What's Happening...

No cute Easter pictures to show as I didn't take my camera to Edmonton but this is what Ian and I have been up to this holiday:

I got a job teaching grade 2 for the rest of the year
Ian's cousin had a baby girl (born to Jen and Brent Garner)
Ian had scout camp with our branch and loved it
I went to Edmonton to see family while he was gone (including my sisters new bf and sister)
Got my hair cut (yes must be spring)
Baby is 21 weeks along and I am feeling it move daily
Ian has left for Prince Albert again for 7 days (will come back on his birthday the 20th)
It is spring break so I am spending the week packing to move and planning for school
14 Days until we get possession of our house
and the weather has been so beautiful!

I can't wait to have a yard to work in and a deck to enjoy the wonderful sun! It was great to hear about all your exciting holidays and to see the pictures of your adorable families. Keep writing cause I stalk you all daily!

Wearing in shoes

I was back to teaching today (finally)! I substituted for a grade 2 class at Jack Kemp School here in Lloyd. I had definitely forgotten how tiring the younger students are. I think I would much rather take on the older classes then deal with the "high maintenance" little ones. It is so ironic too that I am finding the older students to be more enjoyable. I started my education career training in Early Childhood Development and even did most of my University placements in grades 1 and 2. I love the conversational ability that the older students have as well as their 'funky' personalities as they begin to figure out who they are as individuals. I am however, grateful for the blessing it is to teach any age. The school was great and the staff friendly, I do miss having my own students though and really feeling like I belong. It was a good day... but man am I tired.

Note to self.... wearing in new shoes as a teacher is really atrocious. You never get to sit.

6.5 Days to go....

This is the group of lucky children that I have dedicated the last 10 months of my life to. Awww, they all look so happy (silent tear)! I can't believe there are only 6 and a half days left of school. Remember that list of things I still had to teach?!? Well I managed to finish it all! We still have to write all the provincial tests and do some review but after that (and a few parties and fun days) there are only report cards to finish... wah wahhhhh!

It has been such a year of growth, challenge and adventure for me. I felt like the start of the year was fighting to earn respect from the students, the parents and from co-workers. Proving yourself "worthy" can be quite exhausting. Despite my youth (I am the youngest teacher by 13 years) they all managed to find confidence in my abilities. I am still questioning their sanity!

I was so busy with mentors and worrying about teaching that it took me until probably February to be able to relax and enjoy my time learning with the students. They are a fun group.... so fun in fact that they make unruly students. I have really enjoyed the last 4 months with "my children" and I think I have learned a small part of what it is like to be a parent. I am sad to say goodbye because it might be a forever goodbye but I hope that they will keep in touch. I am excited to see how they grow and mature.... mostly I hope that they will work hard to reach the potential I have seen in them. They have each blessed my life and helped me to grow a little bit towards the type of person God wants me to be.

Green Thumb? Maybe a green pinky!

I have never been the gardening type. As a child my mother always had a garden planted in our yard. We all had to do our part and help with the weeding, watering and harvesting. Lucky for me I learned early on that I was allergic to grass/plants. I would break out in hives if my skin made contact with the lovely green stuff. Though this was a great excuse it didn't always save me from my duties as gardening gloves were purchased. Now it wasn't just the itchy reaction that made me dislike being in the garden. A large part of it was the high bug quantity in that particular region of the yard. I do not "do" bugs. Of any sort really... I was the type of child to freak out if a ladybug landed on me. I still have to get someone else to kill anything from a teeny house spider to a harmless fly. Whenever it rained I would stare at my feet to make sure that I didn't get any worm guts on my shoes. Really it is a bit ridiculous but I just can't seem to get over my dislike for the creepy things of the earth.

So, the point of that little excerpt was to give you a little background about my experience/inexperience with growing things. Now things haven't improved very much since then.... I seem to be very talented at killing things and that was okay with me cause I didn't care to grow anything (I have since realized that any recent attempts were hopeless as I have a NORTH facing apartment that gets zero direct sunlight).

