Sunday, 19th, to Tuesday, 21st

Sunday, 19th August 2012

Today was awesome!! Late Saturday night, we decided that a trip to the Dandenongs would be in order today (Sunday). The weather was a tiny bit unfavorable; there was a touch of fog. We had a bit of a slow morning, though, and so by the time we made it up to 'Sky High', a cafe and function room, the sky had cleared up enough for me to get a pretty cool shot of the city from a pretty decent distance:

Although I would have preferred a bit more clarity, I was still pretty excited about the view from the lookout:)

At the top of the 'Mountain', there were several activities including; a cafe, a function room, a bush maze, a wishing tree (with a cool myth behind it), several other carvings/statues/art, as well as a variety of walking trails. I was ready to go on a photo hunt/hike, but everyone was pretty cold, so we piled back in the car to do some more exploring.

On our way back down the other side, we drove through a cute little tourist town called 'Olinda', which gave the definite feel of the main stretch of Leavenworth (people from Washington). Lots of adorable little shops, unique, varying, with a ridiculous number of tourists. The plan was to stop in Olinda for lunch and shopping, but after seeing three different tourist buses parked down the street, we decided to press on. 

We stopped in another little tourist spot called 'Sassafrass'. Same idea, although a few fewer shops, and a lot fewer tourists. After having an absolutely fabulous panini at a little cafe (with a hilarious waiter), we trotted off down the street to find some exciting and absolutely AWESOME shops.

Obviously, the one to which I am referring was one of the coolest toy shops I have ever seen in my life. Not only were there muppets decorating the shop from floor to wall to ceiling, but when I walked it Rainbow Connection by Kermit the Frog was playing. I almost melted it was so wonderful! Sam - I took a video of it for you:). Also throughout the shop were an incredible number of puzzles, games, and building things! I found a particularly cool item; a to scale replica of the trebuchet designed by Leonardo da Vinci. I know it works because I played with it for quite a while. heh. The shop also held TONS of wooden toys. Dolls, blocks, and many other things, but mostly it had wooden 'house' stuff. What I mean by this is miniature, wooden replicas of everything in a house, so children can play house effectively. Mixers, ovens, fridges, computers, AWESOMENESS. 

Why do I keep using that word? I do not think it means what I think it means....

Anyway. After Sassafrass, we headed home, so we would have time to wind down and relax a bit before I needed to head out to Netball.

Tor and Cathy picked me up plenty early (Blake!) and got to netty with twenty minutes to spare. However, we didn't have three of our key players (two of which are tall boys). We were unperturbed, and played like madmen anyway! Unfortunately, we were destroyed. Absolutely murdilated by the other team. Specifically, by the woman who played Goal Shooter and threw the ball like an extension of her own hand, and it ended up exactly where she wanted it every single time. The final score was 28-13 or something ridiculous like that. Relatively certain I stopped looking once we hit double digits because I was celebrating the little things (like making double digits).

Went home, finished my blog from the previous week, and went to bed.

Monday, 20th August, 2012

Monday was a pretty normal day:

Woke up exhausted. Dragged myself out of bed to the shower.

Ate. Dressed. Walked to school.

Taught some lessons, poked fun at Blake a bit, and came home.

Ate a delicious dinner, prepared for my lessons for Tuesday, and tried to go to bed early (but didn't).

Tuesday, 21st August, 2012

Wow. Today was quite a day. I had my first observation with my supervisor today, and I felt relatively prepared. Unfortunately, I didn't really know what to expect because 1) every supervisor is different and has different expectations and 2) my kids are a tiny bit unpredictable. Mostly 2. 

I had a pretty clear plan for the day, so when a schedule change came in four minutes before school started, I could easily switch around our schedule to match the change. 

To start off the day, I did a whole class lesson on editing and revising papers. My kids do tend to do a lot of writing, but there's not always a lot of time to publish the writing. This week for literacy rotations, we decided to allocate time for students to learn and practice editing, revising, and publishing their own work.

The lesson went pretty well, but do to the wide range of skills in my classroom, some students were finished in under five minutes, and others could complete it in ten. This presented a problem when I was beginning to do my whole group corrections, in which one student at a time came up and corrected a sentence on the board. While one or two students was up at the board, however, the rest of the students began to get distracted and lose focus/interest. After slowly trudging through the rest of the corrections, I set the students to work on revising some sentences; making them more interesting, more clear, or more specific. Some of the students absolutely took off with this idea; changing, embellishing and emphasizing parts of the sentences. Other students were unable to grasp the concept of 'better', 'clearer', or 'more interesting' words and word choice. However, for those students, I was happy with them making any changes to the sentences that maintained the meaning. Whew.

