Back to School {2013}

Back to school... back to super busy life... back to work... back to routines... always mixed emotions.  Glad the kids are back in school but bummer I have to go back to work!

 Brenner 4th Grade.  Red Mountain Elementary. Mrs. Hancey

Joren 2nd Grade. Red Mountain Elementary. Ms. Drawe

 Anisa. At-risk Teacher. Dixie Middle School.

Terek. Kindergarten. Red Mountain Elementary. Ms. Belka

Looking forward to another great year!!!

1st Day of School

Brenner: 3rd Grade

Teacher: Mrs. Hancey

School: Red Mountain Elementary

Joren: 1st Grade

Teacher: Mrs. Evans

School: Red Mountain Elementary

Anisa: At-Risk Teacher

School: Dixie Middle School

Miles for Molly

This morning Red Mountain Elementary had a fundraiser/charity race for the daughter of one of the teacher's at the boys' school. Molly is Mrs. Dixon's daughter and she has William's syndrome.

The boys did a one mile tuff kids run and they did it really fast!!!
It was kind of fun to see them with actual racing numbers on:)

Superstar

Joren got to be the superstar in his class on Friday.

I made a poster for him... it could have been better, but I was seriously running out of time. I either need to get a little more organized or not put things off to the last minute... I was a little stressed trying to pull this superstar together, but I think it worked out great in the end.
I told the class a little about Joren. We read a couple of his favorite books. We played a Lego bingo game and Joren got to put the calling cards up on the ELMO in his classroom.

Then we gave the kids all an airhead as their treats! Joren also got to wear a superstar crown and all of the kids in class colored pictures for Joren.

Patriot Day

For Patriot Day, Red Mountain Elementary school has a little fun. They start out the day by having a flag raising ceremony in front of the school.
The kids dress in red, white and blue and march in a little parade a couple of blocks down the street. The fire dept. drives the fire truck in the parade.
It's a fun way for the kids to celebrate... and a good way to remember 9-11.

1st Day of School... take 2

Today was Joren's first day of Kindergarten:) Kinda crazy. My little guy is growing up!
I'm so glad they humor me and let me take pics of them.
It was hard to wait all morning to go to afternoon kindergarten.
His friend, Dallin is in his class.
His teacher is Mrs. Moore.
He's a big kid and gets to ride his bike home from school with his big brother:)

1st Day of School

Wow, the summer flew by! Today was Brenner's 1st day of 2nd grade.



Look how grown up he is.... seriously, he's getting so big. He loved his first day and his new teacher Mrs. Gale. He loved playing on the big kid playground. He loves that he still gets to see all of his friends at recess that aren't in his class any more.
Today was my first day at Dixie Middle School. It's kind of fun being back at my old stomping grounds... oh the memories. I am one of the At-risk teachers at DMS. Because of the nature of my program, I don't have any students yet. So, I got to spend my first day making bulletin boards, cleaning and organizing my room and getting lesson plans and things prepared for my students... when they come.
I teach just 3 periods on "B" days. Which means I work from about 9:10-3:10 every other day... not too shabby. I'm excited for challenge of this new year:)

Kite Festival

We got our first sunburns of the summer at the Kite Festival on Saturday. The elementary school kids read from Jan. 1st to Apr. 15th to get a free kite at the kite festival. They are also entered for drawings. They had all sorts of food booths, vendor booths, kids carnival games and bouncy houses.
Brenner had fun trying to fly a kite in absolutely no wind!
It was a good thing we put sunscreen on or we would have been more sunburned than we were!

Walk-a-thon

Brenner's school had a walk-a-thon as a fundraiser for a teacher that has cancer. They got a silly band for every lap they walked. The boy and girl in each grade that walked the most laps won a gumball machine.  Brenner stayed there almost 3 hours and walked 18 laps. That's a total of 6 miles! Way to go Brenner!

School

Every once in a while I like to post what the kids are up to at school. Brenner is doing so well. He gets 100% on all of his spelling tests... partially because he's just smart and partially because Grandma makes wordsearches for him and quizzes him. He continues to do awesome with his reading. He gets to write these post cards at school. Most of the time he writes them to his best friend, Damian, but once in awhile I get one.

Joren loves preschool. His teacher gives them skittles when they are being good. Sometimes he only gets a few.... we're working on that. He has homework to practice writing and his handwriting is getting pretty good. He also is learning how to read and can do pretty good with a lot of the 3 letter words. This is a picture of an alligator he drew for me.

I do a toddler time with Terek and he LOVES it sooo much. He gets to play with other kids and do a craft. I guess I'm kind of burned out on crafts from the other kids so I just don't want to do anything with a glue stick with Terek. So when they did this little activity where they could glue shapes on a paper with a glue stick, he went crazy because he had never used one before. I think he was determined to cover the whole page with shapes. As soon as he's done with his projects, he's ready to leave because he wants to take them home and show them to grandma!

As for me, I got a job. I will be a teacher aide at Snow Canyon middle school. I don't know a lot of details about the job, but I'm excited to be getting back into education again!

Big B starts 1st Grade

As many of you know, we are in the process of moving to St. George (rather Ivins) to be closer to family.... The kids and I moved down here on Monday so that we could get here before Brenner started school.

Today is Brenner's 1st day of 1st grade.... I can't believe how much he has grown. He is an amazing kid!!! He was so excited about school. He didn't even seem worried or scared at all... I guess I did all of that for him.

He's going to Red Mountain Elementary in Ivins. He is such a sweet kid and I know that he will make new friends fast... and probably learn some stuff too.

And wow, all day school is a super long time. I miss that kid tons!!!

On the 2nd Day of Christmas...

...we made teacher gifts. Brenner and Joren made things for their teachers out of Bendaroos and I made these cute vinyl silhouettes.

I'm participating in a Boutique in my old neighborhood (Oquirrh Park) on Saturday and I will have some more fun frames like these. Also, check out my craft blog, Twiddle Thumbs on Friday, for pics of my frames.... they are my new obsession!

our 1st Parent Teacher Conference

We got to go to Brenner's Parent/Teacher Conference yesterday. He's is doing great in class! He got on the Citizenship and Academic Honor roll. His teacher said he is the best reader in his class!!! She said he has also made huge improvements in making friends (and not being shy). Way to go, Brenner!!!

Kinderbear

Meet Kinderbear... he is Brenner's class bear. The kids in his class get to take turns taking him home for the week. They bring him home in his cute little backpack. He has different clothes to wear. They get to do fun activities with him and write in his scrapbook about the activities. Brenner was so excited for his week. I signed him up for the week of Halloween because I thought that would be fun.

Kinderbear got to help us carve pumpkins.
Kinderbear got to play in the first snowfall of the year.
Kinderbear (dressed like Santa) got to help Brenner with his homework.
Brenner insisted on sleeping with Kinderbear in a sleeping bag in the family room every night.
Kinderbear got to dress up in his halloween costume (thanks Sam) and go to the Halloween reading time at the library.
Brenner gets to take Kinderbear back tomorrow for his Halloween party at school. He is sad he doesn't get to take Kinderbear trick or treating with him but Mrs. McKenna gets to take him home on the weekends (I'll bet she takes him trick or treating:)

So handsome

I was told by several people not to buy Brenner's school pics because they would look goofy... school pics always look goofy. Not my big handsome boy!!!! I'm so glad I bought the package. I have enough for everyone!!!

Doesn't he look like he's 8?