student teaching

Holy cow. I LOVED student teaching.
I was so nervous to just jump into teaching and being in charge of all these kiddos.. But it just got better and better each assignment I was given!
WARNING: this is gonna be a long post. Heads up reader...

My first one was in a 3rd grade class for about 8 weeks Mon-Wed.
I'll admit that I was the most nervous about this one because it was the first round of practicum...and it was old third graders! I studied Early Childhood Education because I wanted my focus to be on the earlier grades and child development... So even 3rd grade seemed old for me.
It was different than I had expected- but I was surprised how much I really enjoyed it! Third graders seem to be at that point where they are deciding if they like school/teachers/boys vs. girls/friends/ LIFE! They were a blast. 

My mentor teacher was a man- so that was another thing I was fairly new at experiencing. He was a blast though, and I really admired how he was always so laid back, fun, and easy going. Respect.

 These adorable 3rd graders signed a big card for me, and some brought me little prizes (granted- most of them just found junk in their desk they wanted to give haha!) 

Round 1 was a huge success and made me realize how much I love teaching. 

Round 2- 2nd grade class. Only for 4 weeks, but the main assignment was on creating/adapting a unit focusing on including students where English is their second language. 

There was another student teacher with me in this assignment as well. She wanted to teach higher grades, so we were quite different...but made a pretty good team.
Our mentor teacher was retiring at the end of the year and was literally counting down the days. She had SO many resources and was just really good at letting us do our thing, but all working as a team. 

 Gosh, these second graders won me over real quick! I liked 2nd grade even more than 3rd grade. 

These girls almost wouldn't let me leave on my last day! Cute things kept saying that they wanted me to teach them in 3rd grade, and 4th, and 5th, and every year. :)

My. HEART! These little notes, poems, and drawings were just the sweetest! 

I had quite the collection.

Last, the best of all the game! KINDERGARTEN!! Ohhh I KNEW I always wanted to teach Kindergarten. It was the absolute best! 10 weeks of little kid heaven.
I absolutely loved my mentor teacher! She has been teaching for a long time, and is just a pro. I learned so much from her- but the biggest thing I learned was to never get stuck doing the same old thing because of your own comfort or convenience. She was always adjusting assignments, going to classes at night, implementing things she learned or saw, looking for things she saw that I did that she wanted to incorporate in her teaching, I could go on and on! 

Plus she was just so much fun, easy going, and clearly loved her job. 

She once told me "I know i'm doing my job right when I want to adopt my students cause I love them so much" I loved that. If that's the recipe for a good teacher- then it'd come easy to me because these Kindergartners HAVE. MY. HEART! 

Morning and Afternoon classes.
My world I just love them. I wanted to take them all home. 

My good friend in my cohort/graduating with me was in the other Kindergarten class, so we worked together a lot, drove to and from school every day, and watched all the Kindergartners at recess.
Needless to say - it was the best. 

 Workin hard at recess in our camping chairs :)

The not-so-fun part of student teaching was the teacher work sample. WOOF! We had to plan a major unit, provide pre and post assessments, daily assessments/assignments, adaptations for struggling or gifted students, collect data and create graphs about student growth, and write every little detail about what we did to make it developmentally appropriate, prepare, teach, reflect, what we thought, what we said, how we felt, etc. etc. etc.
Slightly a nightmare. 40+ pages later...and I was done! 

Miracle of miracles, I passed on the first go! Honestly, I didn't believe it when my CFA told me I passed. Thought she was pulling my leg. 

But these Kindergartners made it all worth it. 

I would come home exhausted, but with the biggest smile on my face and the best stories to tell!
I love being a teacher.

Christmas in July

...because...why not? haha 

I want to play a little catch up. But I'll just do some of the big stuff that has been goin on in our lives. And for heaven's sake you can't skip Christmas! 

I was so excited to decorate our house this year! Mostly because Christmas decorations are the only good decorations we have... AND we got a new and improved Christmas tree! We couldn't part with our tiny one, so we just had two trees and completely loved it.
I got some Winter/Christmasy things to put in our wedding rocks, found places for our nativity sets, but couldn't help but put my Jerusalem nativity up front and center.
I'm obsessed with how this part of the house worked out!

My cute mom helped me make our burlap stockings!

Still need to add tags, buttons, etc.

But they turned out great!

I got to go to the MoTab Christmas Concert with my parents. We enjoyed goin downtown for a bit before the concert to check out the lights and candy windows. 

 I secretly like third wheeling with these two :) 

 I'll admit, I wasn't sure how it would be with the Sesame Street muppets as the special guests this year- but my word it was darling! I couldn't get enough of seeing all the kiddos just soaking everything in! I was lucky to sit near my nephew Duncan who will never disappoint when you are looking for a good reaction! He was smiling so big and laughing so hard! Priceless.

We had our Nelson Family Christmas party and traditional Nativity. Cutest ever. Grace and Seth were Mary and Joseph this year- I remember being so excited when I was finally Mary when I was little. It was fun to see how excited Grace was this year. 

I almost have no words for this pic :)

We were so lucky to have the Owens surprise us and make the drive down!

Being together with all of us Irions is just the greatest. We are so lucky. 

How cute are these two?! Sheesh. 

 We had our own Nativity too. 

It was darling how everyone was just adoring baby Gideon who played baby Jesus oh so well. 

Of course, mom pulled out the chimes. She was in heaven and totally in her element!

And can you even stand how stinkin cute Lily and Kody are?! Mercy...

Kody blew us all out of the water with his napkin folding. 

This guys is a dream boat- i'm telling you what. 

 The girlies put together a fantastic circus for us up in the playroom. Seriously, they get so into it.  Their imagination is the greatest. 

 Showing off their Anna and Elsa capes mom made them. 

 We all got a lego set of the Salt Lake Temple. Never too old for legos. 

We had a little brunch date with my girls and their husbands while Christie and Michael were in town. Ohhh it does my soul some good to be with these best friends again. So much laughing.
I lucked out in the best friend department. 

We didn't really have any real set plans for New Years Eve, so I did my scheming and joined forces with the Marshes for a little bowling and going home to play games and hot tubbing. 

Basically I just surrounded myself with most of my favorite people all. break. long.

I never wanted the break to end!