Why I'm a teacher...

I love teaching for a number of reasons but a few sweet moments like today melt my heart and make it impossible for me to understand why anyone would choose any other profession...


1. During morning meeting we were sharing what we love about school the most.  It gets to the last little boy and he says, "What I love about school the most is spending all day with my two favorite teachers."  and then shoots me a grin that was to die for.  I'd marry him if he was older...and I wasn't engaged ;)


2.  I'm out on the playground and my sweet little peek-a-boo friend runs up gives me a huge hug like she hasn't seen me in a week (it had been 1 hour) and then moves on to poking me and just asking for "trouble."  She then decides to take my hand and lead me around the playground, but obviously that wasn't enough so I was informed, "Ms. Shupert, you NEED to close your eyes."  I was a little nervous about this and told her I was too scared ;)  Pretty sure with her leading me I could have been halfway across Minneapolis by the time I opened them again.


3.  The same sweet boy as in #1 asks if I want to play tag.  I told him that I was kinda old and would probably not make it past the first minute.  He then goes on to explain in great detail why I'm not old. "Uhh Ms. Shupert you are not old and I know why.  You don't have any gray hair, and if you don't have any gray hair then you're not old." ...if only this was true in real life.  I tried to trick him by suggesting that I died my hair a different color.  He got a very puzzled look and decided to just go play tag with the others because maybe I really was old.  Haha


These sweet moments are what keeps me coming back every morning...no matter how early my alarm goes off in the morning :)  I love these kiddos and have NO clue how I'm going to say goodbye in just 37 days.

May the odds be ever in your favor

It all started with Matthew.  He came home talking about these crazy sounding books.  Mom decided it couldn't hurt to check out these books that he was talking about which they were reading in his English class.  She then told me that I HAD to read these books.  With some extra time on my hands I decided it couldn't hurt.  Thus formed The Hunger Games pact in the Shupert family.  Obviously if I was home we would have been first in line at the midnight showing, but because I wasn't and because mom got pneumonia we ended up going on Saturday at 12:30.  We enjoyed our experience and came out with smiles on our faces! 

The proof...btw the theater was still packed at 12:30 in the afternoon!!

As promised...our adorable classroom door.  Probably the best in the school...but I may be a little biased ;)

Have a great week!!!

May I remind you the title of my blog...

In case you forgot, the title of my blog really says a lot about my life everyday.  I feel like I could have said this a lot during the day the past two days. A few laughs...


What was I thinking when....


...I was chasing a third grader through the halls of my school building (maybe this should be what were the teachers looking out their doors at me thinking)
...I was helping suspend a child from our class once again for inappropriate behavior
...I was taping one fish, two fish, red fish, and blue fish to our classroom door (pictures soon to come!! :)
...I was watching adorable little boys jumping and tumbling over one another during a talent program today
...I was taking a long metal rod away from a boy when outside playing during after school
...The best student in our class will not stop talking...along with the rest of the class
...I was driving home both these nights after a long day at school


I am pretty sure I could keep going on this list just to give you a little idea of how crazy the last two days have been.  I love them, but boy these kiddos are a lot to handle.  I am praying they can be at least a little better tomorrow, but if not...IT'S FRIDAY! Obviously it's been a hard past two days, but I'm asking if you could put two special people in your prayers that have it far worse than me...


1. My mom...she has pneumonia and basically sounds like crap every time I talk to her on the phone.  Please pray she can get better soon!!!


2. Patrick's grandma Betty...they found blood clots on her lungs and because of other problems are not able to give her blood thinner to help. The family has decided that they are just going to have to let them be.  There are a lot of kids and grandchildren and therefore a lot that have heavy hearts tonight as I write. Please pray that God can have a strong presence over the whole situation.  She is loved by a great number of people.


Thank you for your prayers!!!

Back at it

As my full time student teaching has begun again as of Monday last week, so does observations.  Today marked the start of the 6 observations I will have to complete for this last semester before graduation. 3 will be completed by my supervisor and the other 3 will be completed by cooperating teacher.  Today my supervisor observed a math lesson.  It went soo well and I was so excited to be back in the swing of student teaching again.       The kids did great and worked really hard.  I was so proud of them!!  


