Of Teeth and a Teacher

"Each day provides its own gifts." ~Marcus Aurelius

Truer words have probably never been spoken. I assure you that in first grade the "gifts" that the day provides are of a very unique nature. As I am getting close to completing my first year of teaching first grade, there are a lot of things I have learned. They range from expectations that I have for any of my future children in how they will act at school, to realizing how much I have come to care for my students and their success and well-being in life. I have learned how to help daily with headaches, stomachaches, sore fingers, knees, elbows, shoulders, fingers (anything you can think of really)--by the way-- the magical cure to all of these is getting a drink of water. I must have healing water in my drinking fountain, because it works almost every time. :) I have also learned way more than I ever wanted to know about why someone was gone to the bathroom so long. I have learned that I have really good dance moves. I have learned that my relationship status is very important to many of my students, as well as my age, family, pets, breakfast, wardrobe, etc.

I have also learned that I have a very strong dislike for teeth. I hate teeth. I hate the way they look when they are really wiggly, and just hanging on with as much gumption as they can muster (haha, couldn't resist :p). I don't like when my students have their fingers in their mouth constantly trying to get those pearly whites out. I don't like when they come and show me just how loose their tooth is-- it makes me feel just how loose my stomach is becoming. But the absolute worse tooth situation for me is when the pesky little bugger actually comes out. My kiddos get so excited that they will call out in any lesson that their tooth just came out, which causes quite the distraction, or they come right up to me, tooth in hand to show me. My stomach usually does quite the gymnastic routine inside of me and I have to look away and send them to the office as quickly as possible. I hate seeing the little bit of blood on the top of the tooth and the white tooth that already looks less white since falling out. (I'm seriously getting queasy just writing about this)! Well, today must have been my lucky day, because within the first twenty minutes of A-track, I had not one, but two kids lose teeth. Good thing I hadn't had much to eat yet!! They both went to the office to get the little tooth necklaces to hold their teeth inside until they get home. Well the little boy who lost a tooth today also lost one last Friday, and had his necklace confiscated during library because he wouldn't stop playing with it. (The librarian confiscated it and graciously gave it to me to hold on to. Have I mentioned I hate teeth?? I definitely hand-sanitizered up after that). I reminded him to make good choices today with his necklace and he said he would. Less than an hour later as we were finishing up planners, he was literally on his hands and knees in my classroom looking for his tooth on the floor! Ewww! Probably one of my worst nightmares unfolding before my eyes. A tooth is lost in my classroom. That's just about more than I can handle. I called him over to me to explain what was going on. He said that he just opened his necklace to look at his tooth and it was gone. I'm still hoping he decided to open it at recess and just didn't notice that it fell out then. But he searched for a good 15-20 minutes for his tooth, which was never found. I will probably dream about teeth tonight, and about a tooth tree growing in my classroom!

So from this tooth tale, I have learned several things:

1- In my future family, the tooth fairy will have to be of the male variety (aka "dad").

2- Teeth will have to be very well disposed of by the tooth fairy.

3- I should write a children's book called, "The Tooth on the Lose." I'm sure it would be a best-seller. It would probably be a hit for my first graders at the very least.

4- I don't know if I will ever be able to look at teeth the same way again.

5- It is probably a good thing that I didn't go into dentistry. That would have been a rude awakening. 

At least I was able to learn from this story, and it wasn't just a painful experience. Until the next tooth tale, goodbye. 

Rules: A Child's Perspective

As part of social studies in first grade, we get to teach about roles and responsibilities, and rules are a big part of that unit. The assessment for that unit consists of questions about rules and why we have rules. First graders come up with the best answers--let me tell you! I have a fantastic parent who helped me give the assessment and wrote down verbatim what those kids told her. She even included their pauses and side comments. It made them so fun to read, because I can just hear my kids saying it!

Here are some of my favorite responses to the questions (Note- the number of the students changes from question to question and does not necessarily correlate with the same student.):

1- Why do we have rules?:

Student 1: "Because rules are good things and if you do something bad then it means you broke the rule."

Student 2: "To not be mean to other people and also you gotta learn good stuff because it makes us have a better world."

Student 3: "To make us safe and so we can listen and 'cause teachers want us to learn stuff. They are being serious so we have to listen so something bad does not happen."

