The BEST is yet to be

Wow, has it been a while since I wrote!! Last time I wrote I was just beginning student teaching and now I am DAYS away from GRADUATING!  First let me catch you up on where I have been and then for the BEST part where I am going.

I spent 2 months with my first graders as the student teacher and enjoyed every minute of it.  I quickly took over the classroom and made the daily routine my own.  For my student teaching course, I had to develop and implement a Unit Plan, so I did “Cinderella Around the World.”  The students and I enjoyed reading different versions and comparing the books to the Walt Disney Cinderella. Having a few friends who work for Disney, I thought it would be neat for each student to take home an “autograph sheet” of Cinderella at the end of the lesson; however, my amazing friend Tara went above and beyond just a simple autograph sheet!  Disney artist Stacia Martin drew and personalized a Cinderella drawing just for my students and I.  My lucky students each got an 8x10 of the drawing and the original will be hanging in my future classroom!  I am blessed beyond belief to be able to have this one of a kind piece of art!

To Miss Schmidt's Class~ Wherever your journey takes you
Remember to be home by midnight! Love Cinderella

Also, well I was in first grade I had two performance assessments  (evaluations) by my supervising professor.  I taught the students about balance, balance points, and counter weights and then they discovered how to balance a REAL pencil on its balance point using counter weights.  It was a great lesson overall and I scored above and beyond what ASU requires me to score.  A few weeks later, I had to do another performance assessment and this time the students were going to use Oreos to create the moon phases.  Little did I know that the day before I would have a curve ball thrown at me!  My supervising professor’s supervisor was sending a camera crew from ASU to tape my lesson in order to evaluate her.  My kiddos did a wonderful time just going with the flow or maybe it was because they wanted the Oreos, but they did great and I again got high scores.  The news from this last performance assessment did stop there though, I learned at my post meeting that this video will be used throughout the summer at trainings for the supervising professors, cooperating teachers, and shown to future iTeachAZ teacher candidates.

Fast-forward a few weeks and I was off to my special education student teaching at a different school and saying see you in 40 days to my first graders.  I found myself in a K-6^th grade resource classroom where we push in half the day and pull out the other half.  By the second day in my new placement I had my caseload and my cooperating teacher had hers.  My time in this placement is winding down but I have witnessed growth among some of my students already in the short amount of time that I have been here with them.  For example, my little first grader who couldn’t count to 20 a couple weeks ago counted to 120 yesterday with only a handful of mistakes.  I couldn’t have been more proud of him!  This week my students are testing and I am bubbling in the answers the student with the broken arm tells me to bubble- oh what a joy!

And now for the WHERE I AM GOING………

I have been filling out a million applications and praying that the perfect job is offered to me.  Well, I have had three interviews to date- one that I knew wasn’t for me before I even walked into the interview and the other two interviews went extremely well.  My cooperating teacher also received an email from a district asking if she would recommend me for a third grade general education position, so excited to see where I end up! 

For the two interviews that went well, here are the details:

Special Education preschool

-       Arizona

-       School District I am currently in

-       Already know half the team

Moderate Elementary

-       Colorado

-       School District by my grandparents

-       Second chance at going to Mesa

-       New adventure

The Colorado district is the first district I applied to and I have been praying that I get an interview.  Four years ago I chose to go to school in Arizona for a boy rather than attend school in Colorado.  I feel like if I am offered a position in Colorado that it will be my second chance and I need to take it.  I am now waiting on emails and phone calls from principals to schedule interviews with them but after yesterday’s interview with one of the heads of Special Education in the district, I am confident that Colorado may just be my new home after a summer in MALIBU!!

A summer in Malibu, YES that is exactly where I am spending my summer, every year my mom sends me an email about a summer camp counselor position at Bloomfields (a summer camp for the visually impaired).  This year everything worked out and I get to put two of my passions together and teach kids with special needs about horses. 

TODAY, Tuesday 4/16, I just got a phone call for another interview in Arizona on Thursday at 4:30.  I truly am BLESSED!