After finally catching on that the kids were almost all the way out of my grasp, I called a halt to work and had them sit on the floor for fruit time with their revised sentences. In my experience, revisions for the sake of revisions tend to get pretty silly, so I assumed that students would enjoy sharing their changes with the rest of the class while we all enjoyed some fruit/down time. 

I retrieved them, if only just enough to get them started in their literacy rotations, which is already planned, and only requires circulation throughout the room by the teachers and occasional help (aside from the focus group).

Then recess (whew, take a breath, drink a large mug of hot chocolate).

When the students came back from recess I began to introduce a new topic based on the unit we began yesterday. There needed to be a lot of student participation, but also paying specific attention to peers. I never have a problem getting student participation, but attention of the class as a whole was wandering faster than their eyes in a lolly shop. 

Unfortunately, I didn't handle it very well, and began to get frustrated. Because I still haven't spent a lot of time alone in the classroom, several students are still keen to find where my boundaries are discipline-wise. I was poked and prodded by kids sticking several toes out of line and then quickly pulling them back in and smiling. I was more frustrated, and the kids could tell. 

The absolutely worst part was that I could tell they could tell, and I knew I needed to stop reacting in order to stop them from pushing, but I just didn't do it well. 

Eventually we went outside for a break from the classroom monotony. This was going well until two boys began to pick on pretty much everyone. When I walked over to them, one ran and one walked away saying, 'I can't hear you'. I was absolutely furious. At this time, there were about 10 kids playing Octopus, two girls crying, two boys bullying and ignoring me, and everyone else watching how I handle the situation carefully. 

I sent everyone back inside. 

Although there was a bit of complaining, for the most part the students followed the aide back into the classroom. However, the two boys, now holed up together in the tube on the playground with sticks, refused to come. This is the kind of outright defiance that really ticks me off:

Me: Time to go back to class.

Student: No.

Me: Yep, everyone's going in because we're going to work on maths next.

Student: I'm not going, and you can't make me. 

The very worst part about this is that he's right. I can't make him. I really don't have the authority to and it's not my place to make judgements about discipline or contacting parents at this school. 

I realize now what I should have told him was, "You're right, I can't make you. It's up to you to figure out what the right choice is. You'll like the consequences to the right choice, but you won't like those of the wrong one."

Instead, I said, "Okay, then I'll go get someone who can."

Once I got the students back into the classroom, I asked Blake to go get the boys, which took all of two minutes.

Of all of this struggle, the part that stresses me out the most is that I had to go get help. I understand needing help to handle an entire class, but needing help in order to get two fourth grade boys off of the playground is something I wouldn't expect for me.

Later, when I was having a discussion with the class, Blake had to step in again. Reminding them that I am also a teacher, and that they should respect me just as they respect him. I am so grateful that Blake was there, because chances are, I would have been eaten alive. 

To me, however, the fact that a student teacher had to call in back up in order to get kids to listen tells me the student teacher isn't prepared for....well, anything. This is the real struggle I'm having right now. UGH. 

Thank god for Bob and Judy, though. Judy came to pick me up after school, and I had a calm, lovely, relaxing (except for the bit with Apple TV) evening with them eating dinner, chatting, and looking at photos. Thank you both so much! 

Tomorrow is a new day! I'll be firm, and keep them engaged. This is my goal for Wednesday. I can do it!

Thanks for listening to my self-pity! Talk to you all soon!

With Love,

Megan

Weekend, August 17-18

Friday Footy!

Thursday was a pretty boring day, so I just went ahead and skipped right over it.

Friday! Our co-teacher was home sick all day, so Blake went ahead and covered her classroom, and I covered ours. We did have a CRT (Casual Relief Teacher - Substitute), but she just acted as an aide for most of the day.

Friday after school was pretty tricky for several reasons:

Had a meeting with a students' mum and she was absolutely wonderful! We chatted a little bit about her son and what kinds of supports we have in place and we will put in place to help him out in social situations, and academically.

Immediately after our meeting with a mum, we were told about a situation that occurred directly after school with two of our students. Because the whole story is incredibly complicated, I'll just tell you that there's a long history of bullying between the two, and there were a series of bad decisions made on both sides, and parents were involved, phone calls were made, and some serious changes are going to be made with those boys.

Immediately after working with this situation, we had to tend to a situation with a student who is physically beating up on other kids. This includes deciding the kind of disciplinary actions to take, what to say to Mum, and how to re-integrate him into the classroom after his incredibly violent disruptions. 

