31 Days of Intentional Living - Day 4

Eat that Frog?!

So today Jenny talks about 'eating the most dreaded task' first. So by doing the most dreading thing on my list I will be productive at least once in my day.
I think the most dreaded task in my life are the ones that involves getting outside and doing exercise. I think about doing activity and about getting hot and sweaty and I don't like the idea of it. So I guess I will have to do this first when I get to doing things on my lists. I really can't foresee myself doing exercise before school as I just can't fit it in and still be awake enough for driving.
So I'll do it in the afternoons I suppose. I'll see how I go.
It's a good idea nonetheless.

31 Days of Intentional Living Day 3

"By simplifying and cutting back in one area, you will be gain in others.  Simplifying is not about guilting you into throwing away your stuff or never buying another piece of clothing!  Choose what works for you and aligns with your priorities and goals."

Today is about simple living and I already feel that with this challenge my home life is becoming more simple and work is being more stressful! So how can I make my work life as simple as my home life now? 

Jenny, who wrote this challenge, provided us with 12 ideas on how to simplify your life. She challenged me to think about which one works for me and my priorities and goals. I look at my goals and see that I want to intentionally spend more time in certain areas. So I selected the idea of:

Less Chaos/More Routines.  If you are tired of feeling out of control when it comes to getting laundry done, getting kids in bed on time, or just balancing it all, I’d highly encourage implementing routines.  (You can see 8 Smart Mom Tips To Save Your Sanity In The Morning here!)

How do you define simple living?

I define simple living as being able to do everything that needs to be done without stress or little stress. Having time to do the fun things in life as well. I have forced myself to participate in a 2 hour meet up for a church's arts and crafts group so I get some of my hobby time. I am making simpler meals for dinner so it doesn't take so long and I am spending as much time as I possibly can with Nathan. So far so good. 

31 Days of Intentional Living - Day 2

So I had trouble waking up this morning. I knew my mind was rested and my body was tired.
Your Challenge: Comment below with a healthy habit that you would like to add into your life!    Schedule a date to begin working on your new habit and follow the steps.  I know you can do it!

My healthy habit I want to add to my life is spending a set time with God everyday. I am starting today and have set an alarm on my phone to remind me. At 3pm everyday, straight after school I am going to spend at least 10mins with God. I will read a devotion or sing in my classroom or at home on the weekends. I hope I can do this. 

I would also start a habit on losing weight but I thought I would start one at a time and not over do it. Since God is my top priority I plan to start with Him! 

If I get my spiritual life in order then my physical life will be easier to sort out. 

31 Days of Intentional Living Day 1

Starting late tonight I am beginning my 31 day intentional living challenge. I don't care if anyone doesn't read this because these posts are for me to keep myself accountable. I discovered this challenge on Pinterest.

First day challenge: Setting Priorities:

Your challenge for today:  Take 10 minutes and write down what is most important to you.  Be as clear and specific as you can!  Write out your goals for the next year, 5 years from now and your lifetime goals.  When you look at these goals, are the activities you are participating in aligning with your goals?  If not, it may be time to start changing up your schedule!

What is most important to me?

1. God - spending time with him and growing in my faith
2. Nathan - loving, learning about and spending time with my husband
3. Seeing or speaking with my family
4. My job - getting what needs to be done, done
5. House chores - keeping a semi-clean house
6. Losing weight - I have doctor's orders to do so! I want to get to 60kgs

I see these priorities as lifetime goals, apart from the losing weight...I hope to have kicked that one by the end of the year or by next year.

What I might need to change to help align with these goals:

1. Spend at least 10mins a day with God...I already talk to him throughout the day but I don't take time out of my busy schedule to be still.

2. Nathan and I are already pretty good at making sure we spend time with each other. But I want to make sure I show him love everyday in my words and actions. I want to make sure I uphold our relationship agreement of spending weekends mostly together and whenever we have a chance to take the opportunity to spend it in love.

3. I want to make sure I contact my family at least once a week and seeing them at least once a fortnight. I already do this but sometimes it might go a bit longer before I speak with everyone.

4. I don't want to do more than an hour's work a day at home and I want to leave work by 5pm everyday...earlier if possible!

5. Making sure I spend at least half an hour on house chores a day would be great! Some days I find I don't do anything and then I feel guilty!

