NaBloPoMo Wrap-up

Today marks the last day of NaBloPoMo, but to be honest, at times, I completely forgot I was participating. My daily post has become such a part of my everyday routine, that I never felt like it was a chore to have to post. I only ran out of things to say a few times. Maybe only once. Guess I am becoming quite the chatter box. What would the written expression version of a chatterbox be?

My other goal for the month of November was my 30 Day Shred Challenge, which started out strong and fizzled towards the middle of the month. Overall I did the routines fairly consistently with an average of about every other day. Not bad. I had hoped for some amazing results, but I mostly noticed that my endurance improved. I sure sweat a lot and felt great each time I finished a workout, but I can't say that my challenge resulted in a smoking hot "shredded" bod. Oh well. I won't toss Jillian aside, I still think her workouts are hardcore. I just don't think the results are as drastic as she makes them out to be.

***

I can't believe tomorrow is the first day of December! In a mere 19 days, I will be home in CT with my family! ::BIG smiles::

Since tomorrow is December first that means we get to start our advent house! When I was little my mom always made a paper chain with one link for each day in December leading up to Christmas. She would write fun activities on the slips of paper and each day my brother and I would get to remove the link and read what we got to do that day. Sometimes it was some kind of outing like going to the library, or an activity like baking cookies. Sometimes it was something simple like everyone singing a Christmas song together. I always loved doing our special chain, so I continued the tradition with my college roommate. Our activities got a little more involved including trips to the mall for holiday shopping and dinner at our favorite restaurant. The chain was always about having special moments with the ones you love.

When my husband and I got married, I started to do the same advent type thing with him, but I recently got this cool little advent house from my mom. Each day has a door that opens to a small compartment. The perfect size for a little piece of chocolate or a small note. Since my husband is really busy during the week, I didn't want to put in too many activities that required us going out, so I wrote footrub or backrub on a lot of his little notes. He never tires of getting pampered like that. I also included a few that said, relax with a glass of wine/beer or watch a movie together. My favorite (put in for my pleasure) was read magazines in bed. Sometimes he gets a little chocolate too.

I really enjoy doing an activity based (or appreciation based) advent because it means more than just getting a piece of candy. I use the month of December as a chance to show my husband how important he is by doing something nice for him everyday and making time to spend with each other.

Tonight I have to make all his little notes to get ready for tomorrow!

productive weekend!

I am happy to report that my 20 pager is complete! I spent a lot of time yesterday finishing it up and I have to say I think it came out pretty good. It's really difficult to write research papers that include so much of what other people have thought and said. I can write from my own perspective all day, but when it comes to rephrasing very smart things said by other people, I am often hard pressed to make it sound better than how it was phrased before.

I still have some final editing to do, but the drafting stage is done and that is the hardest part! I started out trying to cheat the margins a little (yep, I'll admit it!) but by the end of my writing, I had enough even with 1" margins. I don't think my teacher is going to be super picky about that, but I had a little bit of guilt over using bigger margins just to make the paper longer. I always teased my husband about that when he was in grad school because he would write headings that included 5 lines of information that was totally unnecessary just to make the paper longer. He would write his name, the teacher's name, the course name, the date, the assignment name...Then when he finally started the paper the first line would be about a third of the way down the page. Silly boy!

I still have two more assignments to do to finish out this quarter, but neither is that awful. The biggest is the unit plan for 10 global picture books with a common theme, but the maximum page allowance is 6, so I am not too scared of that. I already have the books and the theme, so I just need to make the annotated bibliography, and write up a few lesson ideas and goals as if I were using the books in a unit. I will post my list of books because some of them are pretty cute.

Now that my paper stress is over, I am off to the gym!

Nürnberger Christkindlesmarkt

Last night some friends and I went to the opening of the Christmas Market in Nürnberg. It was so fun! During the holiday season (last week in November through Christmas), each town/city has its own Christmas Market. The one is Nürnberg is quite big and was definitely jampacked with lots of people and holiday spirit. Not to mention half meter long sausages! Whew.

I took a lot of pics and posted them on my other blog, but I know you guys enjoy seeing bits of Germany as well. Here are a few highlights:

This was how big the crowd was watching the presentation of the Christkindle (Christ's child) angel that sets off the Christmas Market season.

drinking some Glühwein (special holiday wine)

lots of Lebkuchen (gingerbread)

handmade walnut people

The children's market had a few rides

We are going again next weekend! Can't wait.

PaperPaperPaper

Nothing much to say today besides that I am trying hard to get my 20 page research paper completed this weekend. I have a little over 13 pages done at this point, which is good, but I am struggling to find the motivation to do the rest. I am getting anxious about the thought of turning it because I heard from other students in the program that they always thought they were good writers until the began the doctoral program. Apparently, they really give your stuff a beating in order to demonstrate the high standards of academic work at this level.

