Disney Rocks!

I saw this the other day and thought I would share. I love that Disney produced this and I love the message it represents. My only grievance is that there is not a video for the boys. I feel like these characteristics are not only valid for girls (the princesses) but also for boys (the princes) in my future class it is important to show my students that I care about them and it is important to understand that each student can contribute something to the classroom daily! One week until practicum I am so excited... I found out a few days ago that I will be at Spanish Oaks in a 1st grade classroom!!!!

Conference Weekend

I am a Member of the Church of Latter-Day Saints and  we had General Conference this last weekend. For those of you who do not know what conference is here is a video that the Church put out to help advertise the conference.


I loved watching/listening to conference this year and here are some of my favorite parts.

• Conference started off with a new announcement concerning the age of missionary work. Previously young men were not allowed to leave until they were 19 they can now leave at the age of 18 (if they think they are ready for a mission). Young women were not able to leave until they were 21 but they are now able to leave at the age of 19. This was quite a shock but I am so grateful for this revelation! I feel so blessed to know that we have a prophet who can receive revelation for us in this day and age! If you want to you can read, listen to, or watch the announcement here.
• Sister Dibb gave a talk encouraging members to be examples of their faith. The big quote that came from her talk is "I'm a Mormon. I know it. I live it. I love it." If you would like to look at her talk you can find it here.
• Elder Oaks gave a talk concerning children and helping to protect them, you can find that talk here.
• Elder Christofferson gave an impressive talk directed to the men of the church but we can all apply it to our lives. We just need to remember "that we have work to do." Find it here.
• President Packer gave a great talk concerning the Atonement you can find it here.
• Elder Clarke of the 70 gave an impressive talk concerning taking the sacrament you can read it here.
• President Eyring gave a great talk to members of the Relief Society concerning strengthening each other through service. You can find it here.

I only included one talk from each session of conference but the whole thing was amazing if you have the chance to look through each session you can find those links here. I am so thankful for the opportunity that I had to listen to the prophets for this day and age over this past weekend. I love the church and the gospel (refer to Elder Hallstroms talk.). I know that it is true and I am grateful for the opportunity I have to be a part of this wonderful church!

I am in love

with:
1) This song (not so much the music video but I am getting there)

2) The Temple (A couple weeks ago I was able to go see the Brigham City Temple open house with some friends)

3) Fun times with friends (Last week we went to Nelson Grove to take some pictures)

4) Fall colors (I went up to the mountains with some friends today and we took some pictures. Here are some of my favorites)

Look at those colors!!!

5) Once Upon a Time (The season two premiere was tonight and it was brilliant!)

This is real life

Today was amazing on multiple accounts even though a couple of things could have been better… Let’s just run through the day, ready?

7:45(ish)- I get to campus and try to print out a paper but the printers in the nearby buildings are down! So me and a few other classmates run to find a printer we ended up finding one in the library and got everything printed out before rushing back to class.

8:03(ish)- We show up a little late to class and our teacher states that today is going to be a little different. Instead of a regular lecture there are going to be four short rotations and at each of those rotations we are going to get some new ideas for teaching!

            At the first rotation we were given materials to make ‘Palm Pockets’ and as we started to make them Ginger explained to us how we could use ‘Palm Pockets’ in our classroom. Just in case you want to know ‘Palm Pockets’ can be used for almost anything! Each child gets one and is able to put almost anything on it to show the teacher. I like the idea of using it for math students can put their answer, in numbers, onto their ‘palm pocket’ and show it to the teacher when he/she asks for the answer. This way every student is able to participate in the learning. The palm pockets can also be used for vocabulary or to test students on their knowledge of Adverbs vs. Verbs, etc. This was a cute cheap way to increase student participation in the classroom!

            At the second rotation we learned about the best way to use whiteboards in our classrooms. We also got a marker and put a pom-pom on the end to use as an eraser, such a cute idea for a future classroom. We talked about how to make sure that students got the most out of using the whiteboards, the importance of having a set time limit and setting rules like the ‘poison area’ (Where the marker goes when not in use). There were some really good ideas shared at this area that will be extremely useful soon!

            At the third rotation we were told to quickly grab 30 red, green, and yellow papers. As we counted them out we listened to learn how these could be helpful. The papers could be used for understanding. Each student gets a set of papers and are able to show how they feel about the new information when the teacher asks about it (Green: Good, Yellow: Getting there, Red: Lost). The students are asked to hold the paper next to the heart. That way the students don’t have to feel self-conscious about the speed of their learning. If you only use two colors the cards can also be used for yes or no questions or true or false. These cards are another great but easy idea to use in the classroom.

            At the last rotation we were told to grab two markers, 30 popsicle sticks, and a paper of our choice. Here we were making choice sticks for our future students. We glued the scrapbook paper to the outside of a soup can to create a can for our choice sticks. Then we colored both ends of each choice stick a different color. That way we can pick a student’s name out of the can and put the stick back into the can (with the other color showing). By putting the stick back into the can the students will pay more attention because they think they might be called on again! At the end of the class I had so many new ideas for my future classroom, it was an hour well spent!

