Feltwell!!!!

Hello one and all! This week has been great: 4 day school week with an easy professional development today. I spent the night at Jenn's on Wednesday and then was invited to a birthday dinner tonight for her. Annnddd tomorrow night I am going to London for a Jack the Ripper/Ice bar ITT trip with Kim, Stephanie, and Melanie. I'm so excited!!!! Well this post is about my school and to show pictures of where I work day in and day out :)

This is the entrance to the main office of Feltwell Elementary. This is where the office, teacher's lounge and second grade classrooms are.

The side of the main office..I just think its a pretty...

The second building..This has one 1st grade classroom and all of the third grade.  These two buildings were actually dorms back in the day.

This is by the main office. I think its so cute..I believe its where the gardening club does its thing.

And here is my building!!! Everyone thinks this is the uglier building..but hey its uh, modern. Whatever its mine!!!! This is where the library, kindergarten, first grade, 4th and 5th grade classrooms are.

Here is our lovely library...

And the 4th and 5th grade hallway..

Here is an absolutely amazing, although disorganized, closet full of novels I can use!!

And here it is!!! Da da da ddaaaaa!!!! My classroom!!!!

(That big table with the water bottles in the back is my "work table."

I love this big classroom! Its perfect for my 19 students and I couldn't be happier here. They work on the computers; we do activitites on the smart board; the whiteboards fold out for more space to write; and look at those big windows!! I love it. I hope this satisfies your urge to see where I work, I wish I could go into more detail about it. The teachers here are so kind and amazing, I definitely hope to work somewhere like this one day. 

I'll post again after London, and there is a possiblity we will go shopping in Bury St. Edmonds on Sunday. That means more pictures :) 

Love love love

The Filton

This is a lovely blog post about our living quarters..aka the Filton (Feltwell + Hilton..you get the picture).  Anyway some people have asked about the dorm and I aim to please. So here, be our guest:

We start at "the Living Room" aka the tv room aka where the wifi lives. 

Here are two OSU student teachers Micaela and Kim. Usually all 9 of us will cram around this little table to work. 

Here is another view. Please admire the cute Okstate teddy bear

Next we move to the kitchen where we just happen to be baking cookies at the moment

A view of my long hallway...I'm at the very end 

And here we are, my room. And yes..I attempted to clean it for these pictures (I can hear my Dad rolling his eyes from here, another continent away)

My dresser, bed, and wardrobe. In the corner you can see the tiny heater my teacher has let me borrow that keeps me warm at night. I already have a sheet, blanket, comforter, and quilt on my bed. 

My tiny fridge, mirror, and window sill. Everyone has different features in their rooms. I have the largest mirror and a fridge, while some have a desk or a chair. 

We also have a community bathroom, full sized gym downstairs, and a community center..but to be honest I am too lazy to take pictures. Besides, I'm sure you all know what a gym and bathroom looks like.. we aren't re-inventing the wheel over here. 

Ill try and take pictures of my classroom soon! I'm sure you are all quite curious where I spend my daylight hours. If you're lucky, I may get Jenn in the picture..but no promises. 

I hope you all appreciate the pictures!!

Love love love

Studious Saturday

My comrades and I have made it to Lakenheath's library to work all day on lesson plans and such. I decided to take advantage of the super fast wifi and write a quick note about my awesome day Friday and post some more pictures from my trips/life here in England (even though we haven't gone anywhere crazy recently). 

So yesterday was my first day to lead a project (which I created, made the rubric, etc.). It was a science project having to do with the periodic table which the kids have been learning about. They have to make an "Element Brochure" informing the public about their assigned element (such as helium, oxygen, silver, etc.). The students were pretty excited and did a great job researching their element and designing the rough draft of their brochure. I loved hearing them excitedly tell their friends cool facts about their element..although I had a few laughs at some situations. My favorite being: one part from the checklist of info they have to have on their brochure is "in what state is the element found in?" (example: solid, liquid, gas). So many kids were telling me they couldn't find what state it was found in and I would say "It's stated right here its found in liquid state" or something similar. I then saw little lightbulbs going off and quickly realized that the students thought I meant what state from AMERICA was the element found in? I saw lots of kids erasing states such as New York, California, Texas, etc. to then write the actual state hahah. Note to self: clarify anything and everything..no matter how trivial you think it is. 

