Top Posts of March

With my A to Z Challenge, I am catching up on my top posts of March today since it is a "break" from the letters.  The cool thing about today's post it is the 100th post on my blog! And I have completed 25% of the 365 challenge...wow I didn't think it was that long already!

3. Seed Stitch Baby Blanket...posted on March 26, 2013
This is my first pattern post...I want to do more of these. But I'm glad that I met my goal for March, to do more knitting posts and I'm glad you guys liked it

2. Five Favorite Front-Page Features #10...posted on March 8, 2013
The cool thing about this post...I really didn't have to write it--I wrote my lesson plan and I put it up!  I hope that teachers are stealing these great resources.  I do this every week and always label them so find them on the side.

1. My Pinterest Cleaning Tip...posted on March 16, 2013
The funny thing about this was that I did not think that I would get that much response to this...but my sister even tried it!  I didn't think that it would get so much response!

My official work photo for CRA

F is for Five Favorite Front-Page Features

So though it is a Saturday this seemed like a great day to do Five Favorite Front-Page Features.  For my A to Z Challenge visitors/new visitors...this is a weekly post that I do on Fridays that talks about the five top news posts...in my opinion.  I usually give a bit of commentary to show why I think that it is an impact on our lives/history.  I also do this from the mindset of a Social Studies teacher and try to include links from a variety of sources for fellow teachers to steal to help their students understand the impacts of these events.

5. Even though this is probably really a publicity stunt, it allows students to go over the Sequestration again which was really a history making type of thing.  President Obama will give 5% of his salary back....my question is how much is that really and where does that money go now? http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/04/us/politics/to-highlight-pain-of-budget-cuts-obama-to-return-of-part-of-pay.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130404&_r=0

4. Nelson Mandela hospitalized..while not super news, he is old and hospital visits are to be expected..it can be a great tie-in to who Mandela is and how he has affected history especially in South Africa http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/06/world/africa/south-africa-mandela/?hpt=hp_zite1_featured 

3. Roger Ebert died...a def affect on history. http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/film-critic-roger-ebert-dies-age-70-18884278?tab=9482930&section=1206853&playlist=18835803 

2. I have noticed that today's students care more than my generation did about how the economy is doing...I think it comes from becoming more aware of the recession.  When I mentioned the stock market rising and setting new records a few weeks ago it started a great discussion about recession v. Great Depressiona nd what stocks are etc.  So seeing how a jobs report affects everything is a great lead in too http://www.nbcnews.com/business/economywatch/jobs-growth-hits-slowest-pace-nine-months-1B9229443

1. North Korea and U.S. tensions are still going and who knows when/where it will end....this is a great thing to make sure that students know.  Found a CNN resource that allows students to explore where their questions are http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/world/north-korea/index.html?hpt=hp_t3 

Saw on Facebook...and I thought it was hilarious!

E is for Escape

To my regular readers, Five Favorite Front-Page Features will appear tomorrow as it makes perfect sense with the letter "F".  So today being E...I thought of many many words that I could do--from English to Elvis to Emma (the book) to energy and excitement etc. But I have finally decided on escape because it is late and I'm getting this in under the wire--it is tomorrow in like 30 min.

I am calling it escape because that is Provo, Utah to me now.  For those of you just meeting me, I live in rural Utah in a little town called Roosevelt.  It is little..like very limited shopping and things to do little and everyone knows everyone and everyone's business--kind of.  It helps that everyone is related to each other. So when I need big city time and pretty much anything that "normal" people would do I go to Provo.  It is my escape.  When I first started at my job and trying to adjust to the rural life I lived for my Provo weekends.I could just feel the stress leave and I use to be able to tell in my body when I was almost back to Roosevelt because all of the stress comes back.

Now that I have been out in Roosevelt for about 3 years, it is not such a profound feeling going home but it still is driving in. I love "my mountains" and the hustle and bustle--though I still don't like driving in it.  And honestly I don't want to move out of Roosevelt as much as I use to--the little town has really grown on me. And I think part of it is that I do have this escape.

Do you have a place to escape to that lets you really let go of everything?

D is for Differences in Learning

I thought it might be time again for another education op-ed type thing. One of the things that I hear a lot as a teacher---especially in my particular school is from parents and sometimes students--"My son/daughter/I have learning differences."  They usually say it in this whiny voice with an intent to look for an exception or a teacher to spend ALL of their time with them and ignore all the other students that they have.  I have taken to saying something like, "That's nice, so do I."

Parents will usually pause and the kids will stare at me like, "Really you are a teacher and super smart?!"  I continue talking about how everyone learns differently.  If we all learned the same, we would all have the same personalities, and then we might as well be robots.  We have to figure out what helps us to learn best--but we can't use it as an excuse.  I know that I learn well with visuals and sounds--so when I am learning something I figure out how to make that happen.  That is what our students need.