Fun times.

It's hard to just turn something in without having any feedback along the way. I have spoken to my advisor about the topic, but he has not checked in on the written part at all. I guess my best is all I can offer and if I end up with not great feedback, I still have plenty of program time left to improve.

The paper is due the first week in December (can you believe that is next week already!?) but I am hoping to turn it in at the end of the week as opposed to the beginning. That is just satiating my stressed mind right now because that gives me 7 days instead of 3.

Blogging is so much easier than research papers!

Cloud Nine

I have a lot to be thankful for, but the one thing that is making me the happiest today is my Algebra friend, "Henry." Henry and I work together a few times a week in his math class. When I first got assigned to him, I was told that he is very behind the other students and lacks a lot of fundamentals. He definitely struggled and was not able to keep up with the other students in class. We even started working on completely different, basic stuff in order to help him fill some of the gaps in his understanding.

Today, the class was working on the elimination method for solving simultaneous equations.

Sounds like fun, right?

Henry rocked it out today in class! He was able to do the problems (still with prompting) but with much more intuition and confidence than just three weeks ago! When the teacher gave the students an equation to double or triple and asked them to write the answer on their little whiteboard, Henry was right in there with the rest of the class, despite the very short amount of time the teacher allowed for answering.

When the teacher had the students begin working out some problems independently, Henry and I sped through about 5 and moved on ahead of the rest of the group because he got it! Seriously, I wanted to cry. I am so unbelievably proud of this guy. And I can tell by the look on his face that he is proud of himself which makes it even better. When I first met Henry, he barely spoke and I can just see his confidence increasing. He has started asking me questions and chatting sometimes (which is big).

Like I said, I have a lot to be thankful for, but today I am mostly thankful for the chance to help students realize their potential and to help them experience success in school.

Turkey Lurkey

graphic from www.busyteacherscafe.com

I don't know how many of you will be doing the blog thing tomorrow, so I'd like to wish you all a

Happy Thanksgiving!

How sad to be in a country without Thanksgiving. I will be going into work tomorrow and sitting through German class tomorrow night instead of enjoying a nice home cooked turkey dinner.

:: sigh ::

Please enjoy some stuffing and sweet potatoes for me!

But truthfully, I don't need the meal in order to reflect on what I am thankful for.

I would love to spend the day with my family, but I am thankful I will get to see them in less than a month over Christmas break!

Have a great day everyone!

Lefties

Today I noticed that 4 out of 6 students I worked with are left-handed. I looked it up and I found out that about 1 in 10 people are left-handed, which means that the lefties I teach are over represented among students in my caseload. I started to wonder if there is any significance behind the large percentage of lefties among my SPED students.

What do you think?

Are you a lefty or a righty? I'm a lefty!

Does your "handedness" indicate anything about your learning style?

Do you think handedness is correlated with brain functioning??

I also came across this interesting list of ways that lefties have to deal in a world made for righties....

(source)

• We have to use special "lefty" scissors.

• We write from left to right, so that our hand smears the fresh ink across the page. (Righties' hands do not touch the ink until they get to the next line, so the ink has a few seconds to dry.)

• If you grab a coffee mug with your left hand, the picture will be facing away from you. (Righties get to look at the picture while they drink.)

• Lefties have little choice where they get to sit at large dinners, lest they bump elbows with a righty.

• Lefties have little choice where they get to sit in lecture halls. Often the only left-handed desks are on the end of the row. Lefties can't sit in the middle, unless they want to have a hard time writing.

• When writing in a 3-ring binder (or spiral notebook), the rings get in the way of our hands when we write on the front side of the paper. (Righties have this problem when writing on the back of the paper, but this is easier to avoid.)

• Many "commonly" used keys are on the right side of the keyboard. For example: backspace, enter, arrows, and numeric keypad.

• Computer mice are generally set up so that the "main" button is the index finger for righties. If you want to use the mouse in your left hand, the "main" button is under your less-adept ring finger.

• Bike gears are on the right side of the bike. This means that if you carry the bike on your right shoulder, the gears face outward. If you put the bike on your left shoulder, you'll get grease stains all over your clothes.

• Bike helmet chin-strap buckles are easier to release with your right hand.

• Hand-held jigsaws blow sawdust off to the right side. If you hold it in your right hand, it blows the sawdust away from you. If you hold it in your left hand, it blows sawdust in your face.

• Drill presses have the handle (to lower the drill) on the right side. It's impossible (and dangerous!) to try to hold the wood with your right hand while controlling the drill with your left hand.

• Lefties have to get their own "left-handed" boomerangs, golf clubs, hockey sticks, and baseball mitts. This means we usually can't borrow our friends' equipment.

• Car stick-shifts are on the right side of the driver. Less frequently used controls, such as headlight switches, are on the left side.

