Merry Christmas!

This holiday season came way too fast! I am so thankful for all of the blessings I have in my life right now including having a nice place to live, a supportive boyfriend, a fantastic family and great group of friends. 


Justin and I decided not to send out Christmas cards this year in an effort to save some money. We have set a big goal for ourselves for the new year. By living frugally, we hope to have enough money saved up to buy a house by December 2011! Sometimes when we are surrounded by nice things it can be hard to lose track of the important things in life. So my 2011 resolution is to not be so wasteful with my money. 


Merry Christmas Bloggers! 


Until next time.. 

A tribute to my favorite people..

I love looking at pictures. It reminds me of all of the great things I have in my life.

The girls at Kasey's Wedding

My Love and I

This is why I love him

A wedding should be two things. Beautiful and Fun! Kasey's was both of these things and more!

Trish and I at the Bachelorette party

Girls just like to dance. We did a lot of that. 

Getting ready to go out!

The whole crew

<3

Hello December!

Thanksgiving break came and went WAY too fast! I had a professional development day and a work day which I was very thankful for. I ended up leaving all of my work at school which allowed me to actually relax during break! 

J and I traveled to North Carolina to see his family. Besides the fact that I ate too much dessert, I had a wonderful time! I even convinced J's mom and sister (and J) to go black friday shopping with me! 

It was very difficult to get up Monday morning but it ended up being a great first day back. A lot of my Forensic students seemed happy to see me and it was nice to have students ask me how my break was. I wasn't looking forward to today since I have freshman all day, however, today went by fairly smooth. 

The next 3 weeks are going to FLY by! I love this time of year. 

Until next time

In the mind of a teen..

Today was an interesting day. I got to see into the mind of a teenager from an adult's perspective. 

I have a student named "Jo" who has not been doing very well. First quarter he scraped by with a 60%. The reason why he is doing so poorly is because he is very social. He likes to talk a lot and he can not sit still. In class, I do ALOT of labs but many times he (and other students) do not listen to the instructions and then have no idea what they are doing. These students are extremely frustrating for me. 

Anyway, Jo's parents contacted me today by email explaining how thankful they were for me having the patience and time to work with Jo and that they were going to be much more involved in Jo's education now. So I called Jo over to my desk to let him know that I was sending his Dad an email back and Jo said "I hate my parents!". For that split second I remembered what it was like to HATE my parents. I remember thinking "They don't know what I am going through. They don't understand. They are mean. I didn't do anything to deserve this". So I had Jo sit down and we had a conversation. I told Jo what his Dad had said to me in the email and that his dad wants the best education for him. I feel like for once I might have gotten through to him. I also told Jo that 10 years from now he is going to look back on his high school years and be very thankful that his parents were there to help support him. 

After the conversation, I sat and thought about my own high school experiences and the fights I used to have with my parents about grades and going out to hang with friends and homework..etc. It made me realize how much I have grown up (and love being a grown up). I love my parents and everything they have done for me. Without their support, who knows where I would be. I am very thankful! 

Dreaming

J and I were talking about how fun its going to be to one day have a nice house with nice things that are nicely decorated. (This is after we win the lottery of course). We decided that we are going to have a  finished basement (with a bar and a big screen tv) and it is going to be decorated completely in NC State gear. Here are the fun things we have put on our wish list..

Hey! A girl can dream cant she!?

    Love my Wolfpack! 

Until next time... 

P.S.- One more day of students and two work days until Thanksgiving break!! WOO HOO

complaining

My list of complaints for the week...

FIRST of all, why don't we have off school for Veterans day?! I would love to honor our Vets by having a day off of school.

Secondly, I strongly dislike the Matter and Energy course of study. It cuts out all the fun and interesting things in Chemistry. For example, they want me to teach ionic bonds but they don't want me to go into detail about metals and non metals and oxidation numbers and dot structures and all the other things normally you would need to know in order to understand ionic bonds.. It's such a waste of time (in my opinion) to just "touch" on a topic that they won't understand without all the other details.