As parents and teachers we want to help our students to be independent.  So, don't let them use the fact that they are totally different from everyone else as an excuse--use it to empower them.  You learn differently?  Great! What are you going to do to help yourself?  How can you advocate for yourself?  Just because you have an IEP does not give you license to not work and it definitely does not allow you to just sit back and not work hard.  Will you have to work hard then another student because of that?  Yes it is possible, but they have to work hard at something else that is easy for you.

Be okay with the fact that we are all different.

C is for Cedar Ridge Academy Therapeutic Boarding School

C is for Cedar Ridge Academy Co-ed Therapeutic Boarding School....because I work there!! Yes it is a mouthful! Often shorthanded as Cedar Ridge Academy/Cedar Ridge/CRA. I thought that since I spend almost my entire day at this school, it made a perfect letter C.  When people hear I work at this school I get very common questions...so here comes my FAQ for teaching at CRA.

What exactly is a therapeutic boarding school?
A therapeutic boarding school to a certain extent is exactly what it sounds like. It is a boarding school so the kids are there 24/7 and we focus on giving them help with through therapy.

What kind of students do you get/why do they get sent to your school?
So first of all, for the confidentiality reasons I can't really say why a student has been sent to us.  But overall, they have had some bad cards dealt to them in their lives and they don't know how to deal with it.  Most of the time they have chosen to deal with it by doing drugs and they aren't really going to school anymore because they avoid with the drugs or something else.

What do you teach exactly and what grades?
I currently teach English and Social Studies to all high school grades (9-12). Yes I have the "prep" nightmare that many teachers talk about--and I do both subjects alone, hence all my grading complaints.  But I am grateful everyday that I have a low number of students so that I only have a few kids in each prep.

Why do you work there? It sure sounds hard!
There are many days--as I'm sure my regular readers know--that I wonder that same thing myself.  As my husband often puts it--the one or two troublemakers in one teacher's class are now all in my classes.  But I love working with the small class sizes that I do get.  Tomorrow I have a class period of only 13 while when I was teaching in public school I had 35-40 in a class.  I also help to shape lives of teenagers in a way that public school teachers can't...you really build a good relationship with students and get to know them.

So if the students are there 24/7, what kind of school schedule do you follow?
Thankfully we're not like other programs that do "moonlighting" teachers--we do school at the regular times from 8-3 everyday--all year long.  That's right...no summer break, no winter break, no spring break, and no random days off really like other schools.  We do take off holidays---like I had President's Day off so there's no school, but that's about it. We also don't have semesters because students can enroll at a time.

Wait no semesters, how does that work?!
Well it does get a bit tricky--but students work "independently" through their courses.  Pretty much they are given the course online and they work through it at their own pace. I supplement with activities in class, answer questions, and fill in the holes when the information isn't making sense for the students.  They are required to do a certain amount of work at a certain quality each week so to a certain extent it works out for everybody.

Well there we go...I think I thought of all the big ones!  Feel free to ask in the comments section if you have one to add to the list :)

B is for BYU Basketball

So today's big thing fore me was the fact that BYU Basketball was playing in the NIT Semi-Finals....so they are my post for our "B" day today.  I came home from school just in time for tip-off and I was very proud that my Cougars were able to keep it really close until the end.  It is really too bad that they lost by 6!

Even though they were kept out of the NCAA basketball they had a really good run in the NIT.  While I'm mentioning it though...I do a March Madness bracket competition (I think I mentioned) with my students.  Of the 14 students and staff that submitted brackets only 4 of us are still in the running.  And the only way I get more points is if Syracuse goes to the championship game! So wish me luck!

A is for Audio Gameday

I found out about the A to Z Challenge today...which seems like a great challenge to be apart of.  The purpose of the challenge is to do a post each day in April--except Sundays--with a different letter from the alphabet.  My first thought was, "Darn I wish I had known about it earlier to do an intro post!"  My second thought was, "I already am posting everyday for 365 project this gives me a month's worth of ideas and maybe some more exposure."  I hope to get a chance to see the fellow 2,000 other bloggers participating at some point in this month and I hope that they come over and see me.  The site asked for categories...I realized after I submitted that I didn't put up a category..but just as well since I could have been in like four different categories.

Today is opening day for baseball!! I love baseball and I am a huge St. Louis Cardinals fan. I'm very excited to see the St. Louis Cardinals starting out with the Arizona Diamondbacks--they are currently leading by one!  But the best part about this season is that I have finally decided to get Audio Gameday from MLB.com  With living in rural Utah, I am completely out of Cardinal Nation.  I lose track of my team easily and I don't usually get to see them on TV because of how far away I am.  So...for $20 this season (yep the whole season) I can open my computer and turn on Audio Gameday. The cool thing about Audio Gameday is that you can pick what radio station you listen to.  So I can be listening to my St. Louis radio station from my current home in Roosevelt.  So excited for a great Cardinal season!

Yeah its blurry....but hey its the best I can do with a webcam.
Lets see if we can be champions again this year!!