3 down, 33 to go

I can not believe that I have already been teaching for 3 whole weeks. It has flown by. Every day is different so it makes it seem so fast. I am always surprised when it is already 7th hour.

My first week was awesome. I was exhausted ALL the time but I think I'm finally getting used to how draining it is to be teaching all day everyday. My kids were great that first week, thank goodness. Unfortunately, that's changed a little bit.

My second week was wonderful in math, and not so much in science. I think it's because I did so well at making math so structured. Every day looks similar. Science is just not that structured. I didn't get them into a routine and they were crazy this week. Not to mention I was really sick. So that was just no fun at all.

However, I killed it the third week. I made science more structured. I stopped being scared to discipline. I even gave out detention to two kids. Thanks are getting much better.

I don't have a whole lot to write about. It's been a super fast and crazy three weeks. I just needed to update. Which I need to do more frequently anyways. so I'll do that. Then I will be able to remember more about what's going on.

Okay. That's all I guess for now. I'll do better next time!

-Kristina

First Day Of School

I'll be posting pictures of my classroom before too long but first I want to talk about my first day.

I can't even believe how fast it went. It was 7th hour before I knew it.

I survived, obviously. The worst of it all was the heels I made the stupid decision to wear haha. I'm thoroughly impressed with how awesome my students were. For example, because I have the same kids twice in a day, math in the morning and science in the afternoon, I didn't want to have to introduce myself to them twice. So I decided to do something a little different. In math, I did a powerpoint that had lots of facts about me, then in science we played a game of charades. The students had to act out things they learned about me from my powerpoint. One of the words was France. Had I been a sixth grader, I would've had no idea where to even begin, but my smart little sixth grader didn't even hesitate. He immediately began acting like a mime, the students instantly knew he was miming, and then quickly made the connection to Paris and then France. They are awesome!

While I know that the first day is probably the easiest when it comes to discipline I had very few problems. There was quite a bit of talking at times but I understand, it's rough hearing the rules and syllabus for 7 classes in a row. I'll keep them busier in the future.

One of my science classes is an inclusion class. This means that almost half of the students are on some kind of science class and are in a special education class. Because there are so many in one hour I was given a paraprofessional to help with them. At the beginning of the hour, it didn't bother me at all having him in there, then he told me that he taught 7th grade science for 20 years. Awesome.... I was nervous then haha. I really don't have a lot of experience teaching science so that should be interesting. Either he could think I'm awful, or he could be a huge help....we will see.

I was also surprised at how well these 6th graders were following the dress code. Apparently that isn't a huge issue yet.....I'll wait till the end of the year haha.

Okay. That's all I got for now. I'm so excited for the rest of the year!

-Kristina

Future Sandite

I haven't updated my blog in six months. I can guarantee you this is not because the last six months have been uneventful. It's because of how busy I've been. But, I'm back. Hopefully to post much more often than I have recently. Here's for a recap of some of the biggest things that happened in those six months.

• Lucas graduated from college! And he got accepted into grad school! I am super proud of him but also so worried about how we are going to work this into our already stressful lives and continue to ensure that we get plenty of time for us. But, we can do it!
• We moved back to Owasso. This was kinda a long drawn out decision but it has been absolutely wonderful being back near our families while we can. I know we will be here though high graduate program, but after that we could end up anywhere. I'm going to enjoy our time here while it lasts, and who knows? Maybe we will end up here for good.
• I got a teaching job. While looking I was continually getting discouraged because I wasn't hearing back from ANY of the jobs that I was applying for. I applied for Sand Springs on a whim and actually didn't even fill out an application. I e-mailed the principal and got a response within an hour to set up an interview. I think the wait was well worth it and I couldn't be happier with what I'm teaching. I'll be teaching three hours of sixth grade math followed by three hours of sixth grade science. Be prepared for lots of postings about my first year as a teacher. 
• Lucas and I celebrated being together for 5 years! I can't speak for Lucas but I feel like we are both so happy and both feel so blessed to have one another. I love him!