A picture of my productive class period!

9:00- 335 Was amazing today! The presentations were good my favorite was the one on humor in teaching, and we got to tell jokes…

Q- What did the green grape say to the purple grape?

A- Breathe

Q- What has three E’s but only one letter?

A- Envelope

Q- What is smarter than a talking bird?

A- A spelling bee

11:00- I solved the mad gabs in the TEC lab and then headed to take my math test… I felt pretty good about that one ;)

Mad gabs to try on your very own ;)

Deled Elmer Made

Ask Rude Arrive Her

Cry Cub Hook

1:00- Literacy was a good point of the day because let’s face it Brother Wilcox is hilarious!

            Today we were talking about higher levels of comprehension and how you move from mastery (who, what, when, where) to understanding (how, why) to synthesis (what if?) to involvement (how does this relate to your life). After explaining this process to us Dr. Wilcox told us to pick a fairy tale and apply the process. Afterward he asked us to share with the class our answers the following is going to be anonymous:

-We chose beauty and the beast for mastery we asked who is the main character of the story? Understanding was why did Belle go to the beast’s house? Synthesis was what if Belle had gone back to the beast too late? Involvement was… well *** explained it so well

-I just said that I should tell the man I loved that I love him…

-Wilcox: Wow, I thought you were just going to say something about men being hairy and ugly, but follow advice like that and you will be engaged by the end of the semester! Her first child will be named after me, even if it is a girl… Bradette!

For the rest of class Wilcox kept referring back to Beauty and the beast ;)

Here are some other great quotes from today’s class:

-Brother Wilcox was talking about how he had his student’s sneak empty milk cartons out of the kitchen to raise interest in a story he was reading to them. The lunch lady found out and complained to the principal who told Brother Wilcox: “Brad, it’s probably not good to teach your kids to steal”

-‘You can’t tell me what we just read? We are going to read it again’ Oh that’s good, let’s do more of what’s NOT working!

- It’s En-Sign people! Not en-zine or en-sin… En-sign. I swear that’s what it is going to say on my Tombstone!

-What would rhyme with Cricket

-SWKT!

-She’s been at BYU too long… But wait we could do a BYU version. Milk and WILK, Trouble and HBLL. It could work

-Tell them to come to the power of teaching lecture tell them he’s really hairy and ugly but tell him you love him anyway (Last beauty and the beast jab as we left class).

**Moral of Today- I LOVE my classes! 

Oh and here is an amazing video that one of my friends shared a while back:

Sorry that this post was so long! Congratulations if you made it through...

I just want to say...

I absolutely love Sister Oaks, and every time I hear from her I appreciate her so much more! She spoke in our regional conference today and it was great! She talked about how when things are not going our way it is not necessarily because we are doing something wrong. Often we are doing things right and instead of asking the Lord what we are doing wrong we should ask how we could do better than we are doing at the moment. I thought that this was a great point! We are not always doing something that will hinder us but we need to focus on what more can we do right and see the kind of improvement that can make in our lives.

This clip is from the CES fireside last September that Sister Oaks spoke in...

Sunday Thoughts

We were talking about something in my Religion class that got me thinking of a parallel between God and I. My teacher was talking about why we get married, why we follow the word of wisdom, why we are charitable, etc. and the answer given was that we do these things because God does these things. Think about how happy he is when we follow in his footsteps? Now here comes the parallel... When I was younger, and my young cousins were younger they looked up to me! They would walk around with me and often, when I would do something they would do the same thing. It was always exciting for me to have my cousins doing the same thing as I. I loved feeling so important. I enjoyed the friendship that came as a result. Now that I am older and they are older things are different, they do not always follow me they entertain themselves and I always feel a little left out because they do not pay so much attention to me anymore. Of course they still like me and occasionally we will play but not as often. I think that God probably feels the same way when we do not give as much attention to him when we get busy, when we start slacking on our relationship with him. 

I was watching some of the Mormon Messages today and I found this one that I really liked, so here it is...

Back to School!

I was so excited for school to start! Here is a video that shows how I was feeling yesterday (I may or may not have actually acted in such a way...)



I love the start of school! New people, classes, routines, it has always been great to me. Well after waking up and getting ready for class I went to my only class of the day: Math Ed 306. It was a good class I know most of the girls in it and I can tell that it will be comparable to my Math Ed 305 from last semester which is good because that was one of my favorite classes that brought about funny videos such as this:



Today I had some okay classes and a couple that were awesome! My favorites of the day were my Literacy class with Wilcox and my Marriage and Family Prep class with Richardson. Both of these classes were AMAZING!

It really is the teacher who makes the class but starting a class with a clip from the princess bride makes an evening class go by so much faster...



By the way... for my Literacy class I am supposed to practice writing fairly frequently and one of the suggested ways was a blog so hopefully I will start keeping my blog more updated... ;)

**Sorry if this seems a bit scattered, that's just the way I am**