I've continued doing research for next week- looking for literature circle discussions and activities, science experiments, and word sorts for spelling. While this is all "work" I really enjoy it! I like planning for my classroom and don't consider it a hassle. Hopefully I still feel this way 3 months from now..but I'm not too worried. 

Some "throwback" pictures to just make you all more jealous that I am here. 

P.S. Just booked a trip to Paris at the first of October!!! Yayayyayay!!! Eiffel Tower, crepes, and Lourve here I come!!

Bury St. Edmunds (I've discovered people pronounce Bury as "Barry")

Street performer in Oxford

Mummy in British Museum!! -London

One of my favorite exhibits from the British Museum in London

Buckingham Palace..This is actually a pretty good picture considering how squished we were

West Minster Abbey- London

Not the greatest picture but I loved Parliament- London

Big Ben!

Bridge of Sighs- Cambridge (punting)

King's College- Cambridge

One of the colleges in Cambridge

I'll leave you all of a picture of us all studying...

I'm clearly everyone's favorite person on the trip :)

A pint with the superintendent..

I am pleased to say we finally have wifi!!!! Sort of..it's really crappy wifi but hey, better than nothing. Its the second week of school and things are going really well!! I've been working more with the students, helping in math and with any other assignments. I love how they really listen to me, if I tell them not to talk..they instantly stop talking and continue working. This may seem trivial but it still surprises me. I am really starting to love my kiddos. One girl after school asked if its difficult to be a teacher. I answered that it is sometimes..but its normally worth it. I asked her what she wanted to be when she got older and she said "An architect..I'm really good at drawing blueprints." Now this girl is at the top of the class in every subject and is exceptionally bright..I told her I believed she would be an incredible architect. The next day she brought me a blueprint of a mall she wants to build one day :) It made my day. This week I'm leading a science project with the class..and next week I'm taking over spelling and working with read alouds. I'm slowly but surely taking on more responsibility and I'm excited about future lessons I'm already planning. 

So yesterday after school I played volleyball with about 10 other teachers and it was fun! The teachers were wayyy better than I expected! They liked to joke with each other and were pretty competitive. After we played about 6 games (full games! some of these teachers were in their 60s!) they offered to take us to a pub called Checkers for a drink. The superintendent, Frank, picked us up and took me, Stephanie, and Micaela and chatted with us in the car about how our student teacher has been going. When we got to the pub, there were 6 other teachers there and we all discussed how its been living in England. Everyone I have met through Dods has been nothing but nice and generous. These teachers were offering to give us rides to the airport and told us if we ever needed anything to ask (I then started throwing out dates, asking if they were free..). Frank was asking more about what trips were were going to take and how living in the dorms has been..it was just interesting to have a sit down conversation with him and be so informal. Was not expecting to have a pint with the superintendent at all..but he was very nice and tried to be helpful in answering any questions we had. He also asked for our feedback about the dorms and other situations so I'm glad we could be helpful in return. 

This week has been fantastic and I look forward to a quiet weekend on base, working on more lesson plans and assignments for school. We are in talks about going to Paris at the end of September and I hope that happens! We are also discussing going to Denmark as Kali has a friend who offered for us to stay with her and be our tour guide if we come. I have also received a mailing address!!! Well technically its Jenn's address but whatever, she said I could use it haha. Message me on Facebook if you would like the address! Mailing to the base is actually very cheap..there is no expensive international fee due to it being military shipping. Feel free to send me food, warm clothes, and lots of love. Speaking of warm clothes..I feel like I skipped autumn and the weather has gone straight into winter. Its been rainy and in the 50s and low 60s. And there is no heat in our dorm. Luckily Jenn has let me borrow a heater so I don't freeze to death in my sleep. Pray I do not catch pneumonia or hypothermia! 

I'll try to keep updating and I appreciate all of the encouragement and sweet comments!! You have no idea how uplifting they are. 