• High-end headphones (with only one cord) have the cord on the left side. The cord gets in the way more for left-handed writers.

• BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) entrance/exit gates take the ticket on your right side.

• When pants only have one back pocket, it's always on the right side. (Lefties have to fumble around for their wallet with their "bad" hand.)

• Mini propane camping stoves are designed so that you can hold it with your left hand and pump up air pressure with your right, even if the stove is still hot. It's hard to hold it with your right hand and pump with your left hand without burning your right hand.

• Piano keys are arranged so the more rapidly-changing higher notes are played with the right hand. For beginners, the base clef (left hand) is often optional.

• Camera shutter buttons are often on the right. Pressing the button with our less-dextrous hand makes it harder for lefties to hold the camera steady while taking a picture.

• "Ergonomic" chairs usually have the controls on the right side.

• When holding a pen or pencil in your right hand, you can read any lettering on it, but in your left hand, the lettering is upside-down.

Thoughts?

A New Coat for Anna

One of my little friends and I are reading the book A New Coat for Anna. I purchased it for my Global Literature class as part of a thematic unit on perseverance and I figured I might as well get some more use out of it. It takes place in Europe during WWII. It doesn't specify that it's in Germany, but it seems like it could be, so I thought that it made a perfect choice for my friend who happens to be a little German girl.

It's a cute story about a little girl whose family cannot afford to buy her a new coat. The illustrations show that stores have been closed down and food is also scarce. Because Anna is simply too big for her old coat, her mother sets aside 4 precious things that they can barter in order to have a new coat made for Anna. They trade a pocket watch for some wool from the farmer's sheep, but have to wait all the way until spring to get it, then they trade a lamp for a spinner to spin the wool into yarn. Next, they pick lingonberries and dye the yarn a beautiful red color. Then, they trade a garnet necklace to the weaver who weaves the yarn into a bolt of red fabric. Last, they bring the fabric to the tailor and trade him a porcelain teapot so that he can measure Anna and make her a beautiful new coat that she is proud to wear. In the end, Anna invites everyone who contributed to her coat to her house for a holiday celebration with her family.

I have mentioned before that this friend struggles a lot with reading and writing. She is in fourth grade, but I can say with confidence that many of my first graders last year read with more fluency than she does. Despite, her difficulty with reading, she is a trooper! She tries so hard and I am really beginning to notice all the great strategies she is using to help her in the reading process.

Before she attends to the text, she examines the pictures. She makes observations and asks me questions about what she sees. Once she starts reading, she rarely gets through a page without stopping to comment on something, connect ideas together, or make predictions. It's fantastic.

My husband also has Dyslexia and when he first told me that, I honestly did not believe him because 1. He never had an IEP due to growing up abroad in several different countries and 2. He is so smart. I thought he could never be so intelligent and have a learning disability.

Then, I read two great books about Dyslexia that educated me a bit further so that I now understand, individuals with Dyslexia are/can be extremely intelligent. Their struggles in reading stem from the fact that their brain does not utilize the same parts for reading and the parts they use are not as efficient. It requires a lot more work to read, yet this has nothing to do with overall intelligence.

I bet you are wondering what those two books were huh?

Overcoming Dyslexia by Sally Shaywitz

and

The Reading Glitch by Betsy Ramsey

Both were excellent.

I am also so happy to listen to my little friend make connections and to see her notice parts of the illustrations that I didn't catch. I am always so focused on the words, that illustrations are just a bonus for me. I love that she uses the pictures as a tool to provide clues and to think deeper about the story.

Next time I meet with her, I am going to have her match colored photocopies of each helper from the story with their name. I want her to use the words we talked about such as

weaver, spinner, farmer, and tailor.

Then I am going to provide her with the sentence frame:

The ______ helped to make Anna's coat by _______________.

Example: The farmer helped to make Anna's coat by shearing his sheep and giving her the wool.

I am also going to have a picture of each item that was traded to see if she can recall which helper received which item.

We can use another sentence frame:

The _______ received a _________ in exchange for _________________.

The weaver received a necklace in exchange for weaving the yarn into fabric.

***Sentence frames are a wonderful teaching tool to use with students learning English because They provide them some structure for a sentence that is grammatically correct and only requires them to fill in certain parts. I always write the sentence frame out as well so they can continue to use the parts I provided as a helper when they are trying to think about their own sentence. ***

Once we do those review activities, she will use a story sequence map graphic organizer to write about what happened in the book. This story really lends itself to retelling in sequence because there is a specific order that they did each step of the coat making process. Since she already will have verbally told me sentences about the story using the sentence frame, she should be able to use those ideas for her writing as well.

I know that my friend has room for improvement in many academic areas, but I also think she has a lot of great skills and solid comprehension which will contribute to her success. I am glad we have time to read and write 1:1 during the week and I enjoy working with her so much.

