1 down 3 more to go...Term 1 has ended

Term 1 has finally ended.  The school year is 1/4 done.  First term was eventful. I kept my student busy.  We started right off by writing our district benchmark essay about their favorite hobby.  My students did very well for a writing pretest.  On a scale of 1-6 they were getting a 3.6.  We have our students get a least a 4.0 on this scale to be considered proficient in writing. 

Sticking with the writing theme we talked about 3 of the Six Traits: Ideas and Content, Organization, and Voice.  To practice these traits we wrote another essay.  This one was about a bird.  The students have been turned into a bird and they have to write a story about what happens the day they were changed into a bird.  Their writing scores jumped a lot from the district benchmark essay.  They were getting 5.0 on the same scale.  The kids were so excited.  Some of them were saying they had never gotten scores that high!

To end the term, we wrote a research paper.  I had the students pick a person from history they could interview.  They had to write 15 questions to ask the person and use these questions to guide their research so they weren't just looking up fluff.  They chose six of these 15 questions and wrote a magazine interview article.  Over the last couple of days they have been turning them in.  The research papers have been really good.


To start term 2, we are going to read The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  When I told the kids this they were really excited.  I am going to try and teach the literary elements portion of the State Core while reading the book.  I will keep you updated on how this is going.  I have been looking forward to this for a while.

UEA Convention

This morning I went to the UEA Convention at the South Towne Expo Center. It was interesting. I got lots of cool free stuff like a jump drive, calculator, a gel board thing, and a book. Walking through the exhibits reminded me of the Office episode where Pam, Michael, Oscar, and Daryll go to the job fair at the local high school and only take a sheet of paper. At the conventions there were exhibits just like the Dunder Mifflin exhibit--they only had a representative and a piece of paper.


I also had some fun with Mark. When I came home, I told him that Senator Obama was at the convention and I had my picture taken with him. I thought it would be funny to get my picture taken next to a cardboard cut out of one of the presidential candidates. I still don't know who I am voting for yet. But I will know soon.

Most Annoying TV commercial

With the start of the new basketball season, I thought I would pay homage to the playoffs. Every year during the NBA playoffs on TNT, you see a Saving Grace or Closer commercial every commercial break. Annoying!!! Seeing that many commercials in a 3 hour time period does not make me want to watch this show. In fact I avoid it at all costs. I can't stand it. When it is shoved down our throats, why would I want to see it. I feel like I have already seen a season by watching all the commercials. Sometimes TNT will even show both tv trailers in one commercial break.

Saving Grace

The Closer

To end on a happy note, TNT does know how to have a good commentating crew on Inside the NBA. They have a good groove going on. It is a nice change of pace from the annoying commercials. TNT makes is all worth it. Here is what I mean.

Charles Barkley and the Ring of Fire

e.e. cummings "r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r"

So, while I was helping Mark with a paper for his poetry class, I came upon this poem by e.e. cummings. Love it! I had forgotten how much I like his work. They are so different. I am not a big fan of poetry, in fact I detest it, but I like e.e. cummings. I realized that the poetry I do like is the weird stuff. Read it and decide if you can figure it out.

r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r

who

a)s w(e loo)k

upnowgath

PPEGORHRASS

eringint(o-

aThe):l

eA

!p:

S a

(r

rIvInG .gRrEaPsPhOs)

to

rea(be)rran(com)gi(e)ngly

,grasshopper;

Crazy 8's

8 TV Shows

1. The office
2. 30 Rock
3. Life
4. Chuck
5. Heroes
6. Lost
7. Pushing Daisies
8. 24

8 Favorite Resaurants

1. Five Guys Burgers and Fries
2. Cafe Rio
3. Rice King (Chinese)
4. California Pizza Kitchen
5. Thai Village (Main Stree in American Fork)
6. Red Robin
7. Pizza Hut
8. KFC

8 Things I did yesterday

1. Went to work
2. Taught the kids 3 types of questions: Literal, Informative, and Evaluative
3. Help kids make up tests
4. Changed the oil in my car
5. Went to Costco
6. Had home teachers over
7. Read a book
8. Watched Baby Mama (Funny movie!! Great Dollar Box rental)

8 Things I look forward to

1. Having kids
2. Mark finishing school
3. Buying a house
4. The first snowfall
5. Fall Break (Oct. 16 and17)
6. Christmas
7. Thanksgiving
8. Losing weight

8 Things I love about Fall

1. The leaves changing
2. Football
3. Warm days
4. Halloween
5. Thanksgiving
6. School starts
7. Jazz basketball starts
8. Snuggling in a blanket

8 Things on my wish list

1. House
2. Kids
3. Trip to England
4. Lose weight
5. Unlimited amount of money
6. New living room set
7. New bedroom set
8. New clothes

Relief Society Conference

What a great conference! This was the first time I have been to a conference session in the Conference Center. It was really amazing. To hear a choir sing live was really beautiful. It wasn't the Tabernacle Choir, but it was still beautiful. We sat up on the balcony, just off right on the first row. These were really good seats. I went with Amy, Susan, and Karen (Mark's aunt). Katie and Angie were unable to make it. Sister Beck talked about the purpose of the Relief Society, Sister Allred talked about temple work, Sister Thompson talked about devoting yourself to the Relief Society, and President Uchtdorf talked about how we need to be satisfied with ourselves. I loved listening to his talk. He was so animated. It is always fun to listen to him.

