Loving for Nothing

On Sunday night, 10 girls from church and youth group came over to help me bake and decorate cookies for a local charity Loving for Nothing.





The founders of Loving for Nothing started the organisation with the aim of showing love to others with no strings attached!

Their most recent venture has been baking cookies for community workers who will be working through Christmas- police, ambulance, fire brigade workers, as well as doctors, nurses and hospital workers.

I gathered up the girls and we spent the night baking and icing nearly 150 cookies! We plan to drop them off at the local hospital later this week.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

It's that wonderful time of the year...



This is what it looks like when 31 children in your class each give you a card!

2011 Christmas Card

Our Christmas Card for 2011 (once again, from Vistaprint)






See other pretty Christmas cards at Faith's blog

Right Now

Right now I am…

watching: the Country Music Channel.

eating: peanut butter on toast.

drinking: water.

wearing: tracksuit pants and a t-shirt.

avoiding: sending out my CV to a bunch of different schools. so much paperwork!

feeling: mixed up emotions about finishing up with my Year 5 class.

missing: my friends who all have 9-5 jobs!

thankful: for Christmas!

weather: cloudy, but not cold. (Where has Summer gone?)

needing: to bake something!

thinking: about where I'll be working next year.

loving: red and green Christmas m&m's!

Christmas Fruit Cake Balls

Every Christmas for the past few years, my Mum makes these Christmas Cake balls (I help!) We got the recipe from my godson's mum.


The recipe is as follows:
800g fruit cake
250g block milk or white chocolate
125g butter
2-3 tablespooms of Irish whiskey (or you can substitute with another liqueur such as rum, brandy, Kahlua, Frangelico etc or use vanilla essence or orange juice)


Melt half the block of chocolate and the butter in a bowl over a saucepan of boiling water.

Crumble the fruit cake in and add the liqueur and mix it in.

Spread greaseproof paper on baking trays and using a teaspoon amount of the mixture, roll it into balls and then put them in the fridge for a few hours to set until they become hard.

Then melt the rest of the chocolate in a bowl as before and spread a teaspoon's amount over the top of each cake ball until it is completely covered.

Makes 40.



Usually my mum & I make them using Kahlua and 125g milk chocolate (for the mixture) and 125g white chocolate (for the icing). We also add a quarter of a red glace cherry to each one, so it looks like a mini Christmas pudding!

Don't they look cute?

Teaching affirmation

Yesterday I got the most lovely email from a parent whose son I teach in my Maths class. I had called her concerned about her son's attitude towards Maths, not because he was exhibiting any negative behaviours, but because he had seemed to have lost his love and enthusiasm for Maths, in such a quick period of time.

We met that afternoon in my classroom for an informal meeting, and it turned out he was just having a few "off" days because his friend was not at school. I had such a nice conversation with both the boy and his mother, who was so affirming and encouraging. His mum said such nice things about my teaching style and how I was her son's favourite teacher, and then followed up with an email the next day discussing the conversation she had with her son after they came to see me.

She ended the email with "So, once again, I would like to thank you very much for all the wonderful work you have done and also for your time, enthusiasm, patience and outstanding professionalism as a teacher, towards our son. I hope that you are here at this school for many more years to come, because the students here are very lucky to have such an amazing & caring person guiding them through their school years."

But that wasn't my favourite part- even though it was very sweet.

This was the kicker:

"I would like to share with you these appropriate quotes:

· The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. ~William A. Ward (her emphasis)

· The best teachers teach from the heart, not from the book. ~ Anonymous "

Laura's Wedding: Professional pics

What I've Been Up To

It's been a LONG time since I've updated this little blog... it's been a little neglected because life has gotten in the way!

So... what's been taking up all my time?


Thirty one children, seven hours a day, five days a week

:)


Teaching has become my number one time consumer. I go to sleep thinking about lesson plans and wake up thinking about seating charts... not to mention reports, assessments, calling parents, assemblies, competitions, school dances, awards, notes home, projects, extension groups, photocopying, grades, discipline.

To give you an idea of how full on this whole teaching thing is, let me paint you a picture of what's been happening in our school community lately.

#1 : Reports had to be finished and proof read this week. This means constant checking of grades, comments, and general ticking-of-boxes, with lots of last minute changes that add to the already immensely high stress levels. Let's just say that I now have a renewed appreciation for all of my teachers who spent hours working on MY school reports! I had no idea about the amount of work that goes into them. Every i must be dotted and every t crossed. And every comma must be in the right place! Teachers are grammar and punctuation aficionados!


On top of reports being due, we have also had to find time for:
yearly exams (and the tonne of marking, grading and ranking that comes with them!)
the handball competition
the school disco
award ceremonies

You can see why I've been a little distracted! Lots has been going on... and in the middle of it, I'm trying to secure myself a job for next year, seeing as I'm only filling in for a teacher who's been on maternity leave. Trying to find the time to start filling out job applications whilst in the midst of the craziness of what is Term 4 is a little difficult!

Not knowing if I'll even be employed next year is even scarier!

I had this whole plan about how my teaching career would start, and this has not exactly been how I thought it would go... But, it has been great experience and a HUGE learning curve.

I have learnt to be tough, and stick to my guns. I've learnt how to (almost) control a classroom of thirty-one rambunctious ten year olds. I've learnt how to be caring and strict at the same time.

It's been one huge rollercoaster ride... a baptism of fire, if you will.

Not what I expected, or how I imagined my first year of teaching to be. Not better or worse than what I thought, just... different.


There have been awesome days and there have been days that really sucked.

There have been moments I've laughed and moments I've cried.

Days I've smiled and days I've yelled.

Days that I've been on Cloud 9 and days that I've gotten more angry than I ever have before.

Days where I have taken the frustration home with me.

Days where I've been disappointed, and anxious, and sad, and joyful, and ecstatic all within the same seven-hour period.

Days where I've felt uplifted and days where I've felt downtrodden.


I'm told this is life in the adult world. After so many years of being a student and feeling like a kid despite being twenty-something, it's strange. And I think it'll take some getting used to.

Graduation 2.0

At my graduation ceremony for my Masters of Primary Teaching: