Czech me out Prague Pictures!

Prague is in my top two places to visit! It was a great trip! I would go back to Prague! Make sure you check out some of the videos from the cultural folklore dinner we went to. And watch the guy that made sure everyone always had wine!

Prague

Pictures from a neighboring town

Here are pictures from the weekend with my Mentor Teacher and my WSU Supervisor. We got to go out to Delomes house and got to see beautiful artwork then they took us to other little towns! :-)

Weekend with Mentor Teacher and WSU supervisor

Pictures of my Classroom

I really feel like it is part of my classroom! I have put a lot of work in to this room! Room 55 is a great room!

Classroom

Czech me out Prague!

After a long week of observation and fun proper activities, we went to Prague. Prague was absolutely amazing! We got there Saturday morning and went on a bus walking tour. It was beautiful, we were enjoyed the tour. After the tour we went to our hostel and made our beds and sat down to plan the rest of our evening. We were thinking of doing a city ghost tour and then going on a pub crawl. But, then we decided to be adults and do a cultural evening by going on a folklore dinner. It was great, we had a traditional Czech dinner and saw some beautiful dancing and singing. I took lots of video so check them out. On this tour we were by far the youngest we kind of found it funny, but it was ok.

During the tour our tour guide asked my roommate and I if we wanted to go meet up with some people downtown with her. We decided we would go out for a little! It turned out to be a great night and great weekend! We met a lot of fun and nice people and danced the night away until the bar closed at 330! The next morning we woke up early and walked around! Overall, I would have to say that Prague is one of my favorite places and would go back!

The BIG OBSERVATION week!

Well once again it is catch up time! I have been behind on this blog thing. But , there is a reason for that. A.) I wrote this whole thing up last Friday and accidently deleted it right before I posted it and B.) last week was crazy and busy. Last week my supervisor was here and I had my big observation. My observation went great but I was really nervous because the week before my students were not listening and being little turds. Luckily, they were angels for me when my supervisor was here! It was nice to have here her because she is super nice but it was nice for her to be gone as well. As soon as she left the stress was off!

Two weekends ago is when my supervisor first got here. We met up with her on Saturday and wandered around Bamberg and we went out to a wonderful dinner. Then we all got up early Saturday morning to go to a neighboring town and have lunch at my mentor teachers house! It was a very busy and pleasant weekend! Then on Monday it was a final day for my to prepare before Chris my supervisor came in to my classroom. That night our supervisor came over for dinner and I made a whole chicken, red potatoes, fresh green beans, a wonderful salad and homemade strawberry vinaigrette dressing.

On Tuesday, my supervisor spent the afternoon in my classroom. Things went great and I felt very positive about the interaction. Tuesday night we had a big dinner down town with the administration, our mentor teacher and supervisor it went great! Then it was Wednesday and my day to shine! I was super neverous at first and then I realized that I didn’t have time to be nervous because the kids were still kids and had a MILLION and a Half needs. I was so busy solving there problems and doing my daily routine that half the time I forgot my supervisor was there, which turned out to be a great thing! My observation was very successful! YAHOO! I tried to relax the rest of the week, and Friday we went out for a little and got to try the great Bach beer!

Paris

Sorry it took so long! It has been a CRAZY few weeks getting ready for our observation! Hey everyone!

All is good here! I am just one the train back from a great weekend! Last week was a short work week because the kids did not have school! Lucky them! Unfortunately we had teacher trainings boo! I got sent home early because I was sick and they told me I looked like crap! I started thinking this is not fair! How is it the kids manage to get me sick right before I go to Paris on a long 3 day weekend! None the less I was determined to not let it ruin my weekend!

We flew to Paris Friday night got in about 11:30pm. We had no idea where to go so we decided to start with the information desk. Unfortunately, the information desk was absolutely NO help. We asked where our hotel was or how do we get there and the response we got was it’s in Paris. I was like no shit are you Sherlock Homes! Needless to say we were screwed and I was not feeling well! So we decided to just take a cab . Ouch that was one expensive cab ride, we will not be doing that again!