Also, its 30 degrees out in the morning.. WHY haven't we gotten the heat turned on in our building!?! I seriously wore my coat, scarf and gloves all day on Monday. Ridiculous!

and another thing... why do people involved in education create so much unnecessary paper work. I hate paper work!

Lastly, I would just like to complain about the lack of quality I received on my forensic research papers. They are so sad to read because 90% of my students did not follow directions. The works cited pages are in completely wrong format, there are no citations in the paper, the only thing worse than the really bad grammar is the horrific punctuation. I can't believe these students are in 11th and 12th grade!

On a more positive note... I came back to school today with almost all good notes from the substitute!! Yay! My freshman babies are growing up!

Until next time...

p.s. I can't wait until I have more interesting things to write about besides school..

Cooperative Discipline

I did not go to school today. Instead I went to a professional development seminar on Cooperative discipline. So I am on lunch break and decided to write a quick post!  I figured.. hey what the heck if i don't get anything from it at least I get a paid break from school!

For all of you that are not in the teacher lingo, Cooperative discipline is the idea that every student chooses to misbehave for a reason. It is my job as the teacher to pin point WHY the student is doing the wrong behavior and then react accordingly. For example: Many students act out because they want attention from either their peers or the adult. During the morning session they gave me a lot of intervention strategies for how to deal with someone who is acting out for attention. I had a class on this kinda stuff in college but it is more relevant now that I can actually apply it to some of my students..

On to other news.... I was picked to be the Matter and Energy "Team leader. Basically, I run our content meetings and organize data from our team to report to the assistant principal. Its more work for me but I figure it will put me in a great position to take on bigger roles in the school (Like department head?! maybe one day... Maybe...!?)

Until next time

Goodbye October!

October is always such a long month. In college, I had fall break which was usually 3 days off in the middle of October.  In high school, we don't have a fall break. Actually, there are NO breaks in October. It's a very long month for teaching with nothing to look forward to. In my opinion, November goes by much faster because we have 3 weeks until Thanksgiving (one of my favorite Holidays!!).

Why do I think Thanksgiving is so great?!  First of all, the food is always fantastic! Turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, stuffing.. I could go on forever!! Secondly, I love when my big family gets together. Usually we are able to put the drama aside and enjoy each others company. Being with my family is very important to me. Lastly, Thanksgiving begins the holiday shopping season! (What girl doesn't love shopping!?)

This year, J and I are traveling to his parents house for Thanksgiving. This will be the first big holiday J and I are spending together! I can't wait spend Thanksgiving with his family because they are great southern cooks and the atmosphere there is a lot more relaxed than my crazy family.

School is going well. We are half way through the first semester! Nothing, too exciting to post about but here are some highlights...
   ** someone pulled my safety shower and flooded my classroom floor. A big fear for many teachers turned into a great story for me! Im glad I am able to laugh about it now.
  **  grades are closed for Quarter one.. I am procrastinating grading by writing this blog post
  **  a former student told one of my former colleagues that I inspired her to become a physical science teacher! I must have done at least one thing right last year.

Until next time..

Formal Observation

So every teacher has to go through the dreaded "Formal observation".. It's the 30 minutes of ONE class that the principal comes to observe and makes judgments on whether you are on the right track or need some more guidance.

 I had my formal observation on Monday and let me tell you, I WAS NERVOUS! Last year I never got nervous for observations. I think that was because the standards at my old school were a lot lower. In other words, as long as my objective was posted, my students weren't stabbing each other or selling drugs during class, and they were actually doing something (or pretending to do something) then I was most likely going to get a satisfactory. At my new school, I feel like there is a lot more pressure to reach every student, assess every student and to make sure every student is reaching the objective. Furthermore if a student doesn't reach the objective how do you know and what do you do about it?! Its just a lot to think about and do! (especially for 170 students). Anyways, I was nervous. I really like this school and I wanted to impress the principal.