I guess I should give a little Bob the bird update.  Last we left each other we were still not on speaking terms.  For all of you at home thinking I'm crazy talking about this bird like he is a human being...well it's because he acts like he is.  Some of his favorite activities include: eating popcorn, typing on computers, and singing in the bathroom while someone is taking a shower. Yesterday I got back after school and was the only one home.  He was squawking up a storm so I thought I would be nice and go get him out of his cage.  I put my finger out for him and HE ALMOST BIT THE WHOLE THING OFF!! Okay so maybe it was a little exaggerated, but still.  So, obviously I left Bob in his cage and let him continue squawking alone.  Today, he knew I was mad at him.  Once someone else let him out of his cage today he flew over to me and starting singing looking right at me.  Sorry dear bipolar Bob but it's going to take more than that to win my heart back.


Sincerely,
Bird breaker

Watch out! The girls have hit the town!

After overcoming sickness and crazy schedules two of my dear friends/bridesmaids, Emily G and Emily H, and I finally had our girls time this weekend. I was so proud of our crazy adventure skills in Minneapolis so without further a due I'll explain.  


We ended up using a Groupon for the Radisson in downtown Minneapolis.  We managed to get a room originally $209 for a mere $89.  On top of that, we also got 3 free drink vouchers for the restaurant and bar attached and 1 free parking pass.  That in itself was about $36. Yeah I know...we rock!  Needless to say I'm now addicted to Groupons.  


After getting there around 6:30 Saturday, we decided to go on the hunt for food.  Let me set the scene...St. Patrick's Day evening, downtown Minneapolis, 3 girls who none of look over 19.  We put on our big girl panties and decided we were too desperate for food to not go.  We walked with confidence even though I was the only one with a tiny tiny clue to where we were.  We finally got to the downtown Target.  Go Amanda!!  We decided to stop our crazy adventure and get food there.  At the little restaurant they had basically nothing left because they were selling out of everything.  We did manage to find food though that would qualify as dinner for the night and then had a little bit of fun shopping.  We also got some goodies for our hotel!  After some shopping we decided to leave with our goodies and attempt to make our way back to the hotel.  We actually ended up being only a couple blocks away and made it back with no problem.  
Back at the hotel, we made our own salt scrubs and had plenty of girl chat time before calling it quits for the evening/extremely early morning ;)


Sunday we lazily made it out of our hotel and decided to head for the Mall of America.  With Emily G and I in the front seat of my car, we got our next set of big girl panties on and took charge err a few wrong turns. We got there though safely once again and had a blast.  Between the 3 of us we found enough good deals for a small army!!  After many hours of fun shopping, it was time to get the other girls' cars and for everyone to head home.  It was so sad saying goodbye after living so close to one another last year, but I'm thankful for the precious fun time we were able to spend together.  


A few pictures :)

Front of our hotel

Lobby of the hotel

Sugar scrub time!  On your feet Emily not your mouth!!

The goofy bunch :)

Ready to start our beauty treatment!

Amanda got the drain stuck and it wouldn't go back up...luckily we eventually figured it out.

Well that's the end to our adventurous girls' weekend.  I hope you were able to enjoy the beautiful weather this weekend. Hope you have a great start to your week!!

The results are in...

For those of you not familiar for what it take to be a teacher in MN I'll try to explain.  After at least 4 years of learning how to be a teacher, one is clearly not qualified enough.  So, even after you take all the classes, do the studying, and walk across that platform to receive a fake degree, you cannot get your license. See there once were these people on very high pedestals that said obviously we need to make future teachers take and pass many many many tests before they are able to receive their licence.  Since future teachers spend all 4 years learning why testing students is not always a good idea and therefore should find alternate ways to assess, you might see why it is so difficult for these tests to make sense to us.  How does a test prove I'm a good teacher...feel free to explain this to me in a comment.  Oh well...I'll take part in their little game and try to kick some butt doing it! So, for me to get my K-8 with math specialty licence I would have to pass 7 tests.  To get my K-6 licence I would have to pass 5.  Are you still with me?

