Let's Be Adventurers

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Guy Fawkes Night and Leprechauns

Oh my goodness...its a great thing that being a blogger is not my day job. This thing can be difficult to keep up with when you teach all day, have homework, lessons to plan, papers to grade, and then want a life/travel on top of that! I apologize for not updating this sooner though!!! Does anyone even read this anymore? Hello? Anyone out there? Does my own boyfriend even try and read this? Probably not; however, I will write about my travels the last few weeks.

On November 4th, we celebrated an early Guy Fawkes Night with a bonfire. What is Guy Fawkes Night you might ask? Ever heard of "Remember remember the 5th of November?" Well that regards Guy Fawkes! This is one of the men caught scheming to blow up Parliment in 1605..and Guy Fawkes Night is the celebration of his failure. The Brits typically celebrate by burning bonfires or shooting fireworks. Another little known fact is the "Anonymous" mask or the mask from V for Vendetta is based off of Guy Fawkes. Whoooo history!! Here is a few pictures from the bonfire:

Now onto one of my favorite trips from the semester...Ireland!!

We left for Ireland on Saturday morning, November 9th. We took a short, hour flight into Dublin, and took a free bus into Dublin's city center. We had bought the Dublin pass which let us into lots of city sights and allowed us some free refreshments at certain places as well. As soon as we arrived we took advantage of this deal and went to Bewleys for some free cheesecake and hot chocolate.

After Bewleys we went to Christ's Church cathedral to look around at the beautiful architecture. While all of the cathedrals we have been to have been beautiful, I'll be honest- they are all starting to look the same. But here is a picture or two nonetheless.

These clothes inside the cathedral were used in the Showtime show The Tudors.

Ireland's Bridge of Sighs directly outside of Christ's Church. I have now seen two of the Bridge of Sighs bridges.

After the cathedral, we walked to the Guinness Storehouse where we walked each floor to see how the beer is made, all about Arthur Guinness, how it has been advertised over the years, and taught how to pour the perfect pint! There is actually some science behind it (which as a teacher I appreciated).

You have to wait 90 seconds for the Guinness to settle before you can top it off. When Guinness is poured, the white bubbles settle downward; and as bubbles are lighter than beer, one might think this defies the laws of gravity. However, the beer flows downward near the walls of the glass, dragging the nitrogen bubbles along-creating the creamy white "head" of foam resting on top of the ruby red brew. Yummy?! I didn't exactly think so..while I may be able to pour the perfect pint, I can't exactly enjoy the perfect pint I created. Anyways, after the Guiness gift store we took a horse drawn carriage to the area to where our ride for the evening was waiting for us. We bought dinner/show tickets online for the Merry Ploughboy Pub and a driver picked us up to take us to our reservations. Let me tell you, this is one special evening. We enjoyed a delicious 4 course meal (mine included bread, clam chowder, lamb shank with potatoes, and apple pie) along with two bottles of wine for the table. While we dined on our feast we listening to authentic irish folk music played by three kind gentlemen. Most of the songs we did not know, but some were so moving that I had tears coming to my eyes. The whole experience was marvelous. One song we did have fun singing along to was "My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean" which the whole room sang and swayed to together. After the folk music, irish dances came and danced! There were three girls and one guy performing and we thoroughly enjoyed watching, clapping along and a few of the girls were able to join in! Erin and Kali were brought up to join the dancers, and the rest of us had a blast laughing and cat calling them the entire time. I took a few videos which I will cherish and show to whoever would like to peek into our night :) After the show, we were taken to our hotel where we all passed our after our long but incredible day.

The next day, we woke up early for our Irish breakfast and cabbed over to where we we were getting picked up for the upcoming adventure. A tour guide picked us 5 girls, and 9 other passengers up in a van to take us to the Wicklow Mountains. We stopped to enjoy the breathtaking sights.and we couldn't help but take quite a few pictures of the "straight from a postcard" scenery.

