Week 2 Assignment

Me, around age 3

A co-worker and I in my classroom a few weeks ago! (I am on the right.)

My Favorite Quote(s):

Teachers who love teaching, teach children to love learning.

"To laugh often, to win the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded!" -Ralph Waldo Emerson

 My Favorite Children's Book:

I read this book to my kindergarteners and they have it memorized by the end of the year. They love every time I bring it out and read along with me.  It is a great story they can sing along to, about Pete the Cat in his new white shoes. He steps into piles of strawberries, blueberries and more, but he never cries. He keeps walking along, singing his song, "because it's all good!" I love the moral of the story and how it encouraged kids not to get upset when things don't go as planned.

Here's a live story telling of it by the author:

A Story about a Child that Touched My Heart:

When my niece was born in Sept. 2011, she had some complications. My sister had a great pregnancy, no major problems, but after she delivered, her sweet baby girl had trouble breathing. So they whisked Sonorah away to the NICU and left our family crying and worried about what was going on. A few hours later they came back to tell us they were monitoring her because of her breathing complications. Sonorah ended up staying in the NICU for a week after her birth. It was heart wrenching!
After a day or two, they finally started letting 2 visitors at a time come in to visit with Soso for a while. We couldn't touch her, but we could stand there and admire what a beautiful little person she was. There were lots of tears shed the first time I met my niece. Seeing her hooked up to all the monitors and breathing devices was so upsetting. One memory I will never forget is going to visit her with her new daddy. She had never opened her eyes since they whisked her away from her momma to the NICU. Her poppa started talking to her and she opened her eyes and was trying to look at him. I started bawling like a baby. He got it on film and everything. It was the sweetest moment I have ever seen. At that moment, I never knew how much you could love someone, as much as I did her. (Makes me excited to have my own children someday!) Here is the video:

Sadly,  I had used up all my personal days to spend time with my family 3 days after Soso was born, and was so discouraged when I had to return back to school, without holding my new niece. (Anyone who knew me, knew how excited I was to be an aunt... so it was a devastating experience leaving her in that hospital for our whole family (especially her new momma and poppa!)
The next weekend I raced home, knowing I could finally hold my newborn niece. The moment my sister put that baby into my arms, my heart melted into goo. No one could ever take that memory away from me. She was so perfect and reminded me so much of her mom when she was a baby herself.

The first time I got to hold Sonorah

My life has never been the same since that baby was brought into our family. She has been a huge inspiration in my life. When it comes to teaching, I try to treat every child as if they were my niece/nephew so they can get the best education possible. (B/c I know that is what their own parents would want!)
Sonorah's presence in this world is my biggest influence in life. She brings so much joy to our family and I can not imagine life without her. <3

Child's Drawing:

As a Kindergarten teacher, I get numerous drawings throughout the year from my students- but this is one I just adore....

 This is a drawing that was given to me by one of my kindergarteners from last year.
I love this drawing for many reasons...

1. She drew me smiling. So she sees me as a positive/happy influence in her life!

2. She wrote "You get pink!" which is part of our classroom behavior plan. I reward children who are making good choices by moving their clothespin UP on a chart and when they get their clothespin to pink, they get a sticker at the end of the day!  So needless to say.... she LOVED getting on pink.

3.  All the hearts show me that she really loves her teacher. =)

4. On the back she wrote: "I really miss you so bad. And you are cute and precious." (She drew this over a weekend. haha! This is one of those drawings that makes me realize I am in the right profession. When children want to bring me drawings to hang up... it shows that they value my opinion and KNOW that I care about them enough to display their beautiful creativity! =)

Funny kid stories that fuel my passion for working in the Early Childhood field:

1. (Quick note: I have a recess horn that I take out on the playground and use to let the kids know when it is time to line up. It's a plastic horn from the dollar tree.) As my kindergartners are lined up to go outside a week ago, I was tapping the recess horn on my leg while waiting for one of my girls to line up. Then one of my boys say "Nice rhythm Ms. G!"(I love it when kids have a good vocabulary! So cute!)

 

2. Each week I teach my kindergarteners 2 new high frequency words. We chant the spelling of the word, we cheer it, and we use them in sentences. When I was teaching them the word "so"... one of my sweet and hilarious girls' raises her hand. I call on her to use "so" in a sentence. She replies with "Ms. G is soooooooo fashion!" (as in fashionable.) Please keep in mind that I am in NO WAY fashionable. And as she used the word "fashion", she flipped her her hand like "valley girl". It was priceless!

3.  That same little girl was playing with a new friend during recess at the beginning of the school year. I was listening to her conversation as she played and overheard her say "I am too hot to handle, because I'm a rockstar..."