Book Review - The Long Way Home

A while back I received a free book from Thomas Nelson publishers, and the deal is that I write a review of it on my blog. The book is from a series by Andrew Klaven called the Homelander series. I have the first two books – The Last Thing I Remember and The Long Way Home.  The second book, The Long Way Home, is the book I received first. It is about the main character Charlie West who, in the first book, wakes up and doesn’t remember much about his past. In the second book, he is trying to figure out the truth about his life and who he can trust. He has been accused of killing his best friend, so he is on the run. He returns to his hometown, and with his friends, tries to discover the truth. Once I put the book on the shelf in my classroom, it hardly stayed there. Students kept telling their friends about it and someone was always reading it. After a few students had read it, they asked me to get the first book, The Last Thing I Remember, so it would make more sense. I quickly got it so that students could read them in order.  After buying the first book, excitement about the series grew even more. Students also began asking their parents to buy them so they could have them at home and so they wouldn’t have to wait on others to finish them. They are also begging me to get the rest of the series for my classroom! I haven’t seen my students so excited about a book or series in a long time, but it is exactly what I love to see as an English teacher. My students love the excitement, suspense, and imagination the other brings to the books. It also gives me a peace of mind to be able to put books from Thomas Nelson in my classroom since I am at a Christian school, and it also makes me happy to recommend the books to parents when they ask for suggestions for their kids. I definitely recommend the books for middle school students and can’t wait to buy the other books in the series to read as well!

what i have experienced in my first year of teaching

first day: (i keep the desks turned backwards so the kids don't put trash in them or hide the fact that they're texting) a student tipped her desk over & a pair of boxers fell out of the desk

spirit week: i was forced to wear angel's wings with the other english teachers on twin day

the kids found out that i am a guitar hero player...and gained respect for me in some ways, and probably lost respect in some ways! (maybe if they ask next year, i will lie?! jk)

the best excuse of the year for not having an assignment: he had the poster rolled up, with a rubber band around it and by the front door. then when it was time to leave, he couldn't find it anywhere. he ended up finding it on top of the dining room chandelier...???

lots of 6th grade talks about their boys & other things that they decide to include me in on haha

unfortunately the spurs didn't have a good year against the mavs. my students knew that i'm a spurs fan, so they found great joy in annoying me every time the spurs lost.

begging every week from several students to get my sister to sub for me

i taught 8 novels - and had only read one of them before finding out the list at the very end of the summer.

i learned a lot of things to do AND a lot of things not to do

i learned that even when kids are annoying, it's still easy to find something special & unique about each of them.

i realized things i should've done the first day of school

i learned a lot not only about english but also about other subjects - like relearning the Civil War for one of the novels, and about the Dust Bowl for another one

kids were allowed to sit on the floor while watching a video for one of the books we read. one was talking so i told him to go sit in his chair. he wouldn't, so i told him again. his response was, "No, thank you." ahhh it's not an option!!!

AND i became a cheerleading coach HA

i think teaching makes me talk to God a lot more :)

learning to say no...or tickets to the symphony

For some reason I just cannot tell people no!
my last job:
"Will you stay at work late because I need to leave early?" OK, fine.
"Will you come in early, I can't make it on time?" Ok, sure.
New job:
"Will you be a chaperone for the 6th grade trip"...(aka spend 54 hrs with over 50 11 & 12 yr olds)? Yes, of course I will (ok, that one did get me out of teaching for a few days).
"Will you take ALL of the failing middle school kids after school for tutorials (and not get paid extra)four days a week?" Yeah, ok.
"Can I have your free teacher ticket to the fair?" Um...I'm not sure, I think I would like to go. "My wife & I want to take our grandkids. Here, I have 2 tickets to the symphony that my wife and I cannot use. You can have them and let me know about that fair ticket tomorrow." ok... dang it. What am I going to do with tickets to the symphony?! Maybe I will actually go even though it's not my kinda thing, but the fair sounds a lot more fun. I will not be manipulated anymore! After tomorrow when I'm supposed to give away my ticket to the fair.