Saturday Morning Cartoons

These were some of my favorite cartoons when I was little. I never really watched Transformers or The Smurfs, but they are classic cartoons. They sure don't make Saturday morning cartoons like they used to. Now they are all anime, Hannah Montanna, and junk. No fun!! Enjoy!!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles


Zoobilee Zoo


Fraggle Rock


Gummi Bears


Duck Tales


Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers


Tale Spin


Inspector Gadget


The Smurf's


The Jetson's


Transformers

BYU vs. Wyoming

This was the week I decided to wear my hair down and it rains. This week's BYU football tie to carry out the "Y" flag was TY Detmer. I remember when I was in elementary school, and he came for a visit of some sort. We all went out on the soccer field at Orem Elementary and spelled out his name. I can't remember if I was in 1st or 2nd grade, but I think it was after he won the Heisman Award...so I am going to say I was in 2nd grade. It was really cool. I thought, "Wow! A college quarterback is here at school! And we get to spell out his name." In this picture Ty Detmer is the guy in the blue jacket standing just to the left of the big white flag. Yo can barely see him. He is not the one with his back turned, but the guy just above him.

The other funny story that happened at the game is the guy that came and sat by us at the game was asking Mark if I was "available." He started by telling me I was wearing cool shoes. I bought these blue and white tennis shoes from Forever Young Shoes a couple of weeks ago. He said they were BYU color shoes. Well...it got hot today at the game, so I went and bought a couple of bottles of water for Mark and me. Well, while I was gone, he asked Mark where I went. He then proceded to ask if we were together. After Mark said yes, he gave him a fist pound and then asked if we were married. When Mark told me this happened, I told him I need a bigger ring because it isn't noticable enough.

Today's game was very eventful, on and off the field. Again BYU had another shut out. It was kind of lagging in the 1st quarter. The first touchdown was awesome! The cowboy dropped the ball and the BYU player picked it up and ran toward the end zone! It was great. The game got good in the 2nd quarter. This was when a lot of the touchdowns were made. It was exciting down to the end of the game. One of the BYU players made an interception on like the 10 yard line right as Wyoming was about to get a touchdown. Unfortunately, we didn't score on that interception, but we stopped the Cowboys from scoring any points. This was the second time BYU has had two shut out games in a row. The last time this happened was in like 1986 (or something like that. I don't remember the year they said at the game, but I do remember it was in the 80's). And both of those games were 59-0 and 44-0.

Midvale 3rd ward Lady's Night Out

Our ward did a lady's night out for enrichment this month. It was tons of fun. They had lots of crafts to do: Tiles w/ vinyl lettering, tall wood pumpkins, a Christmas decoration, card making, and an all season hangy thing. I chose to do the all season hangy thing (don't you just love my choice of words to describe the craft!!) Oh and I must mention we had nachos for a dinner. I LOVE nachos! Just writing about it makes my mouth water. All that cheesy, chippy, beany, salsay, olivey goodness! YUM!!

Here is the hangy thing--a frame with a bead board backing. As you can see, I painted the frame black. For the bead board backing (ha ha alliteration!!) I painted it a creamy white and then "stained" it with a watered down brown paint. I then fed a black ribbon through two pre-drilled holes and tied it together at the endsto hang it from.

These are the things you put on the board for each season. If you have a saw that cuts stuff like this, or you buy some, you can make more season icons. I think my favorite season the the winter snowflake and then the flower. I know you can't see, but the seeds on the watermelon are little buttons. How cute! The wording on the egg, clover, and heart are vinyl lettering. I can't paint letters and have them look good to save my life.

I feel really proud of my homemaking accomplishments! I can't wait until I actually own a home and can do lots of cool and cute homemaking stuff to decorate it. It's not that fun when you have to worry about not having space or you can't design a room the way you want. Our apartment complex lets us paint two walls in our apartment, so I had them paint 2 walls in our dining room red. But...that is about as decoratie as I can get. We have decided to wait and buy furniture until we get into a place where we actually have room to put it and we can buy a whole set, not just pieces and have it be all mismatchy.

I have always worried that I won't be able to decorate a home and have it look good. I feel like I don't have a good sense of color. I am just worried because I will pick colors that I think will look good together, but they will be all the wrong tone and hue (whatever the terms are), just like what happened to my wedding colors. I can't remember exactly what colors I originally wanted together, but they just didn't look good together because they didn't "match." I thought they were just fine (that is why I picked them)! Because of this I am now afraid to decorate and put colors together because it won't "match." But I guess after seeing my paint job here, maybe I do have a good eye for color and what looks good together.

A Great 30 Rock Moment

Jenna is on Hardball--Chris Matthews and Tucker Carlson grill Jenna about her comments about the troops.