Anyway, eventually I got home, just in time to change my clothes and head out to the footy game!

Kylen, Melissa, Kelsey, Mark, and I went to Etihad Stadium in the Docklands to see the St.Kilda v. Geelong game. As Mark barracks for Geelong, we all decided to barrack for St. Kilda, just because....We like to mess with people:)

We were sitting waaaay up in the nosebleed section which is fun, because you can see such a huge angle of view, so we could see the whole field from where we were sitting. The players looked like little ants, but we certainly could see the whole thing!

Highlight of the travel to the game: I found a two dollar coin on the ground! I sneakily dropped another coin on the ground so I had an excuse to squat down and pick up both of them:-D It was awesome and clever.

The game was fun; St. Kilda really did give Geelong a run for their money, but in the end Geelong won out.

Aside from a stupid clock in the stadium that would freaking change for a half hour, the game was fun, and delicious! The chips we had were easily the saltiest snack I have ever had in my life, and I actually left some chips on the plate! Whoa.

This was the spectacular view from our seats:

Etihad is an ENORMOUS stadium, and seats around 90,000 people I believe. However, compared to MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground), it's tiny! The MCG seats about 120,000 I believe, and I am absolutely terrified out of my mind to go there, because there's absolutely no escape from all the people! Aaaah!

Anyway, we had fun, and got home a little on the early side, but we were all quite exhausted.

Saturday

Saturday morning started out slow, as our weekend mornings often do. Kylen, Melissa, Kelsey and I have been planning to go up north on our holiday all together, and Saturday morning, I turned travel agent, and may have done a tiny bit of bullying people into making decisions. I'm relatively certain that I didn't bully anyone into anything they don't like, but I definitely bullied people into making decisions, because we had been wishy-washy about it since we had first started talking about it. Heh.

So, come our holidays, when Kelsey, Kylen and I are finished with our student teaching, the four of us will head out from Melbourne on this journey:

September 25th:

Fly from Melbourne to Brisbane, NSW

Bus from Brisbane to Noosa

Spend three days laying on beaches, hiring bbq boats, and other vacation-y stuff while staying at a hostel!

September 29th:

Bus from Noosa to Brisbane

Fly from Brisbane to Sydney

Check in at a Hostel and Kylen and Kelsey stay three days and Melissa and I stay five days!

October 4th:

Fly from Sydney to Melbourne

I am so excited to our holiday I can't even handle it all!! On Saturday morning we managed to get all of our flights and hostels booked for our holiday, and since we can't back out anymore, it's finally real! :-D

After getting everything booked, we headed to the train station! At this point, Kelsey is beginning to feel a little bit sick with a cold, and so she headed back home. Kylen, Melissa and I headed into the city to find Brunswick street, a shopping area we had been told about on at least three different occasions by three different people!

We mosied our way into the city, but, unfortunately, I forgot my map of the City. This is very strange, because I NEVER forget my map of the city. Anyway, once we got off the train, we couldn't freaking find the damn street! We spent quite a while wandering Fitzroy, and Johnston, and past the Royal Exhibition Building before we eventually found all the cute little shops down the road! On this walk we found a lot of cool things, but we found two absolutely FANTASTIC things. One of them was an amazing gift for my babies; I will not show a picture of this, because it's on display in my room now because it's so. freaking. awesome. We also found a place called the 'Chocolateria: San Churro'. Over the door it says, "Forget love, I'd rather fall in chocolate!". The chocolate was absolutely AMAZING. And we WILL be going back for the fondue for sure! 

Once we made it back to the train to get home (with the help of some strangers who were very nice), we headed out to Tor's house to go with her to a party at her boyfriend's footy club! We had a good time for a bit, but after a while we realized that club wasn't really our scene, and so we headed out for a relatively early night. We made it home and spent a while chatting and being silly with Jo and Gretchen before heading off to bed. 

Sunday was an AWESOME day, but it's definitely time for me to go to bed tonight, so I will talk about today tomorrow. Hah. 

Thanks for reading!

Sunday the 12th through to Wednesday the 15th

Sunday, August 12th

After a very busy Saturday night at the footy club party (the theme was "I can't believe you're wearing that!"), we had a slow start on Sunday morning. Some of us had a slow start until Sunday afternoon;) Anyway, Melissa and Kelsey headed back home earlier in the day and we spent the day lounging around and working on lesson and other plans. 