We drove to where we would begin our real tour.. on horseback! We arrived at the stables where the owners assigned us each a horse and began teaching us how to ride-English style. First off, my horse's name was Jerry..and he was awesome. He was very chill and relaxed..and was a pro. He knew what he was doing and I let him do his thing. Our typical conversations went like this: "Jerry, go this way...oh you don't want to? Fine. Oh, I guess that was a smarter way to go. Good job, Jerry. Teamwork." So Jerry was a sweetheart..Unfortunately for me, I am allergic to horses (or anything with fur for that matter) and guess who forgot their allergy medicine on the trip? You are right my dear reader..me. So I had fun sneezing my head off the entire trip (which was my own fault). In fact, the owners would say "Where is the sneezing girl?" if I went more than 5 minutes without sneezing. Ok, enough about that. Now English style riding is a bit different than how I know how to ride a horse. The saddle is a bit different, with zero raised bit in the middle to hold on to. They also do not use stirrups, but as we were beginners we did. So for our ride they throughly taught us for roughly 45 minutes how to ride our horses-walking, stopping, steering, and trotting. We then were taken out into the wide open fields of the Wicklow Mountains. IT WAS STUNNING. I have told several people this..and I am not sure if I can emphasize this enough, but this experience in particular was one of the best I have ever had. The open air, the gorgeous green fields with the changing fall color of the trees, the feel and power of the horse..it was just incredible. Even with me sneezing every 5 minutes.

Horseys

I think I was a jokey in a past life. Minus the whole allergies thing

In the far distance you can even see the sea! I forgot which one though to be honest

Me and my pal Jerry :)

So after we took this amazing tour in which we saw areas from A&E's show Vikings, and where parts of Braveheart were shot, we had a quick lunch at Poppies (where a scene from the movie Leap Year was shot). Our tour guide then drove us all over the Wicklow area, stopping at particular sights.

Here is the bridge from a scene in P.S. I Love You (with Gerard Butler and Hilary Swank)

Sorry if this is too many scenery pictures for you..it was just so gorgeous that I had to share.

Now after we drove all over the Wicklow area, we made our way back to Dublin. We asked our tour guide (who was Irish) for a recommendation for a place to eat/see some live music and dancing. She then dropped us off at a particular pub and said this place had good music and dancing every night. We took her word for it..and regretted it not too long after. The best way to describe the experience was commercialized. After enjoying the Merry Ploughboy the night before, it was like going from an amazing mom and pop experience to a TGIFridays. The food was unimpressive and overpriced, the music was not very great and the act talked too much, and the dancers had zero heart in their dancing. You could tell it was all for a pay check. While we were disappointed in our dinner..we had such an amazing day that we went to bed with happy and full hearts.

On our last day we walked around Dublin, went to the Kilmainham Gaol (prison) and strolled along Trinity College. I was desperately looking for some antique-like shops but as we are not from the area..we could not find any. A little disheartening but overall the trip was fantastic, and I look forward to going back again. As a whole, Dublin is full of real people. While London is posh and stiff, Dublin is hearty and full of life and culture. The accents were great: they do not pronounce the -th sound. Three becomes tree, thought becomes taught..when they speak quickly it becomes gibberish. So we had a great time and everyone should go!!

Sorry about the long post but I get excited relating my adventures. Tomorrow I will catch everyone up on the Birmingham Christmas Market we went to this past weekend.

As always, love love love

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Observation Week

Well this past week was a very busy week! Dean Carroll, my supervisor and the dean for the College of Education, came this week to observe us and basically hang out with us. It was also the week I was teaching my EdTPA lesson plan, the lesson plan I had been working on for months for part of my OSU requirement. My lesson plan was over Theme, teaching the students what theme is, contrasting it to a summary, then letting them apply it to literature and the novel we have been reading. This lesson plan was a little nerve wracking as I wanted it to go really well.