I don't know what has changed since September but I seem to have this desire to nourish something and see it grow. In the fall I bought a few plants for my classroom to make it seem more 'natural'. I think I started off with 6 (4 were together in one larger pot). I didn't pay much attention to them as they often had too much or too little sunlight as well as too much or too little water (thanks to my students who are in charge of the watering). It didn't take long for 2 of the plants to wither away and die leaving me clueless as to the reason for their demise. It was around this time that I was also getting additional plants as gifts from my students parents and they were all dying too, and very quickly. I was determined at that point that I would NOT let this be my defeat and that I would PROVE that Jennifer Isackson can indeed keep a living thing alive (oh-I had a fish once and it died too-but that was somewhat intentional-another story another time).

From that point I would check up on my plants almost daily to make sure they were doing well. I moved them to better places in the room to get the ideal amount of sunlight and I oversaw the 'watering process' by my students. They really started to perk up at this point and the 2 remaining that were combined in the large pot (which had been dying themselves) started to show signs of improvement. It came to the point last week that I realized I needed to re-pot the plants (is there a word for that? transplant?) so I made a visit to Sunnyside with my friend Tanya.

While having such a nice visit we found some beautiful pots for me and some nice flowers for Tanya (including a little cactus for Teo). I got these pretty new pots to school and transplanted them the first chance I had. Now this is the lesson of the story.... when you get that feeling that you shouldn't put something somewhere because it might get broken, you should heed that warning. I put the plants in some nice spots around my beautiful classroom trusting that the students wouldn't break them...... and I was right, THEY didn't, but I DID!

There was one casualty at school today and that was my bright pink two-tone pot (thankfully my least favourite of the bunch). I was moving the table with the plant on it for our provincial exams this morning and I tipped the table up too far and watched in UTTER HORROR as the plant slid and crashed to the cement floor. At least I can only be mad at myself for breaking it. So the poor plant, that is in desperate need of TLC, is back in its plastic pot where it will now remain to be passed on to the teacher who takes over my position next year.

Now if anyone read this far, you must really like gardening or you will use it against me at some future time when I try to pretend that I am Mother Nature.

I have included a couple pictures of the three plants that are thriving and looking good in their new pretty pots!

Is it summer yet?!?

I am so ready for the school year to be over. Ian has one week left of exams and then he is on his summer break... well I guess he doesn't really have a break anymore because now he is finished university and will be working. Nonetheless, I still wish I was done with him. I don't want to be left behind as Ian moves to Lloydminster without me. It makes me sad thinking of the lonely weeks ahead.

I feel like I am out of steam and I don't feel like I can deal with 21 teenagers everyday anymore. The students have started to turn into junior high-ers already. They don't confide in me as much and don't seem to like me as much. I miss hearing "Mrs. Isackson, you are the coolest teacher ever!". They are currently unaware of the fact that I am moving and will not be their teacher next year (at my school the teacher stays with her class from gr 1-9). I am breaking the news to them next week. I don't think they will be too upset though (at least not many of them).

41 Days of school left and in these next 41 days I have to do the following:

• Arrange probably 2 parent meetings about field trips, events, new teacher, ect.
• Field trip to Lloyd's Roller Rink
• Plan and arrange a Medieval Feast
• Attend a grade 6/7 overnight trip (3 days)
• Carry out 4 more pizza days
• Attend 9 more staff meetings
• Interview potential new students/families
• Plan, prepare and teach Government, Trees and Forests, Evidence and Investigation. Review Ancient Greece, prepare the student for provincial exams, write the 6 exams, finish a novel study, teach how to write a business letter and a newspaper article. Complete fractions with operations, teach statistics and probability, number theory, coordinates and motion geometry, and integers.
• Mark everything associated with teaching these topics and complete report cards

Now that is just my teacher life. I also have to:

• Pack and move my husband
• Travel most weekends to see Ian
• Celebrate our first anniversary
• Deal with all things Young Womens
• Celebrate Ian's Graduation with family coming
• and move everything to Lloydminster

... I am thinking now I shouldn't have written this all down because now it seems so much more overwhelming. I do not ask for pitty though. I chose my career. This is a warning to all you pre-teachers out there... you will never be more busy in your entire life than your first years of teaching. It will remain that busy too if you are switching grades each year. So here is the future plan... find a nice, quiet public school where no one expects too much from you... teach grade 4 (not a provincial exam year -TRUST ME)... and keep teaching grade four until you retire. Good luck to you all!