priceless practicum experiences

My favorite thing about being in a Kindergarten class is the fact that I get at least 20 hugs in 2 hours. :)

busy busy

This semester has definitely been keeping me busy! I feel like I've been in school for at least three months and it's only been one! I am enjoying it though. I have been doing my practicum hours in an elementary school with a reading specialist and an extended day kindergarten class. I love working with my kindergarten reading group in the morning! They have been progressing so well the last couple of weeks and it's really rewarding. Plus they are darling. :) The afternoon has been a lot more challenging than I thought was possible, but I am learning. Last Friday we got to do a fun thing called Kids College at another elementary school and I taught Biology to a 4th grade class. We did experiments involving the five senses and it was a blast! I think I might actually really love teaching older grades... hmm. I think I will enjoy it wherever I end up. Cherene I know you'll probably read this, I would love to get together with you soon and discuss teaching techniques, etc. (For those of you who may not already realize this, my aunt Cherene is an amazing teacher!! I am lucky to have so many good examples in my family!)
So anyway, I'm in the computer lab working on a few of my many projects and thought I should post a little something. Someday I'll do a longer one.
Here's a picture I took on campus at lunch one day. Big trees are so pretty, especially when they're all frosted with snow!

Weekend Adventures

I like going on little adventures. I think the hardest part for me this semester has been sitting inside listening to someone talk hour after hour after hour. I have to admit I occasionally find myself daydreaming, I suppose trying to crowd out the boredom creeping in. I do enjoy my classes and feel like I am learning good stuff most of the time, I just like getting out and about you know? Luckily I have the weekends! Here are a few fun things we have done these last few weeks.





Monday we went to St. George thinking we could escape the cold. Little did we know it was actually more stormy there than in Cedar! We decided to hike around Santa Clara to see if we could find a climbing spot we had heard about. It was raining pretty much the whole day but it was only a drizzle. After about an hour and a half of hiking through the plateaus we finally found the boulders!

It was pretty cold and we hiked a long way, but it was beautiful! I love the desert landscape. Especially in the rain! Everything looked so bright and fresh.

A few weeks ago Casey and I went on a short snowshoing expedition on the Bristlecone Pine trail.

I liked seeing the animal tracks of all shapes and sizes in the snow. Casey actually took this picture. It's so pretty I had to put it in!

And of course we've been climbing!

blogging pros....i need your assistance

The truth is, I get bored of my blog backgrounds quickly and it takes too long to look up how to do stuff so I was just wondering if there is someone out there who can help me. :) I want to customize my blog layout so the text part is bigger, I don't have a border on the left side, and my pictures can upload bigger. I figured out how to put bigger pictures on, the problem is that the border cuts off the edges of the pictures. So anyway, if you have time to help me out or know an easy to understand website that will tell me what to do, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

Book Review

For my math methods class we have an assignment called Literature Links. For this assignment we're supposed to find a picture book related to math and use it in a mini lesson with an activity to teach a math concept. While looking through books at the library, I came across this one:

This isn't the book I'm going to use for my literature link, but I love this book!! It deals with ratio and proportion and it is a very, very cute book. The illustrations are hilarious and it really is interesting! I don't want to spoil the whole book for you, but I'll tell you one interesting fact I learned...just so you'll be motivated to read the whole thing. :) Did you know that if you ate like a shrew you could eat more than 700 hamburgers in one day?! Yeah, pretty amazing I know. The moral of the story is this, read the book! I want to purchase it to have in my classroom library and to read to my kids someday. Not only is it cute and funny, but it's based on actual information and has explanations of the ratios and proportions at the end of the book. It gets the imagination flowing. So anyway... I just thought I would share that with you. Hopefully you enjoy books as much as I do!

oh p.s. The author's name is David M. Schwartz. It's kind of hard to read in the picture.

student teaching license acquired!

Ready or not, children of the world, Sheralee is on her way!

Happy 2010!!!

Can you believe it is already 2010?! I feel like 2009 went by really fast, but it was a really good year! I was thinking back on everything I have been able to do this year and it's more than some people experience in their whole lifetime! I am one lucky girl.

My New Years was great. I got to spend time with Casey's family and enjoyed their awesome new theatre room. On New Years day we started the year off with some snowshoeing at Little Cottonwood Canyon! We went on a double date in the evening and it was beautiful. The perfect start to a New Year.

Today I went back to school. It's going to be a busy semester! I picked up my textbooks today and it looks like I will be learning useful information so I'm excited!