My principal was observing the last 30 minutes of my 2nd period Forensics class. Of course, my weakness is closure and timing lessons perfectly so that we don't have extra time at the end of class. However, I made sure to have an engaging lab that the students were working on when he walked in and then we had a discussion on the lab after we cleaned up and I had formal assessment of the students to find out who understood the lab and who didn't. Everything went well but I couldn't get a read on Mr. K's face. It must have gone really well because this morning on announcements, Mr. K said "Ms. Macary's class was well instructed and very engaging. Please congratulate her on a job well done"!! WOO HOO! It felt so good to get positive recognition. I am having a post observation meeting with him tomorrow so I can't wait to hear is feed back!

Until Next time..

My favorite time of year..

I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE the season of fall for many reasons. The smell of the fall spices like nutmeg and allspice, carving pumpkins, going through corn mazes, making scarecrows, halloween (and being motivated to loose weight to fit into a costume), good food, pumpkin pie, cooler weather, the changing color of leaves.. There are just so many things!! Who wouldn't love this time of year?!

Although the days are getting shorter and there isn't as much day light when I get home from work, I am now into the school routine. I think most of the kids at school are also getting into the routine. October is always a great month for school. The students know what they can and can't get away with now so they aren't testing me as much. It's nice to have students who don't try to use their cell phones because they know what is going to happen if I see it. Or students who automatically take their hat off before coming to my class because they know I am going to ask them to take it off.

I know I talk a lot about how much I enjoy my new school but I have to brag a little bit more about it. Today we had a staff meeting and I learned that we made AYP (U.S and State Standards) for the 6th year in a row!! It is so nice to be part of a school that is making improvements. Our principal was talking about how proud he is of where we are vs where we came from (apparently this school was not so great a few years ago).

Now not everything is sunshine and roses around here.. I enjoy teaching 5 out of 6 of my classes... but there is JUST ONE class that drives me crazy. I don't know why I let these kids get to me but it always does. It takes me sooo long to get them quiet so that I can talk and a lot of them don't care that they are being rude they would rather talk over me. Long story short, I have a lot of parents to be calling tomorrow. UGH!

Anyway, my Forensic classes have been going really well. A good friend of mine, Kasey, came and talked to my classes about working in the field. THEY LOVED HER! First of all they were like "WOAH that hot girl actually touches dead bodies!?" and then they were like "she was sooo cool she cussed in front of us!"(she said shit... haha!). It was a great experience and I am so glad she was able to do it. In one week, I have my formal observation by my principal during Forensics. This observation is really important because it will help him decide whether or not they want to ask me back next year. Hopefully my forensic kids will do well. I will let you know how it goes!

Until next time...

Crazy roller coaster ride that I like to call my life.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. OK I wouldn't say it was the WORST time ever (I really just wanted to quote a book and feel smart doing it). Who doesn't like a Dickens classic anyway?

Sooo let me explain the best of times first. School is now in full swing and the real learning has begun. So far I LOVE my forensic science classes. It's refreshing to see upper classmen every other day and they are so different then freshmen. I treat them a lot differently too. I am much more strict with my little freshmen and I let a lot slide with 11 and 12 graders. In Forensics, we can joke around and have some fun but still get our work done.. 9th graders still don't understand where that fine line between joking/ having fun and being inappropriate and off task.

Here are some quotes from two of my seniors that really made me feel great!
   "Ms. M, I just wanted to let you know that I over slept today and was late to school. I was going to just not come to school but then I remembered we had your lab today so I came just for this class"
and  "I love this class because we actually get to get up and do things"

Ok so now for the worst of times...
Back to school night was on Thursday. First of all, I think they should give teachers a half day on back to school night. Its crazy that we have to get to school by 7 and then leave by 3 and be back by 5 and stay till 9... RIDICULOUS!   Annnyways, It was a really long day. There were some good things that came from the day (trying to stay positive here): The science department had a potluck dinner together. It was really fun and nice to get to hang out with my coworkers outside of school. Also, I had a really good turn out of parents. Everyone seemed to be really impressed with my 6 min presentation and all the parents were really friendly. (AND I didn't have any parents coming up to me telling me I looked to young to teach their son or daughter!)