Student 4: "So we can not get in trouble or be sad."

Student 5: "Because so you behave in the classroom."

2- What is a good rule to have at home?:

Student 1: "Be excited and do laundry and do dishes."

Student 2: "Watch T.V. everyday for 10 hours."

Student 3: "Get ready fast and to be nice."

Student 4: "Not to scream."

Student 5: "To follow directions and tell people what you are doing and also where you are going, 'cause that's a good one too!"

Student 6: "To not say bad words and not fight and not touch the stove when it's hot--actually just don't ever touch the stove."

Student 7: "That's a good question. We don't really have rules at our house. Actually you can only watch TV if you wake up really early 'cause if mom and dad are awake we can't watch a show."

Student 8: "Dancing."

3- What is a good rule to have at school?:

Student 1: "We get to have lunch for free." 

Student 2: "Not to go home at recess or go out the door without asking and also don't yell bad words in the hallway."

4- What is a good rule to have in your neighborhood?:

Student 1: "No touching the trees and no ripping the trees."

Student 2: "We get to break trees and chop them down and also we get to do whatever we want on the playground."

Student 3: "Don't scream when everyone is trying to sleep."

Student 4: "To be safe--that's a really good one!"

Student 5: "No shooting guns at people."

Student 6: "Not to get a gun and kill people and also don't say bad words and kill people and don't do bad things or you will go to jail."

Student 7: "To grow our plants and have fruit."

Student 8: "Let's see..." *thinking for a while* "I bet most places don't have rules but in our neighborhood we can't have roosters. My grandpa had a rooster and it had to go away."

Student 9: "Don't try to make a fire or ruin your neighborhood."

Student 10: "No killing people. Also no disobeying the cops."


So clearly, there is much that we can learn from children when it comes to rules. But I don't think there's much more to be said. These answers speak for themselves!

Out of the Mouth of Babes...

So there are definitely pros and cons to being a first grade teacher. You need to have lots of energy to manage 27, 6 and 7 year old children, let alone teach them everything they need to know for first grade. Oh, and don't even get me started on all of the social skills, conflict resolution, and problem solving skills that need to be taught. But, it's a very rewarding job, and I love it. One of the best things is getting notes from my kids that they make at home (or at school...) On Friday, I was the lucky recipient of not one, but three notes from home and an eraser. 

One of my students who brought me a note from home will often find scraps of paper throughout the day at school and write, "I love you" on it and give it to me. There was one week that she did it almost every day. One day when she handed me the note, and I thanked her, she said, "Do I just make your day when I give you those notes?" Yes, yes you do! Daily validation from children. Dream job for sure.

Well, here is a picture of the note she gave to me on Friday. (Notice the drawn in handwriting lines, and the date written at the top.)

In case you can't read it, here's a typed out version of what she wrote, followed by a translated version. (Seriously, if there was a degree in translating the spelling and handwriting of young children I would be proficient at least).

Her version:

Octobr 2014
Daer Miss Hansen
are you isidid fo
HalaWeen? Have you
Ben to the moon?
bo you like
joolree? Wen
are you going
to bee mereed?
Wut are you going 
to bee fo Halaween?

Translated version:
October 2014
Dear Miss Hansen,
Are you excited for Halloween? Have you been to the moon? Do you like jewelry? When are you going to be married? What are you going to be for Halloween?

Moral of the story: kids are great, and apparently it matters if you have been to the moon, and it's really important for them to know when I'm going to get married. (Believe me, if I knew the answer to that question, I would be a bonafide genius!)

Autotracities 2

As forewarned in my last post about cars, there will be many things I'm sure that will be blog worthy concerning me when it comes to cars. There are several stories that have come to mind for this blog post. 

First, I think I should start off with this clip concerning blinker fluid. Now, most of you probably know that there is no such thing as blinker fluid, but I was not so fortunate. I have fallen for it twice now. Kind of ridiculous. But be warned, I shall not be fooled again!