Love love love

Cambridge and more

I feel like I'm writing posts very close together but I finally have wifi so I feel like I have to take advantage of it! We are in lovely Cambridge today to spend the day finishing homework, catching up with family and friends back in the States, and roaming around the city. My cooperating teacher Jenn took us out last night to "country night" on Lakenheath base and it was so much fun. All of my friends really like Jenn as she is hilarious. She took us to her house and we had a good time teasing each other; for example, all of us girls wanted to take a picture together and after she took it Jenn would say  "Ok..now Hannah get out of this one..we want this to be a good picture" hahah. Quick story about Jenn in the classroom as well: Her behavior plan is based around a system of tallies where if the students forget homework, waste time, are disrespectful, tease/bully, etc. they receive a tally. One student forgot his snack in the hallway and asked Mrs. Seguin if he could grab it..she said "Sure! For a tally...." The child then kept debating whether or not it was worth it to grab the snack and get the tally. My teacher would egg him on saying "Man, I would be starrvvinngg. I don't know if I could go hungry..is it worth it?" The surrounding students would chime in saying "Oh no, its not worth it! Don't do it! You couldn't pay me to get a tally!" haha I love it (BTW, the boy went hungry that morning). 

So on Friday, one of the 5th grade teachers, Mr. Whitehead, asked Kim (Kim is an OSU student who student teaches in 5th grade) and I to go to a pub with him, his wife, and one of the other teachers. He said it was their regular spot and they would pick us up..how could we refuse? They picked us both up and drove us 30 minutes out to the cutest, most eccentric pub we have been to yet! It is called the Hare's Arm (although Mr. Whitehead calls it the Hairy Armpit). 

I ordered the pub's special which is a peppercorn steak in a kind of crust (similar to Shepard's Pie) and it was very very good! It was similar tasting to roast beef. 

We all chatted and these teachers are the nicest people..who happen to all be from Oklahoma and be huge OSU fans! They told us more about Dods (Department of Defense schools), where they have stayed in England, and their travels all over Europe and beyond. They invited us over to dinner at their house sometime as Mrs. Whitehead is apparently an amazing cook..I look forward to a homemade meal soon. They then ordered us the most delicious dessert I have tasted..possibly in my life. It is literally crack in food form. It's called sticky toffee. Look it up people..it will change your life.

While the pictures may not look very appetizing (I mean I don't work for a food magazine, I am not an expert in pub grub photography) it was all fantastic! Ok, I am done bragging about food at the moment. I am happy to have made some "teacher friends" who have given us their numbers promising help in any way possible. Again, this only makes me more excited for the rest of the semester.

In other news, we have booked some of our trips! We have booked our flights to Dublin and Italy, and have also booked our tickets to see Wicked in London!!! I may be most excited to see Wicked at the moment..I have been wanting to see this musical for a very long time. I wish we could see Les Mis as well...but alas, I do not have a wealthy patron funding this trip (hint hint Dad). I will be writing more this week as I can update my blog from my student's computers at the school. I just can't add pictures. We can't use jump drives at the schools..which may be a problem later when I have lesson plans or homework; although, hopefully I can go to my teacher's house or some other kind soul's place to do that kind of work. I will leave you all with a picture of us being studious at the Starbucks in Cambridge and taking advantage of the free wifi.

Gooday mates!

First Week Teaching

The first week is almost over!! This week has been exciting and a little overwhelming. I am starting to love my 4th and 5th graders and I get along with my cooperating teacher so well! We both have the same kind of humor (sarcastic) and she has been very open with letting me have complete freedom in the classroom. I have not previously worked with this age so I was surprised at how funny, clever, and articulate these students are. And they are definitely respectful! This week has been all about observing and going over the standards and possible lessons I will be teaching. I will soon be starting to work on language arts and social studies, then later science, and finally math (I asked that math be the last thing I take over as its the thing I'm least confident in). My teacher is the only teacher in the upper levels (4th and 5th grades) that uses novels in language arts.. all other teachers use the work books. This makes me extremely happy as this is how I want to teach and will allow me to practice and perfect my style of teaching literature circles, read alouds, discussions, and guided reading with novels. She also has the students do a few programs called Battle of the Books and Read-O where they read all genres of books- making the students get out of their comfort zone of only fiction (which also makes me very happy). I have been surprised at how simliar 4th and 5th grade standards are (at least Dodea standards) and the textbooks are almost identical in some cases. This makes me more comfortable as I was worried at first. My teacher also picks and chooses various assignments from both 4th and 5th grade books so all standards are covered and the students are prepared for the next grade. I love my teacher's teaching styles and I hope to pick up on and continue learning from her and the students. I still have zero wifi at the dorm and we do not even have student accounts at our schools yet. Pray for this soon as it is so difficult to keep in contact with home or do homework and lesson plans this way! I have realized how often I take internet for granted and I have repented.. We are going back to Cambridge this weekend and I am happy! (especially for more waffles!)