That night, I had a netball game. Tor came to pick me up and was a little on the late side. Last week, I had taken home the bibs (pennies/jerseys) to wash them. They had been washed and carefully placed in a bag on my bed to take with me to the game. Unfortunately, by the time Tor got there, I was getting a little stressed out and quickly rushed outside to get into the car; forgetting the bibs. So...we got to the game late, and they were already playing. Blake yelled to me, "grab a bib and get out here". So I ran in, and joined the game; we were seven or eight points behind. We played the horrifically unfair game (both umpires knew all of the other team players by name), and we actually played quite well. Unfortunately, by the end of the game at which we were whistled at dozens of times, we were still behind by seven or eight points. Which is good to know that we were doing well and actually holding our own once we had a full team on the court. Anyway, we lost the game, but Kylen came to the game because we all went out to a restaurant called "Persian Flavours" which was absolutely fantastic! I haven't really had a lot of experience with Arabic and middle-eastern food, and the things we shared (family style) were absolutely delicious! Dinner was great with a few of the players from our team, and I headed to bed after getting home.

Monday and Tuesday

Dave's Memorial Service was on Monday morning (or, Sunday Afternoon). I was able to send in my video so it could be played at the service, and I was also able to be Skyped in for the whole service! I bitch about technology a lot, but what it did for me at the beginning of last week it was absolutely incredible! I got to watch the service, and after, my mom carried me around (on the laptop), so I was able to experience a large portion of the reception as well, even if I didn't actually get to eat the snacks, including maple bars!! Thanks so much to everyone who made that possible, including Sam, Dad, Mom, Brian Plog, Lorraine, Dave, Celeste, everyone:)

The beginning of the week was pretty slow; I was still feeling pretty crappy with a stuffy nose and a nasty cough, but I did my best; especially considering that I had more or less full control of the classroom on Monday, as Blake was at the District Athletics Tournament all day.

Wednesday

Still not feeling 100%, but starting to get a little better off - finally!!
The day at school was pretty standard, but after chatting with Blake after school during planning, I convinced him to go bowling and out to dinner with Kylen and I.
I had a coupon for AMF bowling at the Forest Hill Chase across the street. I'm generally a pretty good bowler, and so I was pretty comfortable 'making it interesting'. I was wrong. I absolutely screwed myself over. I haven't bowled that badly since I was about six years old. Blake won and then Kylen won, and I ended up buying our second round of drinks (because of the first game) and the dessert at dinner (because of the second game). Absolutely destroyed. Ugh.
Anyway, after the terrible bowling game, we went to Mi Va Il Gusto, the Italian restaurant to which Jocelyn and Rick took us on our second night in Australia! We went because the food is absolutely delicious, but the desserts are Oh. My. Goodness. Kylen ordered the Tirramisu both times, and I ordered the amazing After Dinner Mint ice cream thing. They were so absolutely fantastic, we will obviously be going back. Often. It was wonderful.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday

Thursday; 9/8/2012; PRODUCTION!

Wow, what a day!! When I woke up in the morning, I felt like crap. But, I didn't have a fever, and was clinging to that. I made my way to school slowly and took the bus. Upon getting to school I was still slow moving, but because today was the full dress rehearsal for the production tonight, we didn't have a ton of planning to do. It was a relatively low key day until we got ready to actually go to production practice. I was in charge of all of the grade fours in our class, because our grade fours went with the five and sixes. 

So, at noon, I took ten of our kids to the bus and we drove out to a Secondary College, and waited there for about an hour while the same bus ferried back and forth between our school and the college to bring three sets of kids to the theatre. This, in itself, is a pretty tall order. 

Anyway, after the ridiculousness of everything with preparing for production, we eventually made our way back to school. Once we sent the kids off with parents, we just spent some time in the staff room until the Olympics came back on; then we went back into a classroom and watched the Olympics for a about an hour, before going to.

the.

production.

Although my school is pretty small for a P-6 primary school, the ENTIRE school in one production is pretty insane. Luckily our music teacher is absolutely amazing. 

Between trying to keep our kids quiet enough to be backstage, chasing one of my girls to make sure she didn't run on stage at any random time, and sending our whole grade out onto the stage too early, we made it. We all survived, even if only just. 

Teachers all went out to TGIFridays for dinner and drinks afterward which was great fun! :-D

Friday, 10/8/2012

Friday morning, EVERYONE was moving slowly. My host teacher also let me know that I would be taking over the whole classroom on Monday, because he would be gone all day. Monday will be a bit of a wonky day because a large portion of our kids will be gone at the District Athletics Competition (which is where my host teacher will be). 

