was burning up! Yikes! So I called my blessed principal and she found me a sub for the next day too.

Finally able to rest...

2. The transition from centers to more independent writing activities is starting to smooth out. I got to look at and assess some of the students work, they are figuring out how to work quietly, and they are staying on task! Yay!!!

Rule 2 is: Follow Directions Quickly.  Was this too harsh? (seriously, I want to know)

We are focusing on finishing old projects. The above project was discovered stashed in a students' desk.... since some time before the middle of March. I have been stressing to students that they need to finish their work and not let it pile up.  This is one of the things we will discuss in our writer's conference this week.

Here is this delightful rubric again. I got it from a free download and I posted about it last week,
get more information here. 

3. The new pet! Whoo! We got a hamster for our classroom. My children are thrilled. I have said over and over and over and over (and over?) that we will never have a rodent in our house.  But guess where classroom pets go over the summer. That's right... I am the proud (?) owner of a hamster. Here are a couple photos. Most of the photos I took didn't turn out because this little guy is "not snuggly and cuddly" (translation: not friendly and doesn't like to be held or touched), so she runs when you touch her or try to even watch her too much.  I have plenty of blurry photos of my little hamster running as fast as she can on her little wheel. Yes, I am a little bit excited about this little rodent. 

I'm sorry, snuggly or not, she's cute! :)

4. Boo-hoo.... pity party in progress. You can join it right here. Leaps of faith seldom work out the way I have them planned. And I have noticed that God seldom ever asks me for input in regard to my life. Boo hoo. I would love, love, love to work in my own town.  But my own town won't even look at my resume or call my references! So I am sad for myself and licking my wounds even though I know that my God has a job out there for me. Here's the whole pity list: I am now applying for jobs as far as an hour commute away, I can't get my hometown to look at me professionally, I will be leaving a teaching team I love and students I adore and so far I cannot figure out how I'm going to pay my bills. So I am counting on the prayers of my family and friends to help me remember that my God will supply all my needs and I am so grateful that friends and family support me in every way possible. 

5. Gratitude reigns (rains?). I am SO grateful that I will be living in MY HOME again in two months! TWO MONTHS! Whooo..... 

This is the house we are renting in our current town.

Our Home that God put in our lives and I miss terribly.... see you soon lovely home! 

P.S. Only 16 days of school with students and 17 days for teachers, then a mass exit-us (haha... exodus, get it?) for me, clearing out my classroom so they can a) move my class across the street, and b) so the new Kinder teacher can get it organized how she wants it.