During Monday's lesson I discussed summary and theme with the students and read two children's books, Chrysanthemum and A Bad Case of the Stripes, to show how to find theme in stories (with their help). It went pretty well and I was excited for the next day where they would be applying theme on their own.
On Monday night we were invited to a nice family's house for an "authentic italian dinner," cooked by an Italian airman. There were lots of people and our host made sure we all got to know one another. She asked so many questions and then had us play a "game," to see who has done all of these interesting things (like if you speak several languages, gone sky diving, gone on a cruise.) I think I raised my hand once..so I guess I'm not very "interesting." However, there were some people who raised their hand for almost every single one and I don't find them particularly amusing. Anyways.. after our delicious dinner of bread, pasta, and nutella crepes, we got to know the italian airman a bit better as he talked about where he grew up, his experiences in the States, and where we should go when we visit Italy. He was a nice guy but he certainly had some ideas about Americans that aren't always true. (Like how we enjoy there being a McDonalds on every corner, that our parents give us anything/everything we want, or how everyone gets a car for their 16th birthday). During this dinner, we also talked to a few of the teachers there who gave us some great advice about applying for Dodds schools. We should definiltey take advantage of student teaching with Dodea and apply as soon as possible as our names will be on the first page of applicants (and there will be thousands of applicants). We enjoyed dinner and getting to know Dean Carroll a bit better in a less formal setting and went home to prepare for the next day of obseravtions.

Tuesday was my day of observations, and I was the first up. Before the dean came in, I explained to the students who was coming in and why. They were full of questions (Does she tell you if you passed or failed?! Is she watching us?) and I told them to behave like normal, pretend she wasn't even there. Then cue Jenn threatening them to behave or else.. haha I began teaching part 2 of my EdTPA lesson, reviewing theme with the students, having them discuss their own examples of themes, and assigning pairs of students a particular book to analyze. Dean Carroll came in sometime while the students were discussing their own examples. I walked around helping students and asking them their thought process and what they thought of the books. I chose the groups based on ability and who would work well together, and I chose books based on ability as well. With my higher level students, I gave them more challenging books and so on and so forth. I also chose books I thought the students would enjoy and they all seemed to like their book. I discussed my lesson and how I chose groups and books with the Dean and then she chatted with Jenn for a bit. I didn't get my feedback until later..but before she left she said "You look like you're made to teach Hannah." oh my goodness that made my heart happy!!!! I'll share her feedback later. Jenn then walked Dean Carroll downstairs to where she would be observing next and all my students turned to face me real quick...looking at me with the funniest expressions. They all started shouting asking "How did it go?" "Did you do good?!" "Do you still feel nervous?!" "Did you pass?" "How did we do?!" hahaha I couldn't help but laugh. I told them I think I did well and they were perfect as I knew they would be. They then asked if I could bring them cupcakes..I said absolutely not. They already have Halloween this week and they don't need more sugar. If it wasn't Halloween I would have brought them lots of cupcakes :)

Wednesday was the last day of teaching my theme lesson plan and it went great. Arguably the best day as the kids did a fabulous job analyzing Tale of Despereaux and figuring out the theme (and justifying it). I had them do "Line Ups" where students line up based on what theme they think applies to Tale of Despereaux and explain their reasoning. They did so well!! Except one of my very bright students was trying to be cute and say gibberish..that didn't fly over so well. Other than that..everything was great and I was very proud. That Wednesday evening Dean Carroll came to play volleyball with all of us. She was hilarious as she tried but would rarely succeed. She was a good sport about it..she told us she was a diver, not a volleyball player. After volleyball we all went to the pub for drinks and dinner, and to talk more about our experiences here and about school. She assured us there will be changes made to some of our classes which made us all very happy. She told us all we did a great job in our observations, and that the teaching profession looks bright thanks to us :) She is so sweet and supportive. When she left us that night we all felt a bit sad, but she did promise us a lunch date the week we get back (with Dr. Davis, our other supervisor).

Thursday was Halloween and it was insane at the school. The kids had a sandwhich party for lunch and recieved more sugar than I thought possible. They got two kinds of cupcakes, oreos, ice cream sandwhiches, pudding, and then candy. Good grief!! Kim and I then spent the night with Jenn and had fun making margaritas and tacos and seeing adorable british trick or treaters. Friday was a teacher work day so Jenn offered to take me to sushi for a long lunch. I'm so lucky someone else here loves sushi like I do! ALSO: a new trip has been planned!!! A few of us decided to plan a trip to Barcelona, Spain!! Actually it was Jenn's idea..she can be so smart sometimes. So me, Jenn, Kim, and Micaela are going to Barcelona the weekend before Thanksgiving while the other girls made their own plans. So excited!!!!