Anyway, so I was driving my friend's car to the grocery store a few months ago, because she was just recovering from a surgery and wasn't quite up to driving yet, but wanted to go to the store. We ended up taking her car, and I was put in the driver's seat. Now, the last person who had driven the vehicle was a guy who had much longer legs than me. I was trying to find the little lever to pull to scoot the seat forward, but it was no where to be found. She informed me that the seats were automatic, and there were some button things that would move it forward on the side of the seat. Well, I was messing with the buttons trying to just get the seat to move forward, but I was successful in moving the seat up and down, and the back of the seat forward and back, but I could not for the life of me get the whole seat to move forward. Someone eventually had to move the seat forward for me. So I was already doing great. Well, when we got to the store I had another struggle trying to get the key out of the car. In my car, you just turn the key and pull it out, and you're good to go. Well, apparently in her car, you have to turn the key, and then push it in as you twist it the rest of the way before pulling it out. So, after trying to get the key out for about 30 seconds, someone had to help me with that too. Embarrassing. Okay, not really that embarrassing.

A few weeks later, I was getting home from school, and I had a big box of things to be working on. Now, it was a heavy box and was kind of ripping, so I didn't want to put it on the ground and try to pick it back up. So, I opened the passenger side door, which was holding the box, and slid the box out. Now, I leaned the box up against the car, and leaned on the box to hold it in place. Since my car doesn't have automatic locks, I had to manually lock my car. So I leaned forward to push the lock. As I was leaning back, I grabbed the door, and kind of slammed it shut so it would have enough momentum to close while I was still leaning up against the box. I guess I hadn't leaned far enough away from the door yet, because my ear was right in the line of fire and got the corner of my door. Ouch! 

Anyway, those are the main car stories for now. I have a beauty of a car story that I am saving for a post a little further down the road (haha, no pun intended) so stay tuned!

The Case of the Traveling Bobby Pin and Other Mediocre Tales

I have spent much time lately pondering on what to blog about. My life, it seems, has settled into much of a routine, with little variance and almost certainly no blog-worthy material. Perhaps the fact that I have been wanting to find something to blog about has made certain events as of late seem worthy of blogging, but as the title for this post implies...they are definitely mediocre. Please keep this in mind so that your disappointment after this read is minimal. 

I am inclined to think that "The Case of the Traveling Bobby Pin" will be the highlight of this post, and as such, I will be saving it for last. So onto another mediocre tale in the meantime. Much of my time lately has been spent preparing and organizing things for my classroom this fall. The more I prepare, brainstorm, and create, the more excited I am becoming. As my school is in Eagle Mountain and I am in Provo, I have been waiting until I have enough materials and ideas to be able to spend a productive day in my classroom setting up rather than going for only an hour or two. Due to this, I have been storing my organized projects on my bed, and I sit on my floor as I work on more projects. Once a project is complete, I add it to the collection on my bed (See photo for better understanding of how the projects are stored). 

Now, the funny thing about a bed, is that this is where normal people usually choose to sleep. However, my bed is so covered in projects that there is absolutely no room for me! It's highly possible that I am just lazy, so the effort required on a daily basis to take the projects off my bed in an orderly fashion and then put them back on my bed again just to sleep is just too much. But then again, transferring those projects to my floor and playing "don't step on any of tubs, displays, stuffed animals, prizes, or any other classroom paraphernalia" in the morning when I am super groggy and sliding off my bed to walk to the bathroom without my contacts in doesn't seem like the best idea. So, to resolve these issues and get some much needed sleep, I have been sleeping on my floor. I'm not going to lie--the first night the inner child in me was actually super excited. I set up my yoga mat in the narrow space between my bed and my desk, and then covered it with a blanket and snuggled up with my other three blankets. For one night, there was definitely a little bit of novelty and excitement there. However, last night was night three, and as the pain ensuing from sleeping on the floor increases, my enthusiasm decreases. I am very hopeful that I will be getting into my classroom this week, and by natural consequence, be returning to my increasingly comfortable bed to sleep!

