Nervous

I just got the syllabus for one of my classes I start next week. There are two assignments that make me really nervous.

One is a lesson plan that we create ourselves. It has to be approved by our cooperating teacher, taught to the class, AND our class teacher will observe us teaching it. Ahh! I don't know why I'm so nervous. I've made lesson plans before. And taught before. I guess it's just the teaching my own lesson plan thing. I have been just turning in lesson plans without actually teaching them and I've been teaching pretty much what the teachers I work with give me. I've never done it all on my own. What if what I do is stupid? What if my teachers don't like how I teach? So many thoughts keep running through my mind! I know I have tons of good ideas for lessons, but as far as implementing them.... it makes me so nervous that I won't be good enough.

The second assignment is a project in which we have to TAPE OURSELVES teaching. OMG. I absolutely HATE not only listening to myself talk on recordings (which is why I don't have a voicemail recording) but I HATE watching myself on video. The thing with me is that I have this speech impediment where I don't say my "R"s correctly. Sometimes people have trouble understanding what I'm trying to say, and often times, students will comment on it. I'm also scared that someone would be reluctant to hire me because of the way I talk. How can I teach kids language if I can't say things right myself? Anyways, back to the video taping, I am just nervous that once I see myself teach on video I'll be unhappy with the way I talk/teach/or whatever and it will discourage me from wanting to teach. I mean, I know teaching is something that I want to do incredibly bad, but if I'm not good at it or happy with the way I do it, then why would I want to continue on with it?

I know I tend to over-worry sometimes and I'm sure this is all it is. But still. I have a few weeks until I need to legit worry about it, so until then, I will try to think positively and just try to keep coming up with more and more teaching ideas.

Expensive Books

School starts up again next week... I can't believe it. I feel like I barely had a summer at all! Probably because I really didn't, with being in school until mid-July and working every single day. The good news is that this will be my last full semester of classes! I have this semester, then student teaching, and then I'm done, besides the couple of Master's classes I have to finish.

The best thing about this being my last semester is that this is the last time I'll have to buy hundreds of dollars worth of textbooks. I had to buy five books today that totaled.... wait for it.... $397!!!! Ugh! One of the books was custom made so you can't rent it or buy it used. I'm assuming that you probably can't sell it back either. It was over $200 alone.

In undergrad, I pretty much stopped buying books because most teachers never made us use them. In grad school, however, we use them a lot more. I have also discovered the beauty of actually reading the chapters the tests are on. It makes studying for the exams a lot easier.

To ease my pain, I also bought myself a lime green university t-shirt. At least one thing I bought was a bargain today!

My First Bulletin Boards

Since I will be student teaching in the spring with the teacher I have been working with the last two semesters, I offered her help on setting up her classroom this summer. She took me up on her offer and I went to school two days and helped her organize and set-up her room. I mainly did all the handwritten signs, like the schedules and table labels- the more "crafty" stuff. I also got to do the bulletin boards. The bulletin boards in her hallway aren't actually bulletin boards. They are just the cork strips that run along the walls. She had to show me how to hang the paper pieces from the cork strips, cut off the bottoms & tops, and then tape the backs to the wall. After showing me the first one, I did the rest by myself. They turned out pretty good and I even received a compliment from the new principal that was hanging out around the school. (I don't mean to brag, but it feels good knowing that the new principal noticed something good that I did! I would like to get on his good side!)

{picture of schedule & table labels}

I didn't get to completely make up the bulletin boards myself. She had themes/materials ready and I just had to design and place everything myself.

The first bulletin board was for her classroom and it was a baker/cookie theme. I placed the baker and the cookies with words. When she has her class list, the students' names will be written on cookies and placed on the rest of the board. I thought how I hung it all was the obvious, simple solution, but when she came out and looked at it when I was done, she was so impressed because she had "never thought to hang the baker on the side." She said that she usually just hangs him in the middle. She loved it.

{picture}

The second bulletin board was for the whole kindergarten. I guess the theme is bumblebees, because she had a bunch of packs of the bumblebee name tags in her closet. Everything on the board (besides the bees) are free-handed drawn & cut (including the lettering). I'm pretty happy with it, but I just wish I made the letters bigger. I tore the tree out of paper so the edges would have texture and if I would have thought about it sooner, I would have done the same with the grass. The most annoying thing about it was having to roll up multiple pieces of tape to hang up every single shape, including every single bee and letter. I was so over it after a while!

{pictures}

All in all, I think the boards turned out pretty good- at least for my first time. I probably could have spent way more time & added a lot more detail if I wasn't so hot and sweaty (due to lack of air condition)!