life with 7th graders

i'm guessing i might have some stories to share now that i'm around 6th & 7th graders all day. soo here's my first one. yesterday i put several magazine pictures up on the board and made them choose a picture and write 2 paragraphs about it. they also had to use 5 of our vocab words for the week somewhere in the paragraphs... which is what made them funny cause the words really had nothing to do with the pictures at all. one of my students chose the picture of a huge chocolate chip cookie. this is what he wrote...without any punctuation at all (vocab words in caps):

I love cookies I think it's a good thing they can't be BISECTED I'd rather DUPLICATE it is much better awatked(?!) by a massive MONOLITH that was when I found a house it was the biggest DUPLEX ever I walked into the House

I saw a king I said are you the MONARCH he said yes Im the monarch then I killed him and took his cookies

hahahah. i love the last paragraph...but i obviously have a long way to go with these 7th graders if they don't even know to use punctuation.

changes

things i miss about 2nd graders
-hugs for no reason
-excitement over pulled teeth
-telling me everything
-random stories
-comforting them when they cry
-helping them put on bandaids when they're hurt
-cute little laughs
-never-ending energy
-playing knockout and pig in the gym
-how they actually like for me to play with them
-how i can give them time out, but they still like me anyway

starting this week, i just got 5th-7th graders (to help out with my resume a little). they're great too, & i just need to get used to them, but i miss my 2nd graders.=( plus it's hard to feel as much in charge when half of them are taller than i am (one 12 yr old girl is 5'11"!). so anyway, i guess just pray for me as i get used to this new age & figure out how to relate to them & how to get them to actually do what i say.

clothes fights & horses

i realize that stories about my kids at work are not as funny if you don't know the kids or hear the stories in person, but i thought i'd share anway. this little red-head is ca-razy!! he's so loud & is always getting into trouble. when he looks at me & realizes that i've seen him do something he's not supposed to do, he'll hang his head & make his way sloooowly to time out...on his own heheh. i'll ask him why he hit the other kid, etc. & instead of lying like most kids he mumbles, "i just did." other times i'll say "you need to go sit down," or give some other instructions & his response will be to point his index finger in the air, yell "NEVER!" and run away. well yesterday he walked by & was looking down at his shorts saying, "don't say that!" we were like uhhh, why are you talking to your shorts? & he explained that they were saying bad words. he went into this long story about why he had worn the shorts that he wore. just so happens that there had been a fight in his clothes drawer that morning & his shorts (which he apparently named michael) were calling "mr. jeans" bad names. so michael's punishment was that the kid would wear them & get them all sweaty & dirty. today his shorts named albert lost a fight against mr. jeans, so they were the ones to get sweaty & dirty.

alright...here's the girl (the taller one) that belongs to the quote "on the outside i'm a girl, but on the inside i'm really a horse." she is neighing, galloping, trotting, drawing horses, etc. ALL the time. i had to make a classroom rule: "no animals inside." so she definitely makes up for it when we're outside. but she's always forgetting not to neigh inside (it's really loud), so i just give her a look & she says, "i just can't help it!" *edit: i just noticed that on my very first post ever - a year ago - i have a pic of this same girl acting like a horse...didn't remember she was a horse last year too! hahah*

so anyway, i guess i kinda want these stories written down for myself cause knowing the kids that go along with the stories just makes me laugh & i don't want to forget the stories. :)

snow!

for some reason i kinda forgot about mine & everyone else's blogs for awhile, but mel reminded me last night since she updated. even though i am not enjoying this never-ending miserably cold weather, i did enjoy getting snow last week! :)




















would you like to know why i don't like cold weather even more now?! my brother "diagonosed" me with raynaud's disease. (not sure that is what it was, but sounds like it). it happens to some people when you get really cold and your fingers (and/or toes) get all tingly & numb-feeling because the blood is trying to get from the outer parts to the inner parts of the body. yep so that suddenly happened to me the other night & i had no idea what was going on! first one finger got tingly & i thought maybe i had hurt it & forgot how. but then 4 more of my fingers did the same thing, & they turned white then kinda blue. but then it just went away after i had been back inside for about an hour or 2. guess it's nothing to worry about though! here's a pic i found online, but mine was not this bad.