My mind is drawing a blank for any other mediocre tales, so I will revert to "The Case of the Traveling Bobby Pin" as my next blogging material. Last night (Saturday) I went on a date with a guy in my ward, and he suggested that we go to the assisted living center that he works at and play them some music--me on the piano, and him on the violin. We were planning on playing some of the songs together, so we got together just over an hour before we had to leave to be there, to practice. I kid you not, I sat down on the chair at the piano and instantly felt something fall down the back of my shirt. One of my bobby pins had fallen out of my hair and slid conveniently to the back of my bra, where it decided to hang out for a while. Had I just been at home, no big deal, right? Just take my shirt off, grab the little bugger and stick it back where it belongs. As I was both on a date and in public, I didn't think that this would be the best course of action, so I decided to try to ignore it and just bide my time. Well, as we practiced, I had a lot more to think about than the bobby pin down my shirt, and I soon forgot about the whole incident. We practiced, performed, got shaved ice, and then sat and talked for a couple hours. By the time I got home, I had completely forgotten about the whole incident. Well, another guy in my ward invited me to go longboarding with him to get a shake, so, of course I did. Now, I probably spend as much time off the longboard as I do on the longboard because I can't get my balance quite right yet. So I was on and off the longboard, bending over to turn it in the direction I wanted it to go, etc. The ride was pretty uneventful. We rode to Sonic, got shakes, and rode back. No biggie. Well I was sitting on the couch afterward, and something felt really weird on the back of my thigh. As I went to rub the back of my leg, what should I feel but that pesky little bobby pin! Over the course of 5ish hours, it had fallen down my shirt, got caught in the back of my bra, and made it's way down my pants where it decided to rest again, about mid-thigh. And there it stayed until I changed into pajamas right before I went to bed. Ridiculous! I'm just grateful that I forgot that it had fallen out, and that I couldn't feel it down my shirt all night, because that would have been mighty uncomfortable!

To wrap this up, I will fall back upon the wise words of Dr. Seuss:

"Remember me and smile, for it is better to forget than remember me and cry."

I hope that this post managed to bring at least a small smile to your face! Farewell. 

What Should Have Been in Webster's and Wasn't

Balderdash- (noun) A most enjoyable game in which ridiculous sounding words are given even more ridiculous pseudo definitions. (Warning: excessive reading of definitions can cause one to fall into a giddy state, and incessant giggling may occur.)

I fear I have left my blog alone for much too long, so I was trying to find an old journal to look through to find some inspiration as to what to blog about, when I came upon some old Balderdash definitions.Okay, so Balderdash happens to be one of my favorite games, especially when I am feeling particularly creative. It is almost guaranteed to put me in a good mood, even if I'm not having a great day.  I am going to share some of my definitions, along with the word I was writing them for. Please keep in mind however that these definitions, while highly applicable in every-day living, do not have actual words to keep them company, so please refrain from using the word they are paired with in the context of the definition I have bestowed upon them in the course of the game.

Alapa: A highly-developed laser lypo procedure used on camels who store fat instead of water in their humps.

Lant: The "wooden-leg of honor" given to the most deserving, one-legged soldier after a war lasting 4 years and 3 months fought in a foreign country.

Sinapize: Resisting the urge to sneeze when looking at the light by squeezing your left big toe and licking your lips. 

Compsectable: When an inspector's monocle cracks at the opera when the soprano hits the highest note of the performance. 

Tragopan: When a trapeze artist gives into the urge to do the splits on the high bar in the middle of a performance. 

Quitch: A wrinkle in one's pants due to being too tight and sitting for too long in the same position.

Baleen: The unfortunate even in which one's tuba shifts their center of gravity giving them a hunched appearance. 

Paraph: When a pig incurs intestinal difficulties due to a diet consisting of too many ripe fruits. 

Gaberlunzie: When a pedal falls off a bicycle while a person is riding it down a hill.

Bedlamite: When a person collides with a tree trunk while attempting to imitate Tarzan.

Cheroot: A festival in which the participants see who can eat the largest number of pickles throughout the day.   

Suffice it to say, that based on the fact that I have saved some of my past definitions, I really love this game! I have also had the incredibly strong desire to play this game for the past couple months, and sharing these definitions is the closest I can get to playing at the moment. I hope you enjoyed!  

Shhhh...It's a Secret!!

So, I have a confession to make. I used to be kind of afraid that someone was going to try to blackmail me at some point in my life with an embarrassing video or story. While I don't have any truly incriminating videos or stories to share, I do have some mildly humorous stories that I can tell so that they are not used as leverage against me at some point in my life. 