These are just a few of the many things that have happened. Expect much more detailed posts from here on out.  =)

-Kristina

Valentine's Date: Chopped

This year, Lucas and I celebrated our very first Valentine's date as a married couple. It was our fifth altogether! Anyways, I wanted to do something kinda different and fun. So I had to figure out what we could  do that would have special meaning to us. I came up with doing a at home version of Chopped. For those who don't know what Chopped is, here is a excerpt from wiki. 

The challenge is to take a mystery box of ingredients and turn them into a dish that is judged on their creativity , presentation, and taste with minimal time to plan and execute.The show is divided into three rounds: appetizer, entree and dessert. In each round, the chefs are given a basket containing between three and five ingredients, and the dish each competitor prepares must contain each of those ingredients. 

We changed a few rules but for the most part is was very "Chopped"-like in nature. Because at our house we do not have a completely stocked pantry like they do on the show, our biggest change was a trip to the grocery store. After we saw the ingredients in all three baskets, we went to the grocery store and had 15 minutes and 10 dollars to get any extra ingredients that we might need for our dish. 

Our first basket was for the appetizer round. The ingredients: instant mashed potatoes, apples, canned chicken breast, and graham crackers. We had twenty minutes to make a presentable dish with these ingredients. Let me first say that 20 minutes goes incredibly fast when you are panicking and have no idea what you are really doing haha. 

Appetizer Basket

I made an apple chicken salad. I shredded the chicken, added mayo, sour cream, apple chunks and celery. I also added some potato flakes to thicken it up a little bit. I then sprinkled it with graham cracker because I had no idea what to do with it. It was surprisingly really good. 

Kristina's apple chicken salad with a graham cracker garnish

Lucas made a sauteed chicken/apple/onion mix that was delicious, with a side of mashed potatoes. Obviously neither one of us had any idea what to do with the graham cracker cause he ended up with a sprinkle of graham cracker on his, too.

Lucas' apple chicken deliciousness with mashed potatoes

The second basket was our entree round and included white rice, pork stew meat, cream cheese, and baby carrots. I'd never had pork like this before but I feel like I will incorporate it more into my food. Pork is so much better for you than beef. 

Entree Basket

I cooked the pork and carrots, and then heated up some cream of mushroom soup with added cream cheese. I then mixed this all with rice. I liked it a lot but it looked kinda blah and wasn't very creative. I basically just mixed everything together.

Kristina's cheesy pork and rice casserole

 Here's an action shot of Lucas because I got done a bit early.

Lucas' entree was kinda a pork stir fry with carrots and green peppers and onion which he put over rice. He used the cream cheese to make cream cheese corn which was very good. I was really surprised with how well we both did. Both of our dishes were edible and pretty tasty.

Lucas' pork stir fry and cream cheese corn

And finally the dessert round. I was most excited about this round. I love all the ingredients and was curious if the idea in my head would translate to the plate haha. Our ingredients: popcorn, peanut butter, pie crust, canned peaches. I realized after this round that they all started with "p." Oops haha

Dessert Basket

Since I had pie crust and peaches, my first thought was peach pie, but I didn't have enough peaches for a whole pie and I wanted to be a bit more creative. So, I made heart shaped peach pie empanadas. I just want to say that they were DElicious. I WILL be making them again. Yum. I then cooked the popcorn and make a peanut butter cinnamon drizzle. I left some of the peanut butter drizzle on the plate for dipping. Yum. 

Kristina's peach pie empanadas with peanut butter drizzled popcorn

Throughout this whole round I could not figure out where Lucas was going while he was cooking, he had so many things going on at once haha. What it turned out to be was peanut butter coated popcorn pie with a peach marshmallow icing. Sound good? I didn't think so either. Boy was I wrong. I ate like a fourth of this thing and that was after I ate my dessert. I even tried to get some out of the fridge the next day...it didn't refrigerate very well. But still. It was good. 

Lucas' popcorn peanut butter peach pie

This was so much more fun than even I thought it was going to be. I think that it made both of us a little more confident about our cooking because we both did so well. While we had full intentions of having a winner, we declared a tie. It is Valentine's day after all. I won appetizer, he won entree, and we tied the dessert.

-Kristina