Love Love Love

Pictures and first day of school

Bury St. Edmunds

Bury St. Edmunds

Bury St. Edunds- The Tollgate Pub

Oxford-Magical Books exhibit (it's dark because we weren't supposed to take pictures)

Oxford- Pitt-Rivers Museum

London-West Minster Abbey

Tower of London with Beefeater tour guide

London-British Museum

London Bridge

Punting in front of King's College with tour guide

Punting and pondering

Our INCREDIBLE Belgian waffles

Ely Cathedral

So these are the pictures to help you visualize my last post. Everything was gorgeous and obviously the pictures can't do the places justice. 

Today was my first day in the 4th and 5th grade classroom and it went well! My teacher is very chill, a good disciplinarian and can be very sarcastic (in a funny way). She has encouraged me to do what I want in the classroom and has been very generous. I think we will get along very well this semester. She has already invited me to her house this weekend and for us to go to some events for the school and on base with her. I look forward to being able to slowly but surely take over the lessons and make myself at home in the classroom!

First day of school. Very chilly this September day (in the 50s).

Bury St. Edmunds, Oxford, London, Cambridge, Ely

I apologize ahead of time because this will be a long post since I haven't had wifi since my last entry. I've made a lot of new observations, learned many new words, and keep pinching myself that I am here.
Bury St. Edmunds
Our first little trip outside of the Air Force base! Very adorable town with little shops, parks, and abbeys.

After walking around the main cathedral, park and shops we found a cute pub called The Tollgate (our first english pub!) We all loved hearing the guy describe all of the food and kept asking him questions to hear his accent ("the sea bass is really gorgeous"). We all ordered a drink (I ordered an Aspall suffolk cyder, a local cider) and meal and toasted to a fantastic semester and trip. I feel like we all really started bonding while we chatted and laughed with our supervisor about different stories and experiences. We came back to our dorms full, happy, and excited for the future.

Oxford, Friday September 6th
Our supervisor Dr. Davis drove us into Oxford which was a cute, busy town. Lots of shops, parks and of course the beautiful colleges that make up Oxford. We visited the Pitt-Rivers museum which contained numerous exhibits about archeology and human life from all countries and time periods. We then visited the Bodleian library which had the Magical Books exhibit. The exhibit showed first drafts, drawings, and other things from C.S. Lewis, J. R. Tolkien and other authors.
We ate at a yummy pub and shopped a bit (I bought a cute green Oxford sweatshirt). Some things closed the later it got so we missed the Oxford castle but we are going back again so that will be for next time. We also saw some funny street performers and were beginning to really see the wild fashion on England.

London, Saturday September 7th
Yay!!! So excited for London. We drove into Epping and then took to the tube into Holborn (a district of London). We went to the British Museum first which was amazing..I wish we had more time to spend there as its a huge museum with so much to see. I was just content with seeing the Greek and Roman life and sculptures along with some of European and Egyptian sections. We had to leave early since we had to make it to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard at 11:30. It was soooo crowded! What we could see was pretty cool..it was just hard to not feel claustrophobic with all the other tourists smushed together to try and see the guards and band marching. After that we walked passed St. James park to the area where West Minster Abbey, Parliament and Big Ben were. Each were gorgeous in their own way. I really enjoyed looking at Parliament and Big Ben especially- so much more detail than I ever realized. I would have liked to go into West Minster but it was 18 pounds (28 dollars) and I was wanting to spend my money other places instead. We at lunch over looking the river and the Eye (some sandwiches, string cheese, and beef jerkey-meal of champions-to save money). We then walked to the London Tower which I had heard nothing but rave reviews about. It was worth every pence I spent to go in. We took a fabulous tour with a man dressed as an original Beefeater (guard of the tower) where he told us history, joked with us, and used some of my friends as characters to tell his stories. We took a tour of the Crown Jewels, the armory, and several other parts. Along the wall we had a great view of the Tower of London along with other beautiful parts of the city. After the Tower of London, we took the tube to Piccadilly, a district of London, to eat dinner at Bella Italia (a pretty good italian chain) and then took the tube back to Epping where we made our way home. Long day but very fun day at that. London is very busy and full of life-unique style and way of living.

