Giant Birthday Cat

These are my friends Justin and Marissa.
I like to Photoshop their cat into things.





HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARISSA!

If food could talk

My favorite

Come Again Another Day

It's the last week of classes! Hooray!

Am I studying a ton, you ask? The answer is, No! Not even a little!

I haven't been studying, but I sure have been instagramming photos....

Never underestimate the power of handmade thank you notes. These are for the elementary school students and teachers I worked with this semester. This is how you get a good reputation, people!

Yesterday was my second to last day teaching my fourth grade mathematicians at Jefferson. Friday will be our final day. The students yesterday when I first walked in were like "Oh, Ms. Anderson, will you spell your last name on this piece of paper? Don't worry about it. It's for nothing." Not suspicious at all. They also asked, "Are you bringing us treats on Friday?!" and so I said, "Pshhhh No! Your learning is your treat, you lucky lucky students!" and then I laughed at their disappointment. (Do I sound like a good teacher, yet?) Joke's on them, I already made thank yous and bought the cutest pencils to give them. (Their teacher is SUPER anti-candy/edible treats... so pencils are as good as it gets, folks.) Also we're going to play a math game instead of learning partial quotients, so that's a huge treat in my opinion.

I called my dad and begged for a few bucks so that I could buy myself rain boots. It's been rainy and dreary for the past three days, and it's going to continue through the week! Luckily he agreed, except  asking for money stresses me out so bad that I accidentally ended up crying at Holly's. We went shopping for the boots (found at the ever fashionable Fleet Farm) and I think she felt so sorry for my pitiful blotchy crying self that she ended up treating me to them anyway. So now I'm a couple bucks ahead! Thanks Dad and Holly! You guys are the best. The boots are totally doing their job!

Today the rain turned into snow for a solid few hours. It even accumulated a little. The grass is all "I'm greeeeen and ready for SPRIIIING!" and the sky says, "LOLNOPESNOW"



PS - My very first blog post was exactly a year ago yesterday. Wanna see it again? Here you go.

Count Down

WOW. I am the worst blogger ever! Did you know that school is a lot of work? I've written approximately a million lessons plans since last we spoke. Highlights of teaching Jefferson fourth graders math have included:

The day we were making bar graphs and we went to label the y-axis "number (#) of kids" and one fourth grader says, "You mean like a hashtag?" And I had to admit, "yes, kinda like a hash tag."

The day I reluctantly came in with a lesson about partial quotient division that I thought was going to be way too hard, but they all loved the challenge and ate it up. They all become partial quotient division experts. Sweet.

The Monday I came in and asked about everyone's weekend and when I transitioned into my lesson and one shy kid goes, "Wait, Ms. Anderson, you didn't tell us about your weekend." (In a genuinely nice way, not a get-out-of-math-for-5-more-minutes way.)



So, other than lesson planning and other homework, I've been doing almost nothing. Although, I started watching Lost on Netflix and I'm already into the fourth season. I'm watching it at an embarrassingly fast pace.

Hey! Look at this dragon I made with a ton of kindergarteners from North Woods International School in LaCrosse! (And YES, it was my own lesson. Dang, I'm getting good.)

I like your sweet paper plate scales, Dragon.

I'm getting really excited to go home for Easter this next week. Friday classes are canceled, and because Winona public schools aren't open on Thursday I don't have to tutor my reading kids. I think that means I need to come home on Wednesday and skip my Thursday classes. I never skip classes... I deserve this. Right?

Last thing I have to tell you: I have this app on my phone where I put in all my countdowns. Here's the latest.

4 days until I come home for Easter
8 days until Easter
20 days until this semester's classes end
28 days until I come home for the summer
29 days until mother's day
35 days until uncle Dale's birthday
36 days until my favorite boyfriend Dan graduates college

Jumping Jake

Megan asked me to photoshop her... but none of her pictures were quite right for the task I wanted to complete. So I'll do her husband Jake instead.

Jake and the cow jumping over the moon.

Jake caught in a spider web.

Jake hurdling at the olympics.

Jake in the High School Musical cast.

Jake in the Oscar award winning movie Gravity.

Photoshop Addiction

I have a bad habit of poorly "photo shopping" pictures into really silly new pictures. I have begun to bother some friends of mine, Justin and Marissa, with this bad habit.

Let me explain a few.
They often have themed dress nights and go eat tacos. This night was "CATS" night...

Someone recently said "Marissa, Simba should have made it to CATS night at tacos!"
I said to myself... "no problem."

Then I found their skydiving pictures. I thought it would have been nice if they had invited Simba along...

Now they are painting the upstairs of Junstin's house and Marissa posted this photo with the caption: "I swear this isn't photoshopped."

To which I commented, "...not yet."

And now, unrelated to Simba, Justin is Bobby Strong in Ashland's production of Urinetown. We had all previously decided his spirit animal was a grizzly bear... so this photo had to happen, too...

I can't help it. I have a problem. 

Worst part? I don't even have photo shop. I do these on Miscrosoft Word!

We-no-nah

Sometimes, if I don't blog quickly enough, I get overwhelmed by all the things that have happened and then procrastinate farther. A similar thing happens with schoolwork on occasion; a project is too big to wrap my head around so I just don't start it. Obviously, it's a really good quality to have.

That being said, how has your life been the past month? I haven't seen you in weeks!

Me? Oh, well, since you asked...

Dan and I did almost nothing on New Years : )

Papa turned 82!

I have returned to Winona for a spirit-crushingly cold experience. Seriously. I know you know, but it's freezing outside. (And the jewel fell out of my only nose stud so now I have to wear a hoop. And let me tell you right now, those suckers are painful in the cold. They freeze/burn my nose.) What else... I'm in 6 classes, a total on 18 credits. The classes are all pretty nice except for this silly science class I'm in three times a week for 2 hours. It's a 100 level course and I shouldn't have taken it this late because the professor is totally bogus, throwing worksheets our way and not actually teaching or facilitating real learning at all. It's all high school-esque hoop jumping with unauthentic assessment. Maybe it's my fault I'm experiencing so much frustration since I'm taking a general level course at the end of my education focused journey here. And perhaps I just need to cool my jets... after all, it's only the second week.

But my NICE classes are nice. Math, language arts, and social studies methods courses. These all have a field experience. Also science (above) which has a mandatory after school science club volunteering thingy. Then music, Hooray! No field experience with this! And a 6th class that has to do with my reading minor that's all about data based curriculum and assessment. I haven't figured that one out yet.

That's it! That's all I've been up to! It's only the second week now. Last week was the first and I did all my homework, watched the entire first season of House of Cards on Netflix AND read an entire book! LOOK AT ME GO, PEOPLE!

So, dearest readers, you have a nice week.