Why I love teaching...

So this week has been a little bit of a rough week with my students. We have started testing and I know their brains are fried, but then again so is mine. So I have been exhausted all week and my patience was running thin. Today I went to my box (where you find all sort of things for you) and found a green paper with my name and the schools name. It was stapled shut so I was curious as to what it was.

It read:
Dear Ms. Recendez,
This past week we watched the movie Tuesdays with Morrie. It made me think about some of my past teachers. I wanted to thank you because not only were you an excelent teacher, but your class showed me that you can express yourself, have a fun time, and learn a great deal of work. As I thought back to all my classes and teachers yours is the one that stood out to me the most. I am also glad that I was in your class right before high school because it prepared me a lot for these four years that are now soon going to end. Thank you again.

This was a great thing for me to get after this week. It makes me feel good to know that I have influenced someone's life. As a teacher it is difficult to know if you are making a difference in someone's life temporarily or permenantly. This student was from my first year of teaching. For those of you that know...that was one rough year! I was still able to make a difference! :)

Testing...

So testing has begun...the CST has finally arrived! I am still stressing out about it since I am not done reviewing in my Algebra courses, but I'm hoping they will suprise me and do awesome! Well not suprise me, but do me proud! I have been reviewing and reviewing and reviewing with 7th grade math which has made my life boring for the last month and a half. I am ready to start teaching again and I can't wait until testing is done.

F0r the first time ever I am not testing my own students. This was difficult for me to put my head around since I have always had my own students and I feel that sometimes they do better with me in the room. I know I can't help them and they know that too, but it puts them at ease that I am in the room. So I am testing my friend Renee's 7th grade honors class and it is an experience. Not only do I not know their names, but I do not know their personalities either.

It has been a fun three days of testing (2 days of testing & 1 day of testing block). The last two days they were actually testing for Language Arts. Today though was a different story. I was to entertain these students for 135 minutes! Yikes that's a long time. So I decided that we would do missing work/extra credit first. This worked out since most students finished at least one assignment. Then we were going to play Jepardy. I made a math one for first semester concepts and we played this for the next 45 minutes. Now I should have paid closer attention to the schedule and my math skills on counting time because we were only at an hour and a half (roughly). So I thought the students were about to leave my class when I looked at the schedule and realized YIKES, they have another half an hour with me. What to do what to do?!?!?!?

Well I decided let's play "Heads up, seven up!" They played this for the next 20 minutes when they started to get restless. A student asked if they would play "4 corners" and then they did this for the next ten minutes. All in all today was not too bad with these students that I do not know very well. It was a fun 2 hours and 15 minutes. :)

Spring Break

So the last week I have been off of work due to spring break! I love the fact that I get to still have spring break at the age of 28!! :) This year was the first year that I did not have to worry about starting school at CSUSB in the middle of the week, which was awesome! So I thought...maybe I would go somewhere. Well this did not happen....did I mention that I bought a house five months ago and I'm currently working on remodeling. So here is a list of some things I DID get to do during spring break...

• dinner and a movie with Robyn and Jennifer (Remember Me...it's soooooo sad)
• shopping trip to Lowe's and the Floor Liquidators store (picked out some flooring and priced windows)
• went to the movies with my mom (Our Family Wedding...it was good, made me laugh at the Mexican jokes)
• watched my brother give a presentation on his fieldwork for his masters degree (he passed...don't worry)
• spent a long time at the mall (5 hours to be exact)
• went to the movies with my mom and dad (The Last Song....sad too, made me cry a little)
• spent Saturday shopping at Costco and making confetti eggs for Easter
• spent Easter with a lot of my family at my Great-Aunt Jenny's

This is a short recap of the major things I did during spring break. I did have fun and it was quite relaxing...I'm now ready to conquer the last eight weeks of work and start my summer vacation. :)