I felt like everything that could have gone wrong Friday morning did. First of all, I literally chased a boy across the school while I was doing my duty because he didn't have a pass to be out of class and wasn't where he was supposed to be. Thankfully my school has a lot of support personnel who came to my rescue and took care of the student for me. Then second period, I planned on having the students do this online computer science simulation but it went horribly wrong when 8 out of my 14 computers needed software updates and wouldn't load the sim. (Ugh! Technology is only awesome when it works!!) Luckily, all of my second period students are good kids and very adaptable. So I scrambled around trying to find something different to do for 3rd period. I finally decide to talk about blue printing and doing scaled models. This is when I discovered that 75 % of my students either a) don't know how to use a ruler or b) they are lazy and wanted me to do their work for them (hmm.. I wonder which one is the more likely choice) Either way I was running round the classroom going crazy trying to help students. During lunch, our tech lady came to fix my presenter (which was having connectivity problems.. the past two weeks I have been using the old school over head projector...which is a pain in the ass). Luckily she was able to fix it!! 4th period was amazingly my best block of the day. We made hats and then did blue prints of the hats. All the students liked the activity and it went a lot smoother when I was able to walk them through blue printing and scaling step by step on the projector. So it was a good end to a crazy and tiring week.

This weekend J and I traveled down to Nc to visit his family. I was a wonderful and relaxing weekend. We went to IKEA! and the mall and went to the movies. J's parents are awesome southern style cooks. So we ate some good food too.. (Shrimp and Grits are my favorite!! YUM!) It came and went wayyyyy to fast and the traffic was awful!

Until next time..

Running on Low energy

Well the good new is that NONE of my nightmares about the first day of school came true!!

I absolutely LOVE this new school for many reasons. First of all, the science department here has been so welcoming and helpful. There are 15 science teachers and all of them have come to me and asked if I needed anything or if there was anything they could do for me. There is one guy across the hall from me that is new to teaching and the school. It has been awesome having someone else who also has no idea what they are doing.

Last week was teacher work week. I was able to set up my classroom. It is amazing! Smart board, projector, documentation camera, water hook up, 7 lab stations (each station has 2 student computers) I couldn't have asked for anything more. The whole science wing is renovated. I picked the right subject thats for sure! Also last week, I had a lot of staff meetings and department meetings. I didn't mind them because it was a lot of good information and I learned important things to know for the first week of school.

The administration at this school is very good at communicating. I knew what the schedule was for the first days of school, forms to give out and basically everything you could ever possibly need to know before school starts. Everything at this school seems just so put together and organized.

Yesterday, was freshman orientation. Fun Fact of the day: I teach a total of 100 9th graders!!!!
It was hard to keep up with them by the end of the day I had ZERO energy. It was so bad that I literally vegged out on the couch all night. Today was a normal "A" day which means I teach 3 90 minute sections of 9th grade science. 2nd and 3rd period went really smooth. I was overall happy with how it turned out. 4th period will definitely be my challenge class. (WHY do I have to have a challenge class!?! can't all my classes be super easy to teach for once?!) The problem with 4th period is that they have SO much energy and they are antsy at the end of the day/after lunch. I need to think of some better strategies for dealing with high energy students.

Tomorrow will be a "B" day which means I teach 1 90 minute section of 9th grade science and 2 90 minute sections of Forensics (11th and 12 grade!!) I can wait to meet my upperclassmen.

Until tomorrow...

Nightmares about the first day

I don't know if this is normal for teachers before the first day of school...

but I have been having nightmares about the first day! Please read my ridiculous nightmare that I had last night..

It's the first day of school for students and my first day. I am wandering around the school building lost and trying to find my classroom. The bell rings and I am LATE to my own class. Finally, I find my room and it is NOT a science room. All of my students are waiting for me. I try to figure out how to hook up my computer to the projector and while I am doing this all of the students are running around the classroom going crazy. They are climbing in and out of windows, throwing things, and students are crowd surfing. The assistant principal walks into my room and gives me a video I should show since I am obviously not prepared. So I pop in the video and none of my students are watching it. I try to get the class under control but no one is listening to me. Finally, I step out of my classroom and the teacher next door to me starts yelling at me that I am a failure since I can't get them under control.

and then I woke up!