So now our trip schedule looks like this:

November 9-11: Dublin, Ireland

November 16th: Birmingham Christmas Market

November 22-24: Barelona, Spain

November 27-30: Rome, Italy

November 30-31: London, England

Decemeber 7: Fly back home to Dallas!!

Can't believe only a few more weeks!! I already know I will be bawling when I have to leave my kiddos. I'll put up Dean Carroll's feedback soon!!

And if you miss my beautiful face..here is a "teacher outfit" for you all :)

Always love love love

Sunday, October 27, 2013

The Teaching Life

So maybe I'm not cut out for being a Bloggess as I can't seem to keep up with it..but this week my wifi has been espeically rough. And this weekend the wifi went out all together. I'm having to blog from my classroom as I take a break from lesson planning. To be honest, this past week was a tough week for me. Nothing went terribly wrong, but then again nothing seemed to go smoothly either. I was not as prepared as I normally am so lesson learned the hard way: planning planning planning is very important!! I took over literature and started a unit with the book Tale of Despereaux (awesome book by the way) that I planned all myself. Next week I start planning for social studies and co-teaching math so by November I will be teaching everything myself. Jenn has started to let me do things and realize for myself my mistakes which has been hard sometimes, but experience is the best teacher. She has also been in and out of meetings this week so she's been out of the classroom quite often. This makes me feel like its more my own class and I kind of like it (sometimes, not always).

This week my supervisor, Dean Carrol, is here to observe us in action. We met her for lunch today and I am very excited. She is a sweet southern lady who has supervised interns (even in England) for at least 22 years. She has made sure we know that she is more like our fan club than anything, which comforts me. Of course I am still a little nervous, and Jenn has threatened our students that if one of them misbehaves that the wrath of God will be brought down..but I'm sure it will be fine. I have some pretty amazing kiddos :)

Here are a few funny moments from the last week. I have started a "Friday notebook" for morning work that includes review questions and a creative writing prompt. I like to make the creative writing prompts fun so the students will still find pleasure in writing. Last week's prompt was: "Write a day in the life of Mrs. Seguin or Miss Brenner." Here are a few examples (written exactly how the kids wrote them):

"A Day in the Life of Miss Brenner"
"What she does is do morning work with us. Miss Brenner then tells us what we are going to do today. We talk and learn with her throughout the day. Then when it its time to go home, she kicks Mrs. Seguin and claims she is innocent."

"A Day in the Life of Miss Brenner"
"Mrs. Brenner probably reads in her spare time when she comes to school. She drinks her coffee from Starbucks. Mrs. Brenner also jokes around with Mrs. Seguin. Mrs. Brenner then teachers us correctly. Mrs. Brenner also drinks with manners."
(Jenn was purposefully slurping her coffee that morning to annoy the students.)

My personal favorite: "A Day in the Life of Mrs. Seguin"
"First thing in the morning, Mrs. Seguin tries to ignore the alarm and pretend its Saturday. Next she asks Mr. Seguin what t-shirt goes best for tally giving. When she gets to school, her and Mrs. Brenner get into a fight about Cowbows being better than the Steelers and vice versa. Then at the end of the day, she stays after and watches dogs doing hilarious things on Youtube. Then she goes home, plays with her dogs, and gets ready to do the same thing the next day."

HAHA that last one still cracks me up. The student even included a picture of Jenn at her desk. My kids also just recently realized that Jenn is the one that "passes/fails" me on my evaluation. Jenn likes to joke around and say "Hmmmm, kids do you think Miss Brenner should fail today?" And the kids play along (most of them will rise to my defense). Well they finally understood OHHH Mrs. Seguin really does have a say in what grade you get!! Haha Now they really try and convince Mrs. Seguin on whether I should pass or fail this semester :) Sometimes they will bring up how they will miss me when I leave, but I don't think they will realize it til I am actually leaving. I can't believe I ony have a few more weeks here!! I'm going to apply to Dodea as soon as possible once I get back home..I have loved this experience and think Dods schools are incredible. It really is "the best kept secret in teaching" as one teacher put it.

Well I don't have any more trips planned until November (unless we go to Cambridge next week for Halloween..but that isn't decided yet) so you may just get teacher updates for the next few weeks :) I'll let you all know how the supervisor observation goes!!

Always love love love