The World of a Three Year Old!!!

This is my first year teaching and I am one of the three year old teachers at the UWA Campus School. My life is no longer boring anymore because the wonderful kids keep me on my toes. They are constantly doing funny things and are always keeping me laughing.

This is Kinsley and Mary Reeves. You know people always say that children can tell when you aren't having a good day. I wasn't having a good day that day and these two girls knew it. They walked up to my desk and said, "Miss Olivia, we are going to make faces at you until you laugh!" Of course, it only took for them to make like one face and I couldn't stop laughing.

This is another one of my students, Shaniya. She is always having fun and loves doing silly things with me. These kids have made my first year of teaching a wonderful year and one that I will never forget.

St. Patrick's Day

Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day as we all know. The leprechaun visited my classroom of three year olds that I teach and of course left a big mess. The kids loved it and of course freaked out when they saw everything. It was priceless.

Trying to De-stress

So I am trying this blog thing now. I am pretty new to it. I have written a couple of times just for me but usually I have used this blog for a class where we had to create a blog. Two girls that I teach with and who have become some pretty good friends of mine are completely obsessed with blogging. They do it all the time. They told me it was fun to do and that is helps them get rid of some stress. I have had nothing but stress on me lately so I am going to give it a shot and see if it helps me out. I think it is just the fact that I am coming to an end with grad school and that means that I am really going to be out in the real world. I plan on going back to school to get my education specialist degree but I think it is wise for me to take at least a year off and calm my nerves and try to get back what little sanity I can salvage. I feel like all I have been doing is work and class lately. I also had the brilliant idea to try and still do marching band which is something I love so throw that one on in there. My day usually consists of going to work with my wonderful co-workers and sometimes precious angels (I love them all), then I go to work in the fine arts department for a few hours, then I go to band, and then I go to class. When I am done with class around 8pm, I go back to my room and work on homework so I don't fall too far behind. By the time I am done with all that, I try and go to sleep but lately I haven't been doing too much of that. I don't know if it is because I have so much going on or what. Sometimes I wish I could go back to the days where life was so much simpler. I want the days back when the most difficult decision we had was what we were going to ask mom to pack us for lunch that day or who we wanted to invite to our birthday parties. Those were the days. One of these days, I am going to take a day and just go get pampered. I mean get a massage, manicure, pedicure, and go shopping. Who is with me?

The Real World is Calling

I have been feeling more and more lately like the real world is getting closer and closer. I am about three months away from completing my Masters. I have no clue what I am going to do when I am done either. I currently have a graduate assistant job but that ends on April 29th. I keep telling myself I need to hurry up and find a job but yet I just don't do it. I really want a job and would really like to not have to move home but I really need to get the ball rolling.

Review of Blogs

The first blog I chose to review was a music blog.

http://portablerecorder.edublogs.org/

I chose this blog because music is one of my favorite things so I thought this would be a good blog to review. This blog was very well organized and had a lot of great links in it. It teaches how to create various notes. I also like the fact that in contains different podcasts. I couldn't really find anything that I did not like about this blog. I found this blog to be very helpful if I was a music teacher. I would definitely use this blog in my class. 

http://wpsreceptions.edublogs.org/

The second blog I chose to review was a blog from a class in South Africa. I chose this blog because it had to do with an elementary setting which is my primary grade range that I want to teach and I also chose this blog because it was from another country. I loved the fact that this blog talked about things this class does in their classroom. I really liked the fact that they used pictures on their blog. I could not find any real mistakes with this site. I would definitely use this blog in my future classroom.

http://upperhouse.edublogs.org/

I chose to review this blog for the main reason that it was a fourth grade class's blog and that is the main grade that I hope to teach one day. I really liked the information that was on the blog. They have news on their blog as well as homework that they do as well as different sites to visit. The only thing that I did not like about this blog was that it was not very colorful. I did not find it very eye-catching. Blogs should be eye-catching so other people will want to look at them, comment on them, and use them in their classrooms. 

http://mrlund.edublogs.org/

The honest reason for why I chose this blog was I just clicked on a random link and found it. However, I liked the blog from the minute I started reading through it. I love that it includes a class photo. It was neat to get to see other class's from different places. This blog was filled with tons of information that would be great to use in a class. I didn't really like the choice of font used because it wasn't really kid friendly. It wasn't something that children could really navigate through on their own.

All of these blogs that I explored are blogs that I will definitely use in my future classroom. I now know from completing this assignment that blogs are something that I can not wait to use in my class. I even think that a blog is something that I would like to create for my preschool classroom. I think the parents would really enjoy it.  

Infographics

I never knew what infographics were until I read an article I had to read for class. I had never even heard of the word. I created a powerpoint that discusses infographics and why they are important to use.

Infographics Powerpoint

21st Century Teaching and Learning

Teaching is this century is a lot different than teaching was when we were in elementary school. In today's day and age the majority of everything is done using technology. It seems like these days we can't get into a car or go to the store without using some form or another of technology. I mean don't get me wrong, I love technology. I spend time on the computer and on my cell phone with the best of them. This seems to be even more so true with children these days. Everything with them revolves around the TV, cell phones, or computers. I found a great video that talks about K-12 students today.

A Vision of K-12 Students Today

This video really helped me to see students today. Learners these days are visual learners. The majority of what they learn, they learn through the different forms of technology. We as teachers need to find whatever means we can to teach our students in order to engage them and as much as we may not like it, the best way is probably going to be with technology. What would you do in your classroom if you did not have technology to use? Would you still be able to engage your students?