I am getting very little sleep now a days because I am anticipating what my new school is going to be like. AHHHHHH!!!

Preparing for the first week

I have a LOT to think about over the next few days.

Today was my second day of New teacher orientation and I have learned many things. Since this is my second year teaching, I am not as overwhelmed but there is still much to do in order to prepare for the first day of students. So far I have been comparing everything I am doing this year with my new county, to everything I did last year in my old county. My new and old counties are completely different with how they run things.

Yesterday's introductory day was good in many ways. First of all, I got to meet a few new teachers from my new school. It was interesting to hear everyone's stories about where they were coming from. In the opening remarks, the head woman asked for everyone who was from out of state to raise their hand. Over 1/3rd of the new teachers raised their hand. Another interesting thing she said was "This county has a 93% new teacher retention rate". I thought that was amazing! In the morning session, I was with other High School teachers. This session was not as useful to me because it was geared more towards first year teachers. In the afternoon, we went to our high schools.

At my high school, I got to meet a lot of important people who help run the school. I was excited to see the science wing at my school. It is AWESOME! Newly renovated classrooms with computers, projectors, smartboards, nice lab stations with water hook-up..etc. I couldn't have asked for anything better.. (now I hope they don't throw me a curve ball and tell me I don't have a science room).

I also got to take a look at the science curriculum for the two classes I am teaching. Both Matter and Energy and Forensics are "project-based". Project-based means instead of giving tests each unit, the students have to complete a project. I LOVE LOVE LOOOOOOVE this way of teaching because instead of memorizing facts, the students are doing hands on activities which produce a product they can be proud of. During the entire unit the class works on the project and they are learning things along the way. For example, our first unit is about systems and their project is creating a rocket. So during the unit we talk about the scientific method, how systems are created, and how scientists use different methods to create something that solves a problem. At the end the students get to see if their rocket works and then they get to modify it and make it better. All things REAL scientists do. Project-based teaching is a lot more difficult to prepare because I can't just stand up in front of the class and lecture or hand out a worksheet.

Since my last weekend of freedom is coming up, I have been thinking a lot about what I am going to do the first day of school. Everyone always talks about how the first day is SOOOO important. If you give your students the impression that you don't care, or you don't know what your doing, or that your unorganized.. then the rest of the year is going to be a disaster.

One thing I want to do this year that I did not do last year is make the first day FUN! Usually, on the first day teachers go over the rules, syllabus, grading, safety... That stuff is so BORING. I want to do something fun that the students will remember. Now I just have to figure out what that will be.

Until next time..

Things are coming together

Today is my LAST day of summer vacation. I can't believe how quickly the summer went by. Here is a recap:

J and I moved to Maryland. Right now, I am living with my parents (until I get on my feet with a job). I am trying to get J used to living in a new place. He has lived in North Carolina his whole life. Now he lives 7 hours from his parents in a new place, with a new car and a new job. I am sure it is a little bit overwhelming. 

To do something fun.. we went camping with my sister and her fiance. 

In July, 8 of us went to Disney World! (Mom, Dad, my sister Rachel and Kevin, J and I, and my brothers, Jake and Donnie). It was such a fun/relaxing vacation. We stayed in two different Disney resorts while we were there. For the first half of the week, we were at the animal kingdom lodge, Kidani Village. The resort was BEAUTIFUL! We were in a grand villa which had two floors and the balcony over looked a savanna with all sorts of animals. The second half of the week, we stayed at Bay Lake Tower which is part of the contemporary resort. It over looked Magic Kingdom and being close to the parks was really convenient. We went to the parks, laid out by the pool and played tennis. J and I went on a date to the Coral Reef restaurant in Epcot. The food was delicious! To top it all off, we had the best table in the entire restaurant (which was right next to the tank of fish). Just imagine eating dinner and watching a shark swim right by. It was awesome! "Date day" was one of my favorite days because J and I got to spend time wandering around Magic Kingdom and Epcot at our own pace. Here are some pictures from our vacation!