1- I can't remember how old I was when this one happened, but I'm thinking I was close to 13. It was just a fairly typical Sunday morning as I was getting ready for church. When it came time for me to find something to wear, I asked my sister, Andrea, if I could wear one of her skirts. After scouring her dignified and fashionable wardrobe, I settled on a plain black skirt. Being the watchful sister she was, she made me wear slip under it. Now, she was playing a duet in church with another girl in our ward, so they were going early to practice. One of my best friends was the younger sister of this girl, so we decided to both go to church at the same time as them. My Dad drove us in our really old car, and Andrea had shotgun. Since we were picking up the two other girls, I sat in the middle seat in the back so that they wouldn't have to slide over. A short drive to the church later, we were all piling out of the car. As I was in the middle seat, I had to slide/scoot over to get out of the door. When I finally managed to get myself out of the car, something didn't quite feel right. In fact, I guess you could say things felt a little breezy. I looked down to find my skirt lying on the ground around my feet, much to my chagrin. I quickly grabbed the skirt and positioned it back where it should be. Did I mention that the skirt was a wee bit too big for me? Apparently the fact that it was a little too big combined with the sliding, and rubbing against the silky slip gave it enough reason to think it was okay to hang out with my feet in the middle of a church parking lot 15 minutes before the meeting was going to begin. Luckily, no one from my ward was arriving at that moment. Unfortunately, our meeting house is on the corner of an intersection, and there were cars stopped. To this day, I'm really not sure if my dad noticed, and just didn't say anything to save me embarrassment, or if he really didn't see a thing. 

2- This next one happened 3-4 years ago. I was paying a routine visit to the eye doctor to get my prescription renewed, pick out glasses, etc. My vision is definitely not great, to put it mildly. However, when I left that day, I'm pretty sure the office assistant was more concerned about my hearing or psychological soundness than my vision. I had just finished all the pre-visit stuff, which is awful really..."Here, take out your contacts. Now lean forward at an awkward angle and keep your eyes open while I blow air into your eyes. Okay, now come stand in the hall and read the lowest line you can. Can you read the line above the giant 'E'? No? Okay, you can go look at glasses while you wait for the eye doctor." Seriously. So, I was "looking" at glasses the best that I could without my contacts in, and the office assistant came up behind me and asked a question. Now, what I heard was, "Are you wearing your contacts?" So I answered, "No, not right now." Simple question, simple answer. Andrea, who was also there, started laughing and said, "Yes, she is Amy." Now, I was really confused. Apparently the assistant had asked if I was Amy, to which I responded, "No, not right now...." "No, I'm not Amy right now. Check back in a few minutes to see who I am then." 

3- Now, this last one happened just a couple weeks ago. Now, it's not quite as embarrassing as the others, but it does perhaps question whether or not I truly deserve the college degree I just earned. You know the part of graduation that takes forever while everyone is presented with their "diploma" and gets their picture taken like 12 times? Yeah, well I was near the end of the line, so I go to stand and wait for everyone to go before me. Now, the people taking pictures try to make it as easy as possible for you to do the right thing during the shot. They even have footprint outlines taped to the floor for you to stand on so you're in the right spot. Well, I went through the first one no problem. The next one was the one where you stand hold your diploma while standing next to the president of UVU and shake someone's hand who you don't really know and smile for the camera. Again, piece of cake. Well, somehow I missed the memo that they were going to be taking pictures when you got down from the stage as well. So I stood there kind of confused for a second, and then I held up my diploma cover and smiled. Guys. I held up my diploma cover with the wrong side facing the camera. They got a shot of the nice green back, rather than the inscribed "Utah Valley University" on the front. I promise I worked hard to get my degree, even if it seems difficult for me to hold my diploma cover the right way for a camera. 

These are seriously the most embarrassing stories I've been able to come up with to share--at least that are appropriate for all audiences and don't incriminate anyone else. I mean, I've definitely had those moments where you think someone is waving to you and you wave back, only to realize they were waving to someone behind you, and you hastily start scratching your neck or combing your fingers through your hair to make it look like you weren't really waving. But the embarrassment with those one moments are a little shorter lived than for these stories I've just told. 

Until I have another incriminating moment, goodbye blogging world!