Friday, January 25, 2008
Fundraising Galore
We're working on our school's annual Spring Extravaganza fundraiser. This incorporates a lot of different things out there...breakfast, rummage sale, craft tables, food booths, car wash, a basket auction, and the list goes on. Our key part is the basket auction. Each class is supposed to put together a theme basket to auction off. So now comes the part of coming up with something creative. Previous ideas, along with a couple of new ones given last night, include sports, fishing, date night, birthday party, day in Forest Park, car wash, gardening, scrapbooking, camping, and I don't remember what else. Anyone have any creative ideas out there?
Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail!
Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail!
Thursday, January 24, 2008
My little brother is getting married in a few months. I thought I was only going to have to show up for this wedding, but alas, a call yesterday asking if I would play the piano. Sure, little brother, anything for you, now I'll have to let you go because I haven't even touched a piano in the last 6 months! But hey, this will be easier than finding a dress like I had to for my sister's wedding. I gave her a conniption by not finding an outfit until 3 days before the wedding (but I got a better deal--$200 outfit for $80, not bad)!
I am a huge bargain shopper! I hate spending full price on anything--including a gallon of milk. I shop at big name stores like Dillard's and Macy's, but rarely ever pay more for an outfit that what I would spend at Wal-Mart. My aunt claims I can smell a sale a mile away. She tried refusing to let me look at the sale racks one day when we were shopping with her money, but it didn't work! I have about 500 kids books that I have purchased for my classroom and I have spent less than $150 on them. I found a great thrift store that other teachers deposit their books at, plus I look for when Goodwill and others are having half off sales. I have most of the recommended authors/books at a fraction of the cost.
The biggest key to an effective classroom is classroom management and you constantly have to evaluate what you're doing and see if it's working. I have one student that I'm positive will never work with anything you create (my soapbox for the day)! You mean, I'm gone from school for a week and you expect me to make up the work. That's not fair. You mean, I need to keep my mouth closed while we're supposed to be working. You mean, I shouldn't have stuff all over the floor. You mean, I'm supposed to turn my work in when the teacher says. You mean, I shouldn't be 50 ft. behind the rest of the class. You mean, I can't go blow my nose until I finish my penmanship or math page. You mean, I can't color all over myself or tear apart my pencils. Let me just say, the last week was peaceful, but the honeymoon had to come to an end!
Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail!
I am a huge bargain shopper! I hate spending full price on anything--including a gallon of milk. I shop at big name stores like Dillard's and Macy's, but rarely ever pay more for an outfit that what I would spend at Wal-Mart. My aunt claims I can smell a sale a mile away. She tried refusing to let me look at the sale racks one day when we were shopping with her money, but it didn't work! I have about 500 kids books that I have purchased for my classroom and I have spent less than $150 on them. I found a great thrift store that other teachers deposit their books at, plus I look for when Goodwill and others are having half off sales. I have most of the recommended authors/books at a fraction of the cost.
The biggest key to an effective classroom is classroom management and you constantly have to evaluate what you're doing and see if it's working. I have one student that I'm positive will never work with anything you create (my soapbox for the day)! You mean, I'm gone from school for a week and you expect me to make up the work. That's not fair. You mean, I need to keep my mouth closed while we're supposed to be working. You mean, I shouldn't have stuff all over the floor. You mean, I'm supposed to turn my work in when the teacher says. You mean, I shouldn't be 50 ft. behind the rest of the class. You mean, I can't go blow my nose until I finish my penmanship or math page. You mean, I can't color all over myself or tear apart my pencils. Let me just say, the last week was peaceful, but the honeymoon had to come to an end!
Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail!
Monday, January 21, 2008
Random Things from the Weekend
It was yet another crazy weekend. I started it off with a slumber party with some of our teen girls on Friday night. Then, Saturday was outreach in the Arctic cold weather. Our outreach adventure included a run-in with another driver. I'm at a stoplight in the turning lane (in the church van) when another lady is not paying attention and decides to turn on the street a little too late to make it into her designated lane. She proceeds to become irate with me because I am in the correct lane and apparently how dare I drive properly so we all watch as she's yelling at me through her window. She keeps driving closer to the van, then when we're not moving, acts like she backs up and comes at the van from another angle. I'm sitting there going, are you stupid lady? This van is way bigger than your little car. Besides, if you hit the van hard enough to mess it up really bad, maybe we'll get a new one. I've been looking for a good reason to convince the church we need a new van, go ahead and hit us! The youth pastor is sitting in the seat behind me kindly motioning the lady to go on around and she finally does. A few months ago, the lady probably would have scared the wits out of me, but we have a lot more boldness going into this neighborhood now.