6. Losing weight is my tough one! I have all these challenges planned for losing weight but my new year resolution was to do one challenge at a time. I guess in the mean time I could be focusing on eating healthy (so no more than one sweet chocolatey good thing a week...that can be my Sunday treat!) as well as getting in as much exercise as I can. I just need to be mind conscious of doing these things.

I think I have answered all the questions. I'm ready! I pray that God helps me with these goals.

Week 2 at Harlin State School

Monday – Arrived at school early to find ideas for my four-week art unit I am to do with the students. Found some great ideas, which I will post about on the day I do it, and hopefully post pictures too with them. I did an English lesson with the Year 2 on Adjectives and how they create feeling in stories.  We had class photos which I got to be in, felt odd being in them and I kept thinking of one of my own school class photos where there was a prac teacher in it and how I could never remember who they were. I don’t think these children will remember me sadly but hopefully they will still learn something from my 6 weeks in their classroom. Even if it is to sit still and stay quiet. Just joking, that’s not just what they will learn. During lunchtime, my mentor teacher went home sick leaving me with the afternoon session to teach. I had already been planning to do the art lesson then so I planned to do that on top of reading a story and organising the show and tell section of the afternoon. It went well in my mind…considering all the possible bad things that could have taken place. The worst problem I did not know what was happening inside the classroom while I was outside with the small group who were painting their colour wheel. Overall the day went according to plan and fairly well. Tomorrow it seems I may be on my own without my mentor teacher and without a substitute teacher. Tomorrow I will learn how important teacher aides are in the classroom!

Tuesday – Arrived at school to hear the good news that a Substitute teacher had been found for the day…phew! She had never been to this school but she turned out to be very good and I did end up running a few lessons anyway. Today I learnt how to team-teach and I loved it. If only there were enough teaching spaces available as well as teachers to have two teachers per classroom! That would be so ideal!

Wednesday – Not much really happened today…the days this week are feeling a bit the same now…I just want the students to hurry up and finish writing out ‘Goldilocks and the three bears’ which we wrote together as a class. We started on Tuesday. I got the year 2’s who had finished writing it to type it up.

Thursday – Still writing and typing….yawn…I couldn’t get any actual teaching instruction in today or yesterday but that’s ok…made it more relaxing for me but I kind of want them to move faster…can I say that? Lol Oh well…patience Maija. The best thing I got to do today was maths activities with the Preps…so my second year subject (EDU341) came in handy with activities that check for maths skills. Such as subitising, counting on and naming the numbers. So I was pleased that I was actually able to use the knowledge that I had learnt at uni!

Friday – My teacher left early today again…but it was just during lunch and the next part was music with the PE/Music teacher so I didn’t have to do much. But before that I was still supervising my lesson on ‘Goldilocks and the three bears’ while the students were still writing and typing. I plan that next week they will be doing something different. 

Week one - Prac at Harlin State School

Sunday – arrived in town while the temperature was like 37 degrees! I was sweltering! Had trouble getting to sleep because of the loud trucks coming up over the hill and passing my room and the stuffy heat. Unfortunately I could not get the air con working.

http://www.whereis.com/qld/harlin#session=MTI= Harlin where is.

Monday – woke up fairly refreshed ready for the day ahead of me. Before I left for the school (a minute’s walk across the road) I fortunately and unfortunately found that the air con cord had been unplugged and been hiding behind the door night before. I went to school with the hopes that tonight I would not be sweating in bed now I had air con! My positive attitude was slightly crushed when I arrived in the classroom and my Mentor teacher (also the school’s Principal) looked at me confused and said “I forgot you were coming” WHAT?! I have a six week prac with you and you forgot? I immediately went to blaming the uni for not notifying her enough…when in actual fact it probably was mine for not emailing her the week before…but oh yeah…I had three huge assignments so I had no time! Anyways my teacher said that it was good to see me anyway and immediately put me onto doing a task. The task was to choose books from the library for the English Fairy-tale/Folktale unit for the term. We went through the class timetable/routine. And after that I began to feel like I was in a paid position already as I went around doing odd jobs like a teacher aide. Come afternoon I was already given the opportunity to organise an art activity. I came up with a fantastic idea that each student makes a leaf or two and we make a bean stalk to follow along with the day’s fairy-tale of Jack and the Beanstalk.