The next morning we got up early and headed to the Eiffel Tower, this was the meeting spot for the Fat Tire Bike tour we were going to take, this is when we first got to see the Eiffel tower. To be honest our first impression was what is so big about that. I was not very impressed, at that point we could only see the top of the Eiffel tower as we got closer and could see the whole thing I decided it was pretty cool.

The bike tour was great we got to see a lot of different places and it helped us plan the next day. We got history about many different buildings. After that bike tour we wondered around got dinner at a cute little restaurant and relaxed. We loved this restaurant because the waiter was funny! He was trying to help us speak French. He told us what something was and then would come back and quiz us! He was very patient with us! After dinner we went on the night bike tour! It was beautiful! We got to see the whole city lit up. We did some intense bike riding as the tour guide said we needed to be ready for some class 5 rapids. The taxi’s and other drivers on the road were aggressive and we need to be ready to stick together and be aggressive back! It was a beautiful tour! We ended the tour on a boat tour that went up and down the river allowing us to really enjoy the city lights. While on the cruise they gave us several glasses of wine! J We finally made it home late that night went straight to bed.

The next morning we got up early and started touring. We first went to the Louve which was massive. It was extraordinary, I got to see the Monalisa and many other beautiful pieces of art. We only made it through 1/3 of the museum because we wanted to see many other things. We then went to the open air market. It was an interesting market selling everything to underwear to meat to bread and flowers. The actual butchers were there with whole chicken heads and feathers still on and even large piece of whole cow. We spent the rest of the day going to Notre Dame and the Army Museum. Then we went to dinner and went to the Eiffel tower. By the time we got to the Eiffel tower it was rainy and stormy, but we waited in line and went to the top of the Eiffel tower it was BEAUTIFUL!

The following day we flew back to Germany. I never thought I would say this but it felt good to be back in Germany! I love it here!

Paris Pictures!

Paris

Munich round two and MY FIRST DAY TAKING OVER!

October 6, 2009

Hello everyone! Just a quick update! This past weekend we went to Munich for a day trip we decided we wanted to see what the city had to offer besides great beer at Oktoberfest! We planned on going on a bike tour but just like everything else on this adventure things did not go as planned. We missed the bike tour so we decided to go on a walking tour instead. The tour was alright kinda boring but we did see some neat things. There is a gorgeous , enormous park there where we saw well inappropriate people aka nudists (hehe) and we saw people surfing! I know who knew you could surf so far away from the ocean! You will have to check out the picture link because there are pictures and or videos of all of this! It was a fun trip.

As for Sunday we decided to stay at our place because our train ride home took an extra couple of hours and we didn’t get home until 2am blah and we had a lot to do! I think I worked on my own school work and lesson planning for almost 10 hours on Sunday YIKES, but all of that planning payed off!

It was all worth it because today was SO AMAZING! Today marked the first day of me taking over the entire class and my first formal observation with a full out PPA lesson plan! Today my mentor teacher sat in the back of the classroom and just watched she did not say anything and if the kids asked her something they told her that they had to ask me! It was a great day! I started a lesson about chronology and time lines! We started by reading a book about Ruby Bridges. Then the students went to their desks and wrote down an event from her life. Then we came back and read them I told them that we need to put them in chronological order. (We discussed what that meant). Then the kids put them in order. Then they got to start writing evens down from their lives on a graphic organizer I provided. The idea of the lesson that will continue is that the students learn about timelines and chronology by creating their own personal zig zag books (accordion book) by completing the writing process. The overall process is multiple lessons and I have written out two formal PPA lesson plans for it!

It was a great day and at the end all of the kids together said that they loved me and that I did a great job! Then about 10 of them gave me a hug all at one time! Today is a day I will not forget it was my first day feelings like this was my class completely and it was a successful day! I am aware that somedays will not be as successful as this but I am prepared for that and I am prepared to do what I have to to make as many days as I can this successful! I hope that you all enjoy this story as much as I enjoy this day!

I love you all and will keep you updated about other wonderful things! Keep looking next week for updates. We will be going to Paris this weekend for the three day weekend! Pictures will be up by tomorrow from this weekend!

I would love to hear from all of you so don’t forget to write! Xoxo!