Anyway, Friday was a bit of a wonky day as well, because everyone was recovering from the production (it went quite a bit later than most of the students are used to staying up). Coming home from school, I had to go pretty much straight to work in my room to get the video recorded for Dave's memorial service. Sam and I had talked before, and decided that the video should be about 3-4 minutes. Whoops - I apparently had a lot more to say than that because the video ended up being almost eight minutes long. However, I told Sam that it would have to be good enough, because I certainly wasn't going to do it again...

Fortunately, Melissa (another American exchange student) came to visit this weekend! She lives a few hours outside of Melbourne in the middle of nowhere, and so was glad to have some time with people and near the city. Friday night was nice and relaxed, eating pizza, having champagne. I taught Jo and Reigo how to play Farkle, and although they accused me of cheating....several times...we had fun:). Went to bed a tad early, because Saturday was going to be a big day (little did we know how big it would actually be...).

Saturday, 11/8/2012

Melissa, Kylen and I woke up relatively early so that we could go to head out to Lilydale to see another American student teacher, Kelsey, and we would all go to an animal park called the Healesville Sanctuary. For the past few days we had been unsure as to whether we would get to go, because it was supposed to dumb rain on Saturday. Fortunately, we ended up sticking it out and going anyway. All morning, there was virtually no rain. 

Kylen, Melissa, and I headed out to Lilydale around 9:45. We took the train out to Lilydale (about a half hour) to catch the 10:55 bus to the Sanctuary. 

Well, by the time we got there, we had a chance to go to the cafe and have some hot chocolate. We drank our hot chocolate (none of us really are interested in coffee - a fact which has astounded many Australians). We headed back to the bus stop and waited until about 11:00 before I decided to check the timetable. 10:55 was the bus on Sundays. The next bus out to the Sanctuary was at 11:40. we gave Kelsey some crap for misreading the timetable, and then headed to the shops across the street to wait inside for forty minutes. 

Fortunately, a surprise waited for us inside of the 'Coles'.

Not only had my phone begun to run out of minutes, so I needed to recharge it somewhere, but Kylen and I have been hunting for an elusive scarf. Down here, everyone and their mother has this yellow and green scarf, designed specifically for the Olympics. On one side it says "Go Aussies!" on the other "London 2012!". Kylen and I have seen them everywhere and have desperately been wanting one. Any and every store has been sold out, not had them on display, etc. It's been a serious frustration. But behold, when we walked into the Coles across the street, there lay our scarves, on sale for only two dollars!!!! We were so excited! We got our scarves, and headed back to the bus stop to catch our bus to the sanctuary.

Driving up we were taunted by the weather, going back and forth between sunshine and dumping rain the entire ride. We were getting nervous about whether we would actually get to see the animals or if they would all be hiding, out of the rain.

There were definitely some favorite animals when we got there, including the Koalas, Platypi, and Pelicans. Obviously the Kangaroos and Wallabees were awesome too, but those three were really where the excitement was for us. We went to see the Koalas almost immediately, and although they were mostly quietly and sneakily hidden in the trees, we got some cool pictures. One of which is below.

Whoops! That wasn't the actual Koala......

I apologize for the crick in your neck you may get from looking at this picture - but I think it's absolutely adorable! You can see a right side up picture on facebook if you want:)

Kelsey and Melissa REALLY loved the koalas:)

It was obviously me that was so freaking excited about the Platypi. 

When we finally got to the platypus thing, they are so freaking tiny!!!! They are absolutely adorable, and so freaking fast, so I didn't actually get a good picture of either of them. The best I got was a blur of dark ish shape in front of the light in the tank. :( It was a bit of a let down, but good to see them anyway. When I was in about first grade, I did a report on the duck-billed platypus, and I thought I was so cool. And I was. 

Next....the PELICANS. When we saw the pelicans, they were all congregated outside of the Wallabee enclosure, where we were coming out. We immediately thought of was Nigel from Finding Nemo. Nigel, however, was a nice pelican. These ones were not. 

They were so close to people, and just so incredibly relaxed around everyone, we decided to get some pictures. We each took pictures near the big birds. I tried to get closer, but one of them peered at me with it's creepy-ass yellow eye....

See? TERRIFYING.

Anyway, all of the sudden he turned his beak toward me and looked 'down his nose' at me. All of the sudden, he cracked!!!!!!!! This is not actually a photo I took, but this is what it looked like:

It was so terrifying, I'm relatively certain if I had had to pee, I wouldn't have any more after this moment. 

We also saw an incredible birds of prey show; incredible with eagles, hawks, parrots and cockatoos; many photos are available on my facebook, but right now, I think this post is getting too long, and I'm only a very short way through my whole weekend!

Home Sick Wednesday

My host teacher has approved me staying home sick today. He says I need to, because I have to be able to run our kids through the production tomorrow. hah.