 I was also given the task of taking the Year 1’s for a maths lesson on addition. I loved this because as I carried it out I used my teacher-senses and observed that one girl was struggling so I got her to work on the small whiteboard with me while the other students did individual work. That night I went to bed feeling great because I knew I had already grown in leaps and bounds in confidence since last year’s prac. Also cool with the air con and the fan both on J

Tuesday – Today I was set for observing a substitute teacher while my Mentor acted out her Principal duties while the school was being audited (The result was great). I set about organising a lesson for Thursday (the day I am meant to teach next) and assisted where needed. The best part of the day was in the afternoon when nothing specific had been planned but it turned out two huge trucks with Camels had parked themselves across the road from the school. So the sub teacher took the class across the road then spent the rest of the afternoon doing camel activities…including singing “Alice the Camel” as loud as the students could.

Wednesday – Another day of just observing and continuing to build repertoire and relationships with and amongst the students. I also carried out a spelling test of 70 words with the Year 2 students. A lot of Behaviour Management was required here! After that I was helping a Year 1 student count in 5’s from 50 to 145. That was an uplifting time for both me and the student as I found myself naturally asking questions and giving prompts when needed and the students found herself becoming more confident in what she was doing as well as building confidence! I was amazed at my ability and hers! I told her that I wanted her to go through it with me again after lunch and as I walked into the classroom, she came to me willingly asking if she could go through them! And she did! I was cheering! Had the best night’s sleep that night, despite feeling disconnected from my ‘home’ world/life. Also today I had to draw some characters from Cinderella. I don’t consider myself a great artist but when the students saw my work they were asking for drawing lessons! My homework this weekend (given by the students) is to learn how to draw an airplane, jet, bird with crest, cat, dog and a helicopter!

Thursday – Today was my first day with an actual planned lesson on this prac. From the lessons I did I learnt that it is most important to be flexible and to not stress if things are not going according to my plan. Flexibility means to be working with the students and finding where they are at and to go from there and make a path towards the lesson’s objectives. Therefore, I learnt today that the most important part of planning is the objectives…, which I did! Thankfully! I’m starting to feel like my mentor is very different from my past prac teachers…don’t know if it is the culture of the school or the pedagogy (teaching practice) of teacher. I won’t say anything yet until I see her in action more though. She keeps telling me that this week is very hectic because it is first week back in term 4 and there was the audit. So I hope I see improvement in her teaching practice in the coming weeks. One things for sure I have already found myself analysing how I would be as a teacher if this class was my actual classroom….the conclusion is that I would definitely be more organised and not a Principal as well as a teacher! But I applaud my mentor for all the effort she does put into the school!

Friday – Today I got a sore throat because of the *ahem* behaviour management I had been doing…the students were constantly talking! Ahhh. But it was a good test of my ability to manage behaviour and found the best way to do so is the clap strategy…I clap they repeat. No stress on my voice! That was during a diagnostic spelling test which was new to me but I learnt how to do it so yay! From Wednesday’s drawing time I was finally able to give three students who kept asking for them a drawing lesson on how to draw a prince.

And there ends my first week at prac! I hope you enjoy reading my experiences! 

Deja Vu.....Deja Vu?

On Thursday, I had an experience of Déjà vu. Two weeks ago, I had another experience of it. Both times, I know that the first time I experienced them was through dreams several years ago.

The dream I remember I had that collided with today’s experience was this: I was standing in a room, a classroom. I was standing on one side of the teacher’s desk and a female teacher was sitting on the other side. A little girl came up and the three of us talked about something and then the little girl left and a boy came up and we talked about something else. This may not seem legit but when it all happened today, I remembered the exact conversations I had in the dream too but now I come to writing them down I cannot remember what they were about because I have had such a busy day with so many conversations in it. However, today when all of this happened it became clear to me this was déjà vu from a dream I had years ago!

Now I am going to explain my thoughts/ opinions/ theory on déjà vu. I believe in God and how he has plans for each and every one of us but He will not share these plans with us plainly and simply.  I believe He knows everything that is going to happen ages before it even happens. Therefore, my theory is that God has placed our plans into our dreams and locked them away into our brains somewhere where we cannot access them except when we dream and He chooses. Therefore, when we have a dream that seems almost real that is part of God’s plan for us but we don’t know it yet. Then we forget about them. Then one day the exact same event from our dream happens in our real life and we go “I JUST HAD DÉJÀ VU!” And we name it simply as that…déjà vu. Not even considering that God had a part of our life planned out and had shared it with us in our dreams… a place where things never seem true.