Half way through this marathon!

First off! I'm half way there!!! YEAH!!!!!

So last week, phew. I'll tell you what, I'm glad to see it in the past. Not only was it:

1. FFA Week
2. A 3 day week

3. I was also extremely ill with the flu. Yuk! (No worries, I'm happily on the uphill recovery!)

So unfortunately, I don't have much to say on the classroom front. I only missed a day and a half, but the rest is honestly a blur.

However, don't fret! I still have something of interest, so keep reading! Haha!

On Friday, we celebrated and thanked other teachers and staff for their continued support of our ag program with a very delicious breakfast! And yes, there was pancakes with some good old fashioned maple syrup! Yum!

Julie & Josh cooking up some sausage!

Let's dig in folks!

Last,but certainly not least! I end my week with supporting some of my kid's in there drama play! They were amazing! And funny! I love a good laugh, and these kid's pulled off some fantastic one liners and parodies! They did a 3 part mini series, with my personal favorite being the one called "The Actor Games". Imagine the hunger games, but with different styles of theater being the "tributes". With of course, high school drama coming out on top! Sorry Musical and Shakespearean, but she got you beat! And yes, even you Silent Movie...

One heck of a busy week & ACES weekend

Just give me one second to catch my breath..... phew.... ok. 

So I'm teaching all classes but two now. Unfortunately no real exciting updates on the classroom front. My horticulture students have continued observing there lab and completing other tasks in between. My freshman continue along with learning animal science. We played a review game of breed jeopardy on species we've learned so far and it went pretty well. I think the students will ace animal science. My first week with ENR went pretty well. The student's seem interested and willing to learn the content. My landscape class and I are chugging along with pesticide certification.

On Friday, It was time for our Mock Interview Seminar with PSU. It was great to have these test runs to learn what to expect. I learned so many interviewing, resume and cover letter skills. We also had the opportunity to talk to a school from Maryland who came to pitch there job position to us. I fell in love with the job and I will continue to talk to them and hopefully get the job! Wish me luck!




Last but certainly not least, it was our chance for ACES weekend. We took 5 underclassmen down to Harrisburg, not far from my hometown. I think it gave them some insight of how far I truly am from home. Haha. Unfortunately, 1 of our girls got really sick on Saturday and Mr. Honeycutt had to drive her back home. It gave me however time to really bond with the student's. The teacher workshop on the Chesapeake was cool and was perfectly matched with one of my passions. I wish it however would have been a little better organized and more informative. The student's and I met up for dinner and shared a delicious meal. It never disappoints. After dinner was the dance, I was so surprised to see my shy underclassman girls jump right in the crowd. I even convinced 1 of my boys to join them on the floor. I joined my cohort mates to people watch and monitor on the sidelines. We came to the conclusion however that even thou we couldn't join the students on the floor, who said we couldn't have our own dance crew. We got down to many line dances and joined in the fun from our sidelined position. It was nice to have a little fun. Afterwards was reflections, and I had to comfort one of my student's who it hit really close to home. I understand her pain, and we talked it out for a little afterwards. I hope maybe seeing that I am human with a really caring soul will continue to help my bond with the students.

Craig & Kasey

Hailey & Summer

Holy Smokes, it's been a month!

Wow! It's already almost the middle of February! Time sure flies when your having fun (and/or really busy)!

This past week, I tried new things with some of my classes. With my freshman, I tried having them make flashcards instead of filling in charts or notes with breed characteristics. They seemed to enjoy it so much better! Of course there was those few students that didn't care to participate, but it is there loss. The freshman have continued to teach me this lesson, and I still struggle with it sometimes, but I now know it is not my fault. As long as I put in my best effort and do everything in my power to reach these kids, that is all I can do. If they choose to still be arrogant and defiant, the best method is to just to pay them no mind. Sometimes they thrive on fighting back, so as long as they aren't bothering other students, I don't feed that attention.

Freshman making their poultry flashcards!

Landscape had there first Fun Friday this past week. Hopefully now they'll be more attentive during the week. This Pesticide Certification has become quite a drag for all of us, so I enjoyed the break on Friday as well. The next section is PPE, which since it is something I'm more familiar with, I'm comfortable in adapting the material quite a lot while still being sure there getting the stuff they need for there exam. This hopefully will make the week go better as well.

Horticulture has been going along quite well. Besides the lessons taking a lot longer then I initially planned, the class has been great. The student's are very cooperative and social and just makes the environment so comfortable, even though it's a subject I'm not so strong in.

I look forward to starting my ENR class this week. We swapped units so instead of starting with Bio-fuels were starting with Wildlife! While I looked forward to Bio-fuels as it involved lot's of labs, I'm excited to start Wildlife! I'm very passionate about Wildlife and I might even help coach some of the student's for the Wilflife CDE! I also plan to utilize my Project Wild curriculum and I look forward to seeing it in action!

Me & my buddy Cookie! She's a Barred Owl!

Classroom Management Win!

One more week down! I picked up another class this week, Horticulture. We hoped right into doing some germination labs and will start another one tomorrow. We have 2 types of seed, corn and soybean, from 2 different farms. We will have the opportunity to do some great comparisons between the two. 

My two sections of freshman were my highlight this week. We watched the Temple Grandin movie, which if you haven't seen, I highly suggest you do. Great movie! But besides the movie itself, I implemented a new classroom policy, and it worked perfectly! I bought a small wooden crate from Walmart and told students that anyone that gave me there phone, would get 2 bonus points. So they could either miss 2 questions on the movie sheet or if they got the questions, it was straight up bonus. I also put my phone in the crate, to make it fair between the student's and I. I would say I easily collected almost every student's phone.  I will definitely implement this in my future classroom. 

My last class of the day... Landscape. Still trying to figure them out. Teaching Pesticide Certification is not the most enthralling thing and I know that, but I'm running out of idea's. As a kinda last ditch effort to encourage student's to participate is by making every Friday a Fun Friday. Meaning we won't do Pest Cert  on those days. But rather a 21st century skills based lesson, either using a game or Life-knowledge lesson. Hope it works. Wish me luck.

Also, the groundhog saw his shadow.... so hope I don't get buried in anymore snow!