After Disney my job search was in FULL gear! I Finally got a job at a local high school. I will be teaching Matter and Energy (which is like physical science for 9th grade) and Forensic Science (an elective class!). I was told I would have a renovated classroom with new lab stations. I am really excited to get into my classroom and get the school year started! The best part of this school (as of right now) is that it's only 15 minutes from my house! No more hour and a half drive to work! 

On Monday, I have new teacher orientation. I hope it will be filled with useful information. I also hope that I will get to meet some of the other new teachers that I will be working with. I will keep you posted!

Until next time..

I made it!

Wow! A lot has happened since September.

I am sad that I got too busy to post during my first year of teaching. It was very fun and exciting but also exhausting. I have learned a lot about myself, teaching, science, teenagers, communication, etc. So I will try and recap some of my year.

  First of all, living in Raleigh and commuting to Fayetteville, NC (an hour and a half drive each way) got old veryyyy fast. I Thank God for my carpool because without them I would have quit midway through the year. Somewhere around October I realized that 3 hours of my day were spent in the car and it was sucking all of the energy I had out of me. However, I tried to stay positive because I was very lucky to even have a job in this economy.
  In January, during testing time, I drove by myself because I wanted to tutor my students who needed the extra push to help pass the EOC. That is when I realized I could not do the hour and a half drive next year. As much as I LOVED that school, the science department and my students, I needed more out of my life and teaching career. I also became very homesick. My students did VERY well on the End of Course test. It just goes to prove that activity based learning works. In my Biology class, 93% of my students passed (13 out of 14). In my Physical Science classes, 71 % passed (36 out of 51). These numbers are HUGE! Last year this school had passing rates in the low 50s. To know that my students did 20 % better than last years students gave me hope and energy to complete the second half of the school year. The Thank You messages, I got from my students were very rewarding. This is when I knew that I was in the right profession.

  In March, my Grandmother died. It was very hard to be at school in NC when I knew the only place I wanted to be was in Maryland with my family. This is when I knew for sure that I HAD to move back to MD. I started talking to J about our relationship and how homesick I was feeling. I knew how much it meant to him to be in NC so BIG decisions on our relationship were coming. J started looking for jobs in Maryland and our motto was "what is meant to be will always find a way". I prayed that God would help me see which path I was supposed to take. Meanwhile, J and I had to make a decision about whether or not to renew our apartment lease. We decided to do a month to month rental.
  Spring break in April came and went too fast. I went home to Maryland and it was so good to see all my friends. These girls are the ones I know are going to be there for me for the rest of my life. It was hard for me to be in NC and have a real job when all of my college friends were still in college. Not being able to go out with them on weeknights put me back into reality. I tried to keep myself occupied by preparing for the Teacher faculty pageant and supervising with prom.
  EOC testing came around VERY quickly. My second semester students were fun and challenging. I had lots of young mothers, lots of gang members and lots of unmotivated seniors. Motivating the unmotivated is something I still am working on. Staying energetic was the only way I knew how to deal with these students and It is VERY hard to stay energetic and positive when no one else around you is energetic or positive.  At the end of May, I took a huge step in coming out of my shell. I RAPPED for the entire student body (with 2 other teachers). It was fun and scary and afterwards my students said "Your not too bad for a white girl". I would say it was a success!
  In June, my prayers were answered! J got a BIG boy job in MARYLAND!! He is now employed as an Engineer at the Department of Environment. We will be moving in a week!
  FINALLY I MADE IT TO TODAY!! I resigned at my school. It was a bittersweet moment. I was very scared to break the news to my principal. I didn't know how he would react. Thankfully, he wished me the best and told me I would have his recommendation. (WHEW!) Now to start looking for a teaching job in Maryland!! I am sad to be leaving my first school but I know where I am going will be just as great! Here are some pictures of my first classroom.

My goal is to post MORE during my second year of teaching.

Until next time..