***

Cute little story...

When we were discussing how certain fabrics are made, this friend pointed to her faux swede vest and asked me what it was made out of. I told her that a long time ago, Native Americans used to kill animals for food and then wear their fur or skins. She was thoughtfully considering this idea of killing animals for food and asked me if they would only kill ones that were sick or if they would kill any animals. I explained that back then, they did not have grocery stores, so in order to eat, they grew crops and hunted animals. She then asked me, if there weren't any animals left, would they kill their pets?

I am always trying to get my students involved in thinking, so I asked her what she thought? Would she kill her own pet if she had nothing to eat? (sounds so gruesome, I know, but this conversation stemmed from her curiosity, so I went with it). She then took it to a whole new level and asked me if there was nothing left to eat, if people would eat other people.

Deep conversations with a 10 year old!

When I again tried to get her to do the thinking,

she decided, she would ask her dad if she was in that situation and if he said it was okay, then she would eat another person if the alternative was dying.

Hats and Slippers

Last night my husband and I went to an anniversary party for one of the teachers at my school. They rented out a room at a local pub and a wonderful gathering of teachers and friends ensued. When we got there we quickly noticed everyone sporting newspaper hats. The rule was, if you were wearing a homemade hat, you got free drinks. The party host, who is one of our IT teachers, brought several different sets of directions for making origami hats. I wish I had my camera because there were so many creative pieces of artwork on the heads of those party guests. Put a bunch of teachers together and I guess you have a really creative bunch!

I was thinking how much kids would love an activity like that. I have only ever done origami frogs with my first graders, but they LOVED it and I had kids making frogs for weeks afterwards, using any scrap of paper they could find.

My husband made this crown.

Origami Crown Print

I had a variation of this hat.

Origami Hat Print

By the end of the night, I ended up in this silly hat which looked like a knight's helmet. We got a lot of strange looks on the walk home, but it was a really fun night.

***

Anybody else think these slippers from Gap look absolutely delightful??? Germans wear house shoes, so I have taken to wearing slippers all the time now. I am thinking I should definitely get these when I am home for the holidays.

Which color is your favorite?

I love the white but I think they would get dirty.

I think my next fav is red.

Can't you just picture having these babies keeping for feet toasty while you enjoy some hot cocoa by the fire????

Time out for Christmas

I am feeling the Christmas spirit today (mostly because I just watched the most recent episode of Grey's Anatomy which was infused with Christmas music...anybody else confused by that considering it's only November??). Germany broke out the holiday decorations right after Halloween, and since Thanksgiving is not celebrated here, I am feeling ready to move right on to Christmas.

I have been rockin' on NaBloPoMo and posting everyday, but for some reason today I feel stuck for ideas today, so I am reposting some holiday craft ideas from last year. Back then, I don't think anyone actually read my blog. I thought these ideas were so cute, but I didn't get any comments, so I am hoping this time someone else enjoys them too!!

All of the ideas shown below are from the holiday arts and crafts section on familyfun.com.

POP-DOWN TO CHRISTMAS

Inspired by an idea from the Hales family of South Jordan, Utah, this bubble packaging countdown calendar offers a daily burst of fun, so you'll probably have to make one for each family member.

To make a Christmas countdown calendar, cut a tree shape with 24 bubbles from bubble packaging (as shown), use glue dots or double-sided tape to attach it to a piece of paper, then decorate circular stickers with markers and adhere them to each bubble. Have your kids squeeze a bubble to start each day of December with a bang!

What could be homier than a pair of mittens drying on a clothesline? This card idea, from the Mollette family of Uniontown, Ohio, was modeled after a card that had been given to a coworker.

CRAFT MATERIALS:

8 1/2- by 11-inch natural-colored paper

Rubber cement

Fabric remnants

String

Cardboard

Pencil or pen

Scissors

Hot-glue gun

Mini clothespins

White glue

Tissue paper

Time needed: Under 1 Hour

1. Start with a piece of 8 1/2- by 11-inch natural-colored paper. Cut each sheet in half to make two cards, and cut to fit another, lighter-colored sheet, rubber-cemented to the paper as the background for the mittens.

2. Draw a mitten pattern on cardboard and cut out multiple mittens from fabric remnants. Using a hot-glue gun, attach each end of the string to the background sheet, then clip the mittens to the string with mini clothespins (available at craft stores). Use white glue to attach small squares of white tissue paper.

THUMBPRINT REINDEER

You will need:

Ink pad with nontoxic brown or bronze ink

Plain notecards or card stock

Craft glue

Googly eyes

Mini pom-poms, brown and red

Brown marker

Use a thumb or fingertip to stamp 3 reindeer heads on each notecard. Glue on googly eyes and pom-pom noses (including a red one for Rudolph, of course). Finish by drawing antlers.