After outreach, I tackled helping a family out with a birthday party at Dave & Busters. Now, why a mother who freaks out over everything with her kids would take them to such a place, I will never understand. She was having a nervous breakdown the whole time we were there, going there's no security here, someone could just walk in and take one of these kids and we'd never know it. Now, lady, why didn't you take your kid to Chuck-e-Cheese instead?
Sunday morning came way too early. I went to pick up a few of the kids. The van rides are always an interesting time. We've had fights break out. We have kids crying over "your mama/papa" jokes (these though have led us to understand the lives of the kids, as the kids will "joke" about their parent being in jail or whatever...information comes out then that we might not otherwise learn). We've had them singing every song under the sun (we're really working on teaching them church songs, but they prefer rap stuff!). The part that always makes us laugh the most is when they see the "po-po" (the police). All of a sudden, you will hear a kid say, "It's the po-po." and every head in the van ducks down to hide! (We've had to teach them in SS that the police are your friends.)
On this particular Sunday morning, "Jordan Jr." did not want to go to his SS class and no amount of talking to him would convince him, so we had to take him home early. In the van, he was kicking and hollering and gave the finger to one of our teens. Next week, he will be a little angel, but for this week, his horns were showing.
The rest of the kids were very well behaved. Little "Tiff Jr." was talking about her Christmas presents to one of the kids and mentioned that she had gotten a Bible. (She won the hearts of everyone when she asked for a Bible for Christmas, and our children's pastor's family had her name so they made sure she got one.) She went on to say that she had been reading her Bible every day. Little things like that make it worth it all.
Sunday afternoon was spent baby-sitting and then back to church that night and a youth staff meeting afterwards. Youth staff meetings are one of those things that you love and hate, but this one was fun and we accomplished a lot. Youth week is coming up in a couple of weeks so there's a lot to get done. Our youth staff is very unique and quite full of unusual characters. We're a very close group so we're cracking jokes the whole time and the poor youth pastor has to keep reigning in the troops to keep us focused. We manage to get the job done though.
Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail!
After outreach, I tackled helping a family out with a birthday party at Dave & Busters. Now, why a mother who freaks out over everything with her kids would take them to such a place, I will never understand. She was having a nervous breakdown the whole time we were there, going there's no security here, someone could just walk in and take one of these kids and we'd never know it. Now, lady, why didn't you take your kid to Chuck-e-Cheese instead?
Sunday morning came way too early. I went to pick up a few of the kids. The van rides are always an interesting time. We've had fights break out. We have kids crying over "your mama/papa" jokes (these though have led us to understand the lives of the kids, as the kids will "joke" about their parent being in jail or whatever...information comes out then that we might not otherwise learn). We've had them singing every song under the sun (we're really working on teaching them church songs, but they prefer rap stuff!). The part that always makes us laugh the most is when they see the "po-po" (the police). All of a sudden, you will hear a kid say, "It's the po-po." and every head in the van ducks down to hide! (We've had to teach them in SS that the police are your friends.)
On this particular Sunday morning, "Jordan Jr." did not want to go to his SS class and no amount of talking to him would convince him, so we had to take him home early. In the van, he was kicking and hollering and gave the finger to one of our teens. Next week, he will be a little angel, but for this week, his horns were showing.
The rest of the kids were very well behaved. Little "Tiff Jr." was talking about her Christmas presents to one of the kids and mentioned that she had gotten a Bible. (She won the hearts of everyone when she asked for a Bible for Christmas, and our children's pastor's family had her name so they made sure she got one.) She went on to say that she had been reading her Bible every day. Little things like that make it worth it all.
Sunday afternoon was spent baby-sitting and then back to church that night and a youth staff meeting afterwards. Youth staff meetings are one of those things that you love and hate, but this one was fun and we accomplished a lot. Youth week is coming up in a couple of weeks so there's a lot to get done. Our youth staff is very unique and quite full of unusual characters. We're a very close group so we're cracking jokes the whole time and the poor youth pastor has to keep reigning in the troops to keep us focused. We manage to get the job done though.
Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail!
How to Keep Kids Coming to Sunday School
While we were picking up kids yesterday morning, little "Jordan Jr." asks if we are picking his cousin up. I told him that another van was picking him up. His reply, "Well, he had better come to Sunday School or I'm going to punch him. He has to come! I'm gonna kick him if he doesn't." With effective soul winning tactics like that, we can't help but to see our Sunday School numbers rise! :)
Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail!
Questions, comments, concerns? Please feel free to E-mail!