This was my day:
Slept on and off - not for too long at a time, because I had to pee from drinking so much water, or blow my nose.
Slept 'in' until 10:30.
Got up, took a hot shower for about an hour with the fan off so as to try to clear out my sinuses, etc.
Spent an hour or so watching the detroit tigers/NYYankees play on tv.
Back to bed - skype with mom and jory and cait and people, watch final episode of Eureka (pretty damn good).
Sleep until 4:30. Get up around 5:00, sit and watch the news...

I'll let you know if there are any other developments. Obviously you will be waiting with bated breath.

Tuesday - Stuffy Nose and Production Practice!

Sunday, 5/8/2012

Sunday night was absolutely fantastic! My netball team won! I was dramatically improved; only getting whistled at once or twice. Or three times. Definitely less than five, at least. I also made a successful pass enough times that I didn't count it:) Progress!

Monday, 6/8/2012

Monday at school was, as all Mondays, a bit of a rough start. When I got to school I realized that the work I had done to prepare for a lesson on Monday morning, had been left on my computer at home; I didn't get to email to myself. I was quite frustrated, and in no real shape to cope with any issues or mistakes. Fortunately, I sucked it up, and was able to do the lesson anyway.

Later on that day, however, I taught a math lesson on graphing which was absolutely awesome! Each student made a chart with five spots to tally; sit ups, push-ups, star jumps (jumping jacks), step-ups, and planking. We all went outside, and students were given a chance to see how many of each of these activities they could do in thirty seconds. This was outdoor exercise, in the sunshine, and out of the classroom - the kids had a great time and followed directions very well! For the planking, all the kids started at the same time, and when I saw one kid go down, I called out the time, so everyone wrote down their own time for planking.

My toughest kids stayed up for 7 minutes!!!! They would have stayed longer, but I cut them off, because all of the other students had returned to the classroom. 

Back in the room, students totaled their tallies, and made bar graphs of their exercises. We discussed why the graphs were better ways to represent completed data than the tally charts, why we used tally charts to gather data, and what we could tell just by looking at the bar graph. My kids were SUPER intuitive. Right off the bat, one of my girls said, "You can tell that some of the exercises were harder than others." She was then able to tell me the process she went through to infer that. I was amazed!

After all the students finished their graphs, we looked at what we could tell from comparing two graphs, why you can't always compare two graphs next to each other (in case they have different scales).

After completing the individual graphs, I opened up an excel document on the projector, and had all the students tell me their times for the planking. This I opened into a bar graph first organized alphabetically, and then organized by time. Students were able to make observations and inferences from this final graph.

The whole staff had a professional development meeting right after school on the State of Victoria math curriculum, which I was told I probably shouldn't go to. So I got home early, did some preparation for the next couple days, and watched some Olympics:) I also made peanut butter cookies (which I have been craving, since many Australians think all Americans are obsessed with Peanut Butter); and brought them to school today, Tuesday.

Tuesday, 7/8/2012

This morning I woke up with a progressively worse cough and sore throat, but the peanut butter cookies were a huge hit! They were gone by lunchtime, and several teachers complained that they didn't get one. I'll be baking relatively often this term, I think:).

Today I remembered to email myself the documents I had worked on, and was still able to use them for literacy rotations today. The template and example I had made were, I think, helpful to some of the students who can't think quite as abstractly as some of their peers.

By recess, I was getting tired, and my nose was running. Cough continued, which affected my sore throat. Drank more water - a lot. Also peed a lot.

After recess, we had a WHOLE SCHOOL dress rehearsal for the production on Thursday. It was insane. Our school goes from preps (kindergarteners - 5 year olds) through grade six (twelve year olds). My group, grade threes and fours, is easily the worst behaved level in the school, and it really showed when the whole school was together. All the staff know and understand that the group of kids have a wide variety of needs, behaviorally, socially, emotionally, and academically, and don't blame the 3/4 teachers for the behavioral incidents (thank goodness!). However, it's quite frustrating when a nine year old rolls his eyes at you regularly. Grr. I can handle a lot of problem behaviors, but overt disrespect is something I really, really struggle with. Through lunch I was able to calm myself and refocus my patience a little bit. After lunch I gave him no warnings, and only acted according to the school behavioral plan. He didn't trouble me again. Take that, disrespectful kid!

At lunch we had three separate incidents at recess in the yard  based around physical violence with our students. My host teacher dealt with them specifically for the rest of the day, and spent most of the hour outside of the classroom. Although my thrown-together graphing lesson was pretty zoo-ey, my host came back in at the end of the day telling me he really appreciated how dependable I was, and that I did well working with the group I had. (Two of my students spent most of the session yelling back and forth at each other, 

"DON'T LOOK AT ME, I'M TRYING TO LISTEN." 