German Blondie

Today not only did I drive by myself for the very first time since moving here three months ago, but I also got my first haircut and "blondening" since moving here as well. My friend gave me the name of her girl, so I made an appointment at her salon since I don't work on Fridays. I actually ended up subbing two periods today in the afternoon, but my appt. was at 9, so I was able to do both. Since we only have one car, I dropped my husband at work and then drove to the salon which is very close to his office. I was a nervous wreck to drive alone because the roads are very windy and narrow in some towns and there are many people out walking/biking. Fortunately, I made it home without getting lost.

Let's just take a moment to give thanks for the invention of GPS!

I had my previous hair stylist girl Cari write down the color formula she used so that I could bring it to my new stylist in Germany. Yvie, who I went to this morning, said their colors are very different, so I was a bit worried, but I am really happy with the results.

She was super sweet and she gave me her private number so I can call her at home and make an appointment for her to do my hair at her house next time which will be much cheaper than the salon. I had to pay 95 Euros which is a lot, but I am used to paying a ton in the US too, so I wasn't that flabbergasted when she told me the price. Apparently, it would only be 50 Euros if I went to her house. Next time I would like to do that for sure.

Got a little Photo Booth happy, but here are some pics.

Likey? No Likey?

Just Teaching

John Spencer is a fellow education blogger and he recently came up with the idea to create a blog composed around discussion relating to education for social justice. His intent was to create a blog where multiple teachers could contribute, offering different perspectives and different voices on this theme.

I asked him if I could be one of the blog authors. I am really excited to be part of it and I hope you will take a look.

Read my first post entitled "six year olds and social justice" here.

Are you a busy teacher?

I came across a great resource for teachers today. It's called the

Busy Teacher's Cafe

and it is jam packed with great tools to use for students in grades K-6. There are printables, theme activities, a blog, other teacher resources like author studies, literature activities, ideas for classroom management/organization, and much, much more!

The best part:

Everything is free!

Teachers love the word free :0)

Today I mostly went through the Reading, Writing, and Graphic Organizer sections and I found lots of great tools to use for enhancing reading and vocabulary comprehension.

I definitely recommend checking out this site for easy to access resources.

***

Check out the kicks my husband custom designed for me at www.miadidas.com

It's hard to see from this small picture, but the letters bwe are on the side.

He said it stands for best wife ever.

Love it.

Bleeding Sheep

I worked with a fourth grader yesterday who is a native German speaker. Very sweet little girl who has very severe dyslexia. That is besides the point, but I work with her on reading and writing because she struggles a lot in those areas. She chose to read a story yesterday about Guppy the Goat who was unpopular on the farm because the other animals thought he was useless. In one part of the story, Guppy noticed some boys chasing the sheep on the farm and chased the boys away. He was discovering different ways in which he could be helpful on the farm and show the animals he was not useless.

The text mentioned that the sheep were bleating. I asked my little friend if she knew what bleating meant. She replied, yeah, you know, when the red stuff comes out.

bleating

bleeding

I totally get why she said that.

Learning a language is very difficult.

I think at times, we don't give second (and third) language learners the credit they deserve.

I am attempting to learn German and having such a hard time. I do not have an ear for the language and have not surpassed the very basics of introducing myself, telling where I am from, and learning numbers. If I go to a store and the cashier tells me the total, I am extremely psyched if I know the total just from hearing it and I don't have to look at the cash register to see it.

Small victories!

I speak Spanish fairly well, but German is not coming easily.

My inability to express myself in German does not correlate with a lack of intelligence, it is just a medium of expression I have not mastered yet.

I always try to keep this in mind with my students.

It is so easy to misunderstand or confuse the abundance of new words.

How great is it that my little friend gave it a shot. She wasn't exactly right, but she was definitely on to something in thinking bleating sounds a lot like bleeding. We discussed what bleating means and I demonstrated my best sheep noises so she would understand.

She smiled.

She learned the different between the two words.

I love teaching :0)

Global Literature Week 8

I love this week's theme for my Global Literature Class. We are reading different versions of Cinderella from around the world. So fun! There are tons of versions and I wish I could read them all. Unfortunately the school library had none of the options, so I had to order a few from amazon.com. I got Yeh Shen: A Cinderella Story from China and The Korean Cinderella. We are supposed to read three different versions, but the library did have one called Rough Faced Girl which is a Native American version that my teacher said I could use even though technically that is multicultural literature and not global literature. I was even thinking that children in the classes I am working with just might have some of these different versions since they are from many different countries. It would be fun to ask them to tell me the versions they know!

Back to Work

I actually went to work today! After last week's incident of being sent home due to being exposed to the flu via my sick husband and then a 4 day school closure, it feels like a long time since I have gotten down to business.