In February I took the first two tests that had to do with teaching philosophies. I just found out today that I passed both!!!  Since I need the 5 minimum to teach, I have 2 out of those 5 done!!  I'm signed up to take the other 3 of those 5 the first week of April.  I want to just work on 5 right now to get some type of licence.

Here's the other kicker.  You may be thinking, but Amanda you are probably going to end up in Chicago and therefore will need a IL licence.  Well to get my licence in IL, I first have to have my licence in the state where I got my teaching degree...MN. Then I get to do all the stuff for an IL licence (which doesn't look quite as bad thankfully). I have no choice but to get this MN licence to even have a chance at teaching in any other state.

Do I lay in bed at night and wonder why teachers get paid so little to work so hard and also have the most difficult position upon graduation because we can't even use our degree till we run around bushes to get a licence? Yes!  Between my brother and I, I have experienced some pretty bad teachers.  I don't have any idea where their motivation comes from.  This licence that I'm working so hard to get is not even good for very long.  In a few short years (if even more than 1) I'll have to run around some more bushes to keep what I work so hard to get in the first place. 

My point: please send up a quick prayer and thank God for the teachers you had, for your friends and family that are teachers, for the teachers your kids have had, and maybe even those of your grandchildren...especially the good ones.  I'm thankful that God made such special people with a gift and love for teaching, and I'm thankful for the energy He gives us.  It takes a lot not just to keep little ones going all day, but also to run around so many bushes to prove we know what we're doing.  

A Story to Remember

Where have I been you may ask. Have I been doing nothing over my spring break to blog about?  Well let's just say it's pretty hard to blog when you're brushing up on your Amish skills...
Friday March  2 5:30am - Mom, Lauren, and Amanda deport for Charlevoix, MI
                         5:00pm - Ladies arrive in MI as it starts to snow, and snow, and snow, and snow!!!
                         11:00pm - lights blink and then power goes out
Normally when the power goes out, you may take the time to throw out a few laughs and take bets on when it will come back on.  This power outage was unfortunately unlike any other power outage I had ever experienced or even heard of.  On Saturday we got a call saying it wasn't going to come back on till later Sunday, so we packed up and headed to a hotel.  The only problem is we had to worry about the pipes freezing.  So, before we could tuck in for the night we had to sit in the cold running a generator to heat the house up.  I know crazy!
Since we had the hotel we were able to all clean up and attend the shower smelling fresh :) Luckily the shower was planned in a club house type place in town where there was electricity.  The shower was absolutely beautiful and  a lot of fun.  The shower masked the problem that still loomed over our heads...we were still without power and had a very chilly house.  To make what felt like a never ending story short, we didn't get power back till Wednesday at 12:30pm and we left early Thursday morning.  So we truly did not have power the entire time we were there.  UNBELIEVABLE!!  I still can't get it through my head that it really happened.  


While enjoying a dark, chilly house, we did get some pretty exciting news...Patrick got accepted into the University of Chicago.  That's right, my man got accepted into a school tied for 5th in the entire country! I am a proud wife-to-be!  He still has two letters out there to hear back from, but let's just say it wouldn't surprise me if we ended up there.  Although we still have a ton of questions floating in the air that we would really like to have answered, we're accepting that answers just come with time.  It's always good to practice patience :)


Now I'll leave you with a few fun pictures from the shower...

Beautiful table settings

Cupcakes, not only adorable but delicious as well!!

Grandparent loving!!!  These wonderful women are the creators of this beautiful shower!! (Mom's mom and dad's step-mom)

Opening gifts...crockpot from my soon to be mother-in-law

Cute Miss Maggie, it was her very first bridal shower and she was soooo excited!

Three generations of my family with our Maid of Honors.  L to R: Grandma with her MOH sister Arlene, Mom with her MOH cousin Sue, and ME with my MOH bestie Lauren

Lauren at the hotel, this pretty much sums up how we felt all 4 days!  It didn't help that it was the smallest hotel we had ever stayed at.

Since there was no room in the hotel, this is what happened.  Games for entertainment and food  that was left over from the shower.

If you were enjoying a spring break last week, I hope you were able to enjoy it with power!  Have a great week and enjoy this beautiful weather!!