"NO, I'M TRYING TO LISTEN, YOU ARE LOOKING AT ME."

"YOU LOOKED AT ME FIRST!"

As a credit to the rest of my class, they did their very best to ignore the prep-level bickering, but some tried to help and got themselves involved, which only encouraged the problem. Oof. It was rough, but we did get to the end of the lesson, eventually.

I came home absolutely drained of energy and sicker than a dog. However, when Kylen called to ask if I wanted to go out for coffee, I said yes, because I hate to turn down any chance to have some Australian experience. Mark took us to a coffee shop...somewhere...and although the bread and hummus and chips were wonderful, the coffee was still nasty. Mark had his hopes up, though, so we both finished our hot beverages. After, we went out for incredible gelato at a place called, "Trampoline: The Flavours jump out at you!"

I will be going there again.

However, as it turns out, I probably shouldn't have gone out, because I came home feeling worse, and about 95% there's a fever tagging along as well. Straight to bed for me, and I'll talk to you all tomorrow, because unless I feel significantly better in the morning, I may spend all day at home blogging. We shall see...

Lots of Love!

-Megan

Whoops! I got too far behind!!

Wednesday, 1/8/2012

I got to go to school with Kylen today! It was exciting to get a view of another school, as my school is very, very small.
The walk to school was shorter than my walk to school, so that was a nice start to the morning, especially since it was 2 degrees when we headed out.
Getting to school, the staff room was huge compared to mine! Walking through the school felt a little more like a traditional school that I had been accustomed to before coming down under.
Some things that I noticed/got to do/see at Kylen's school:
The classrooms are sealed off; the classrooms are completely closed off from each other and what else is happening in the hallway or other parts of the school. This is good, because I noticed that there are fewer distractions outside of the classroom. Especially for second graders (such as Kylen's students), this is great if you have a lot to do during the day!
Another thing I got to do when I was at Kylen's school was to go visit two different children with special needs in the building. One student had no funding/extra support in the classroom, as his ASD/ADD was undiagnosed. His inability to connect with other students or respond to social cues made it pretty apparent, but because he was not diagnosed, he was not funded and his teacher didn't receive any aide time to help him out during instruction. The other student I got to visit had been diagnosed with ASD already and  was funded at level 5. This is the highest level for students' special needs funding, so he spent most of his day with a one-on-one aide. He responded really well to me intruding on his day, and he was so interesting to watch; finding the correct way to make a connection and allow him to display his skills and knowledge. The aides that were working with him were absolutely wonderful with reading his mood/frustration level, and he was able to complete the work that his typically developing peers were completing; it was so exciting to see a system of full inclusion working well! It gives me hope! :)
I also noticed a lot of phonemic awareness work in all three classrooms where I spent time. I also learned about a fun reading games website called reading eggs. www.readingeggs.com.au, which I probably wouldn't use for my classroom, but would be great for fun computer games at home:).
A few hilarious quotes from some second graders in Kylen's room;

• After he showed and told, he asked for questions. One student said "Which one is the best?" The student accuracy said, "Well, my opinion is suggesting this one."
• "People don't usually get killed by a gun. They get slower and more tired."
• "What do we get if we win?" "My love and adoration." "Cool!"

I also learned about a game you can play with the orangutans at Melbourne Zoo. I will be investigating, and then will report back.

Also, an awesome game called 'Sleeping Lions', akin to 'The Quiet Game'. All the students pretend to be sleeping lions and the teacher tries to spot them moving/make them laugh. Great game for killing twenty minutes in a very quiet classroom:)

Thursday, 2/8/2012

Today, Kylen came to my school! Although we had a pretty crazy day (the top three honchos were out for the day), it was overall pretty positive. 

One of the reasons I have fallen behind on my blog is as follows:

As many of you may know, my father in law was in critical condition all day Thursday and Friday (Aus. time), and passed away Saturday morning, 8:00 am Australian time, 4 pm Saturday PST. I'd like to recognize him a little bit here.

David Britton

Dave was one of the single sweetest men I have ever met in my life. Upon meeting him in 2005 at the Christmas band concert (Sam and I had just started dating), I was absolutely terrified. There was no reason to be. He and Lorraine were the most welcoming and accepting people I have ever met, and for that I am so thankful that I got to spend the time with him that I did. Just looking at facebook (aah, the digital age), you can see the incredible number of people whose lives he touched, and there are so many more beyond that. Dave was one of the people that had the utmost confidence in me flying all the way around the world in order to learn. He had a countdown of how many days until I left, and he was supportive, and confident in me way beyond the confidence I had in myself. Living with Dave and Lorraine after I finished my classes, while I was student teaching in Lake Stevens, I got to spend a lot of time with him. Every morning, when I left for school, he would tell me, "Have a good day!". Every afternoon when I came home, he never failed to ask, "How was school today?".