My Monday schedule is jam packed with 5 45-minute sessions in a row. I have two periods in my friend's 3rd grade classroom, which I love, and I also work with a group 5th graders twice in both their English and Math periods. Throw a little 8th grade Algebra in there and that is my morning. After a 45 minute lunch break, I work with a 4th grader on reading and writing.

Although I loved being a classroom teacher, I am also finding that I love being a "specialist" and only working with a few students or one student at a time. I can really get to know their strengths and weaknesses in order to help them be more successful in school. I get to dabble in many different grade levels which is very helpful for getting a perspective on what students are learning at various grade levels and how much progress certain students need to make. I never had that broad perspective before.

Without being "pushed" into a different teaching environment (by moving to Germany for hubby's job), I never would have voluntarily switched from teaching first grade. I always chuckled when I received the district transfer form which gave teachers the option to change positions if they wished to because I felt putting that paper in my mailbox was a complete waste. I would never opt to switch. I was so happy with my team and my little first grade space, that I never considered other opportunities.

I never thought I would work with middle school students.

I never thought I would work in special education.

I never thought I would leave my previous school.

I never thought I would like anything else besides what I was doing.

I was so wrong.

Change is very hard. I never want to make a change to something I am happy with.

I am a firm believer in the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" strategy and I like to do something to the point that I get really good at it instead of trying something new and having to experience a new learning curve. I am always reserved and worried about all the stress that comes with being new at something.

I am starting to realize the merit in opting for something new and different. In my current position, I am learning a lot, I am broadening my teacher horizons, and I am gaining useful skills that diversify my teaching abilities and make me a better all around teacher.

I am happy to be teaching in this new environment.

I like middle schoolers.

I like teaching special education.

I like working at an international school.

I am not ready yet to say that I will actively seek out big changes in the future, but everything seems to be working out.

Confessions

I will admit that this past week I did not do awesome with my 30 Day Shred Challenge. I did Jillian's Banish Fat & Boost Metabolism on Monday and Shred level 1 on Wednesday, but that was it for the week. I rode 60 km on the recumbent bike between Tuesday, Friday, today and started to work some running into my routine as well. I am happy with my overall level of workouts, but my goal was to do the Shred at least every other day and I didn't.

I must have been distracted by the new kitchen and the cookie baking!

This week will be better.

Last week I rocked the no Diet Coke effort. This weekend, I slipped a little. So far this month, I have only had 4 which is much better than having it daily, so I figure I am still ahead.

The only goal I have made decent progress on this week is my school work. I finished my cultural autobiography yesterday and annotated 2 more of my sources for my annotated bibliography on multicultural education sources.

My goal for today is to create the annotated bibliography for my global literature course (10 books on the theme of perseverance) and to try to get some more of my research paper written. Despite my super organized strategy with the labels and folders, I am still having writer's block when it comes to piecing all the research together and writing the actual paper. It comes in waves and either I can do it very easily or I am totally stuck.

Right now, I am totally stuck.

For some reason I am usually most productive late at night when it comes to writing papers. I still have a few weeks before it's due, but I would prefer to get it done and turned in so I don't have to think about it anymore.

Sidebar: Don't you hate it when you are doing a research paper and the article or book you read refers to 80 other researchers and what they did or said, so you are constantly having to track down those sources as well if you like their quotes or ideas. Unfortunately, most of the great ideas I am finding are not from articles which I can usually find online and print, but from books that I have to purchase if I want to get the information from the original source because I don't have access to any libraries with books in English besides the school library which would not have the kind of books I need.

See why I end up spending a fortune from amazon.de???

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Excerpt

I am working on finishing up my cultural autobiography for my multicultural education course. This is the kind of paper I love writing because I get to use my own voice rather than a "professional/technical/graduate student voice." I have written 17 pages which speak to my life experiences and speak from my heart. The end of the paper relates my cultural understanding to the implications on my teaching.

Here is an excerpt:

Throughout my first three years of teaching, I was provided adopted curriculums for reading and math, which I used as Gospel. My understanding was that the adopted curriculum was what I needed to teach; therefore I taught it with fidelity. During my first year, especially, I found that blue scripted print in the teachers’ manual to be very helpful. I followed each lesson in succession, yet I often felt uninspired because the material I was teaching was not “mine” and I did not have a sense of true ownership of the words that I spoke. Each time I had the opportunity to invest more of myself into the lessons, adding my creativity, and drawing from my own experiences and connections, I became a better teacher. If the same notion is applied to students, it becomes vibrantly clear why some students fail to become invested in their learning. Given the use of streamlined curriculum packages that are designed to meet the needs of the standards, rather than the students, we can hardly expect students from diverse backgrounds to flourish in their role as learners when the content does not sufficiently pertain to who they are. Just as I sometimes felt like a shell of the teacher I had the potential to be if only I could put more of myself into my teaching, surely students could explode to reach a whole new potential given ideas, concepts, and lessons made meaningful to them. The consequences of such curriculum use are twofold. Firstly, if teachers are not reflecting true passion for the scripted curriculum, that lack of passion will be evident and transferred to students. Also, if the curriculum does not draw upon students’ own life experiences, cultures, languages, and backgrounds, surely they will not be as enthused and motivated as they would be if those aspects were incorporated. If teachers incorporate who the students are into the lessons, based on authentic knowledge and relationships with those students and their families, I believe students will rise to the occasion in their role just as I can in mine.

