the happy season.

thanksgiving is upon us and i am beyond excited for this holiday season! yesterday we spent the afternoon with zach's family for their thanksgiving meal and festivities. even though i don't know everyone that they're talking about, or all of the stories they re-tell, i just really love the feel of family. whether it's your own or someone elses family, there's something comforting about being surrounded by people who undenyably love each other.

i'm one project away from being able to breath easy and begin enjoying a little break...yay!

bring on the family, fun, and food!

first graders.

Throughout this semester i have been observing in a first grade classroom as a part of an assignment for one of my education classes. i have come to a very important conclussion...i LOVE first graders! teaching them to read and sound out words, seeing how excited they get when they realize that 4+7=11...everything is a learning experience to a first grader.

i have been so blessed to be placed with great teachers during my observation hours over the past years that really work with me and help me plan for my future as a teacher.

thursday is my last day that i get to spend with my little first graders. i decided to make each of them a special card so that they know how much i really enjoyed being with them this semester.

project time.

projects, projects, projects. that seems to be the key word for the week. one project that i have due coming up is to develop a learning center for first graders in an appropriate subject. kate, my partner/friend/roommate/co-teacher, and i decided to call it craft night last night and get this project under way.
kate is an A+ cutter, so she got to be in charge of cutting out letters.

we decided to go with math as our subject and call our center "math masters". what a fun project!

my job was to come up with some sort of pocket for students to pull word problem sentences out of. i decided to go with the owl theme and sew this little pocket together.

i don't know if children will learn from this center, but two college students sure have had fun making it!

headbands.

living in a dorm seems to make me anxious to get home and get started on a craft project. maybe it's because i don't have the time to do projects or maybe it's because i don't have the room here, but i can't wait to have space to throw all of my craft supplies out and start working on something.

i've been searching the internet lately and i stumbled on these cute handmade headbands. i can't wait to get started on some over christmas break! you can find these and other crafty creations at one of my favorite websites: http://www.lushlee.com/

simple as it should be.

what a fun weekend!
this weekend consisted of seeing old friends, meeting jenny&tyler and listening to them in a mini-house type concert that was so cute and fun (which unfortunately i don't have pictures of...i'm getting bad about remembering to take pictures...opps!), a razorback victory, eating chips and salsa...mmmmm, sonic happy hour, the "traditional" cici's on saturday evening trip, and watching season four of how i met your mother. it was such a relaxing, fun weekend...too bad it's monday again.

the busy part of the semester is here and i can not wait to kiss the fall semester of my junior year goodbye! today i registered for spring classes and i'm already ready to start in on those and get them out of the way.

golden.

fall. ahhh, what a beautiful time of year! the trees have been exceptionally pretty the past couple of weeks and i wish they could stay that way much longer. but i guess that's why we can appreciate it so much, because it's only here for a short while.

we are fastly approaching my favorite time of year! i love this time between halloween and thanksgiving. everyone is gearing up for the holidays but we haven't yet hit that hectic season of deciding who does what and who goes where for the festivities. and the extreme cold hasn't arrived yet either. it's just a really really great time of the year!

the semester is wrapping up which means projects, projects, projects! one week from today i have to stand in front of a group of 3rd graders and teach them a science lesson on pumpkins. i know it sounds silly, but getting up in front of a group of 8 and 9 year olds can be pretty intimidating! getting out and actually teaching will be fun though.

and last, but not least, i started this book last night:

forgotten god by francis chan. zach and i are going to read it together and hopefully learn a lot. i'll let you know how it goes!