Cambridge & Ely (pronounced eel-y), Sunday Sept. 8

Cambridge is only 30 min. away from our base so it was a short drive to this lovely town. We ate brunch at an adorable tea house called..you guessed it..The Tea House. It was just down the street from a market which we scoured and tried all kinds of bread and olive oil, cheese, jellies and a belgian waffle. And let me tell you, that little bit of waffle was so incredible that we talked about it allllll day. We then went on a punting tour, which was my favorite thing of the day. Punting, for your information, is similar to a gondala where the boatsman rides on the back of the small, flat boat, and pushes the boat on the river with a pole. We took a tour that  shows 8 of the 31 colleges in Cambridge and our tour guide was FANTASTIC. He was hilarious, had great stories, and was very personable and friendly to Americans. After the tour we spent some time shopping around and walking into some of the colleges. But..we then made our way back to the market for a Belgian waffle (mine had Belgian chocolate on it) which was divine. The man and I spoke a little french to each other before we left which I thought was very nice and fun of him (I remember almost zero french from my elementary school days). After Cambridge we drove to Ely and attended the cathedral service (as if you attend the service you can tour it for free. The service was very Church of England but the choir was incredible!! It was all men and young boys who had the voices of angels and I loved that. We have since been back at Dr. Davis's room using wifi and drinking wine to relax before the first day of school. We have been made aware that our wifi might now work for another week as wifi is a luxury (as I disagree being a student with things due..but whatever).

Tomorrow is the first day of school and I am very excited!! Nervous..but very excited!! Tomorrow I will post pictures that will match all of the entries from this post..we are about to make our way back to our dorm. Very exciting and exhausting weekend...which only makes me more excited for the rest of the semester :)

So long friends.

We're here!!!

Today it is Thursday-England time and jet lag has already set in. Yesterday, Kim, Erin, and I arrived in Heathrow at 930 am and got through customs fine. However, it was interesting to try and find the bus that would take us to Mildenhall (base where our supervisor would meet us). We first had to get our bags (which we had a lot of luggage), then we had to take the express train to the correct terminal, then we had to figure out if we needed to go to arrivals or departures, then go through part of the airport again to find the correct pickup place. Wowwww. We then took a bus to Mildenhall which is close to Feltwell (our base we stay/work on). Our supervisor is the nicest man! He is also the assistant dean to the college of education. He took us to our dorms and then took us to get ID's to use on the base. He then took us all to the BX (shopping for necessities) and then the commissary (groceries) and was gracious enough to deal with 5 jet lagged women decide whether they want facial scrub or just facial cleaner. After we all got groceries and started unpacking we met together to decide what trips we want to take while abroad- we have narrowed it down to: Paris, Rome, Florence, Dublin, Oxford, London, Cambridge, Munich, Barcelona, and I'm sure there are more I have forgotten. Planning is tough! We all are a bit overwhelmed so we are spending more time this weekend to research and narrow it down further.

I was able to tour my elementary school, meet the principal and my mentor teacher today. My principal is incredible. Very personable man- throughout the tour he would say hello to all the students by name (which must be hard as students come in go in this military school). The elementary school is gorgeous and bigger than I expected. There are three buildings (four if you include the separate cafeteria). My teacher is also different than I expected. She is nice although more sarcastic and funny. I introduced myself to the students and my teacher was kind enough to say "This is her final step as a teacher. You will treat her as a teacher, show her respect, and honor her as you do me" which I greatly appreciated. What I have already gained from the hour I spent with her class is that her students are very well behaved. They are quite inquisitive as I got some interesting questions such as: "What does your husband do?" "What grades do you want to teach?" "How is college? Are your classes hard?" "How are you on base?" "Where are you living?" "Are the Dallas Cowboys your favorite team?" "Is your boyfriend in the Air Force?" Goodness gracious... After speaking with my teacher for awhile, the girls and I have met up and got food and are using my supervisor's hotel room for wifi! My wifi at my dorm is very sketchy...I will add pictures of my school and dorm soon (after I finish unpacking). I will also include an address as soon as I receive on. Tomorrow I believe we are planning on going to Cambridge and possibly London on Saturday. We are headed for Bury St. Edmunds this afternoon and I am excited!! As well as exhausted..

Due to this exhaustion, please forgive any points that do not make sense or grammar errors..all of us are a bit delirious and have been warned we may feel "odd" for the next few days.
I look forward to connecting with ya'll in the future!

Cheerio! Although I haven't heard anyone use that saying yet.I