Ok, this part of the paper is a little more "professional voice-ish" than others, but as I was writing it, I thought that it was a piece I wanted to share with my blog readers.

I am always thinking about you guys!

I am really interested in what experiences other teachers have and whether or not my thoughts are consistent with those of other teachers or way off base.

As always, I will eagerly await your comments!

I heart Monsters

Monster cookies that is.....

I was a little nervous about my baking venture today (see previous post) given the different German ingredients and using an oven that measures degrees in Celsius instead of Farenheit, but they came out perfectly if I do say so myself. I only made 6 (they were ginormous) and bagged up the rest of the dough to send home with my girlfriends since I don't have a freezer. The recipe is supposed to make 24 jumbo cookies and unless you have a some teenage boys that frequent your house, I can't imagine making all the cookies at once. Six was plenty and having more of those puppies lying around the house would be dan-ger-ous!

Snaps for Ashlee's recipe! I would definitely make these again!

How fun to use seasonal/red & green/pink & white M&M's too!

This is an image of a "professional" cookie from the cookie shop I used to work at in college.

Hopes's Cookies are the best!

These is one of my cookies

slightly larger, but lookin' good!

I think I just need to work my M&M placement on the tops!

Adventures in Baking

Can you guess what I am doing today??

I haven't made any real food in my kitchen yet because I am gearing up for some major baking today because it has been TOO long since I have played Betty Crocker!

I went to the grocery store this morning to pick up all the ingredients and it was like a treasure hunt! The kinds of things that you easily locate and plop in the cart are hard to find when you are looking for the item names in German! I translated the ingredient names and both baking soda and baking powder translate to the same word, Backpulver, even though they are very different and cause different results when added to baked goods. Luckily, I made friends with another American woman who gave me the rundown on some of the differences between American ingredients and their German counterparts.

I never would have looked for this, but vanilla comes in little vials like perfume samples.

Apparently it is very potent, so you can just add a very little bit.

The Backpulver, which is baking powder, comes in little packets like yeast. Baking Soda is called Natron and comes in a box, but it still looks very different than it does in the U.S.

I was really happy to find M&M's because I want to make this recipe for Monster Cookies from Ashlee's A Year in the Kitchen blog. She is awesome and the desserts she makes always look amazing! These cookies use peanut butter, M&M's, chocolate chips, raisins, and oatmeal in the dough in addition to all the other typical stuff.

A little bit of everything for a delicious bundle of cookie joy! Mmmmm. Can't wait!

I am also thinking of making a batch of oldie but goodie chocolate chip cookies too. Surprisingly chocolate chips are actually quite hard to come by when you live in Germany unless you have access to a military base or you hunt down a store that sells American products (which are really expensive...and I have heard about stores like that, but have yet to actually see one). My friend went to England over fall break so she picked up these babies for me...

dark chocolate bits of gloriousness

I absolutely love baking and if I weren't a teacher, I think I would want to have a little shop or business that would allow me to bake all day and make adorable, fun little treats. How fun would that be?

What is your favorite thing to bake?

It's finally here!

After being in Germany for three months, and living in our apartment for over a month with a "temporary" kitchen consisting of a mini fridge and two hot plates, I am proud to introduce my new

kitchen!

I had absolutely nothing to do with the selection of this kitchen. Our landlord picked everything out prior to our renting the apartment, so I am really happy that it came out looking as nice as it does! For some reason my husband thought it was going to be blue, and given some of the crazy kitchen colors at Ikea, and Germany's obsession with Ikea, I was a bit nervous. The kitchen actually did not come from Ikea, which is good because they came and went in one day and spent about 8 hours on the installation which would have been longer had it been from Ikea.

The one thing I am nervous about is that there is no backsplash and with me being the messy cook that I am, I guarantee there will be some tomato sauce splashage on the walls before I know it. We also don't have a freezer. The fridge is pretty small, but at least there are drawers underneath so it is elevated a bit higher. Crouching down to access the fridge for the past month was not fun. I am debating if we really need a freezer because we haven't used one for the past three months, but we have room for a free standing one if we decide we can't live without.

We still have to figure out what we doing with the other side of the kitchen because our table is in the other room. I would like to get another piece for storage because right now all those cabinets are full of dishes and bakeware and I need somewhere to put food! We had just put a nice new walk in pantry in our house in Portland and we also had a big cabinet in the kitchen with pull out drawers. It was fantastic. I need something like that again!