Dave's sense of humor, was one thing that we have all relied upon over the last few years. I've always been a proponent of "Laugh, so you don't cry", and Dave supported me here, as well. We play a lot of Farkle at the Britton household (as probably everyone knows!), and whenever it was Dave's turn, he always said that he had the edge on us, because he was already shakin' the dice!

More recently, when the doctors changed his diagnosis to MSA, his first proclamation was, "Then I'd like a Maple Bar every day for the rest of my life!" For which I can't fault him, because they are absolutely wonderful. And, in a true David fashion, he was ever sharing the wonderful donuts with whomever was interested.

Dave loved his family absolutely and unconditionally; but he also really loved Hawaii. Over the seven years that I have been a part of this family, I have learned more about Hawaii through Vacation pictures, tales of helicopter rides, and, in September 2011, actually going there! Dave believed that everyone should spend time in Hawaii, because it was where he was absolutely the happiest, and when his family got to be there with him, he didn't stop smiling for the entire week. I'm not sure if it was the sunshine, the rum, the many women in bathing suits, or a combination of those and everyone else enjoying them as well.

So many thoughts and stories run through my mind right now, as I try to figure out how to show or tell exactly how much you meant to me. I say just me, because I can only hope to demonstrate that. How much you mean to everyone would be impossible to put in a silly little blog. Obviously, showing how much you mean to just me wouldn't fit in a silly little blog, but I digress.

Dave;

Not being there with you, with our family and friends, was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I stayed in Australia because everyone told me that if I flew home you would come down and find a way to kick my ass. I don't think you could catch me in your wheelie chair....but everyone else seems to think you could.

I can't imagine how difficult it will be to come home and find you not there, so I'm deciding not to think about it. Hopefully up there you'll whoops peoples' butts at Farkle, just like you do down here, and even the most Saintliest of Saints will play, "Damn it, Dave!".

I'm still going to bring you something from Australia, although I'm not sure what quite yet. The only issue I have is not getting to see the look on your face when I give it to you; because I'm sure it will be dreadfully clever.

Down under, at my school, we do a cheer that's pretty familiar to those up north. I don't know what the last part means, but I felt I needed to bring something Australian into this, because it's the reason I'm not there with everyone today.

"Hip hip, hooray!

Hip hip, hooray!

Hip hip, hoory!

And half a HOO!"

I would send a whole HOO for you, though, Dave. You were the best father-in-law anyone could have, and such an incredible friend. I love you so much!

Love,

Megan (the best daughter-in-law anyone could ever have;)

Friday, 3/8/2012

Friday is a bit of a blur. Kids the world over can sense weakness, so they kind of walked all over me.

Fortunately, Bob and Judy picked me up from school, and I was able to have some time in a comfortable place with comfortable people.

Kylen's friend from school, Mark, took us out into the city on Friday night to 'The Curve Bar'. A place that felt waaay too classy for me, but we had a good time, and it was so sweet of Kylen to invite me out, when I really needed to be preoccupied.

Saturday, 4/8/2012

Saturday I spent on Skype or on the phone. So glad to get to 'be' with everyone at least a little bit.

Saturday night, Kylen and I went to the trivia night fundraiser at her school; our table's theme was Pirates, and I still have a pretty awesome temporary tattoo on my right forearm of the Jolly Roger. Also - I finally got to where my treasure map and Jolly Roger Earrings! It was a very exciting time:)

Sunday, 5/8/2012

Today Bob and Judy will be picking me up at around 10:30 to go out for coffee, and then off to see Andrew (my mom's host brother) and Jo (his wife) and their kids. The oldest has an under tens footy game that I get to see today:)

Tonight is netball again; I hope to wear tall socks to mess with a certain person. Cross your fingers for me and hope I can get a bit better today.

Love to you all, and thanks for bearing with me throughout my longest post yet. Whew! Hopefully I don't get this far behind again...

Love,

Megan

P.S. They don't use dryer sheets down here! Kylen and I have been hunting for three weeks, and no one uses them at all! Also, the soda Root Beer, they call 'Sasperilla'. Weird. I also have more to say about the Australian school system in comparison to the American system, but I need to get ready to go watch footy!