Hubby and I will probably hit up Ikea tonight to look into some storage solutions. I have gotten almost everything put away, but my tupperware still needs a home and so do all our bottles of wine and alcohol.

I can't wait to cook in this new bad boy, but I am too tired from a hard day of watching men install the kitchen, so I am thinking I will wait tomorrow and have my first baking debut in the kitchen with some of my girlfriends.

for the love of dorkiness

Today I worked on my research for one of my doctoral papers and I got immense enjoyment out of the organizational scheme I came up with. So if you can handle the dorkiness that is about to ensue, please read on.

You might find this helpful or you might find this sickening...

I started with a huge stack of book and articles on multicultural education.

Disclaimer: I have a serious problem/obsession ordering books from amazon.de with my amazon prime shipping.

It's getting ugly.

As I read, (I have been working on getting through these texts for quite some time now), I used this handidandy highlighter, which doubles as a sticky flag dispenser.

Whoever invented that was a super smartypants!

Today, I went through the documents and typed up the important quotes/ideas that I highlighted which I think will be good to include in my paper. I typed them into a word document formatted with 2" X 4" labels and then printed them out. For each quote, I included the author's name at the bottom and/or the other researcher(s) that were being quoted and the page number from the original source. I will have to go and locate primary sources, so it's important to write down all that good stuff.

how do you like that quote teacher friends??

Once they were printed out, I cut them apart and sorted them by theme, which will become the different sub sections of my paper. You might be thinking that labels are expensive, which they are, and that using labels is a waste, which is probably is. I wanted to use index cards, but I didn't have any. I suppose I could have run on down to the grocery store, but I had to be home to receive my package from amazon.de. ( I know...it's a problem....but if I am not home, then I have to walk all the way to the post office the next day to get my book and that definitely puts a damper on the awesomeness of the overnight delivery) I also figured it would be easier, and faster, to type the quotes rather than write them out by hand. I also liked the fact that I could stick the labels onto something rather than having loose cards.

Once I got the labels cut and sorted, I stuck them onto file folders and labeled the folders with the appropriate theme or idea that corresponded with the quotes and will correspond with the sections of the paper.

Now I have 4 colorful folders that each contain information for a different section of the paper. When I being the actual writing process, I will not need to keep flipping through various articles hunting for the information and quotes that I need because it's all nice

and organized in my folders.

Ta-Da!

So if you made it to the end of this post without gagging, then hopefully you are like me in that you appreciate a good organizational, timesaving system.

Thoughts?

Hey all you workout fans...

***Thanks to everyone who answered my Blog Hop question yesterday. I think teachers have an automatic bond with each other and it is interesting to hear about what other educators struggle with because we can look to each other for support since we all have different reasons to feel challenged in our profession***

__________________________________

As I was running on the treadmill listening to my favorite all time "get pumped" workout song, I realized my playlist is way old and I am in desperate need of some new tunes! I am so out of touch with current music in the US and I need some suggestions of what to download for a new updated workout playlist! I like it loud and fast to keep me moving.

What is your all time favorite workout song that gets you pumped up?

Any new songs that are really good that you think I should download?

I am not against Britney Spears or anything else that anyone would deem possibly too cheesy.

I have been known to rock it out to Miss Hannah Montana, I always appreciate a good Disney Channel star turned singer.

Suggest anything that you like and I will listen!!!

The playlist I was listening to was one I made when I was participating in a women's boot camp class back in Portland. We had to run a timed mile the first week and the last week to see how much we could improve. I always brought along my music on the test days because I am convinced the right song mix seriously enhances my performance.

Seriously.

Anyone else with me on that?!

So my mix consisted of three songs. (I was aiming for a fast mile!)

O Fortuna

The intro of the Rocky Theme Song

O Fortuna (repeated for the big finish)

If you are not sure if you know O Fortuna....trust me you do. It is frequently used in movie trailers, such as Mall Cop. Still not sure? Have a listen, I included a video below.

Turn up your volume and get blown away!

There is definitely a wait for it quality to this song.

It builds up to a great ending.

This may seem like a really random selection to run to, but I swear it was magical. I literally got goosebumps while I ran. And, I ran my ass off! I tried to keep up a good pace throughout, but there is a part of the song starting around 1:45, we'll call it the climax, which motivated me to bust out in a full on sprint to the finish. I had no idea what those voices were singing about, but I felt like they were singing directly to me telling me to run fast.

This video shows a translation of the words and boy are they intense. Since I really don't understand the lyrics when I am just listening, I just prefer to pretend they are singing something wildly inspirational!

Still think this is a completely rando running playlist??

My mile time was 6:27

better than high school

best ever

:0)