Happy Camper

I talk about my job a lot. Kind of the point of this whole thing. Also, I really love it. Also, it's a big part of my life. I have been blessed to be called to be a teacher in life and I thank God that He has placed me in this vocation. I try to pinpoint exactly why I love this job so much and I came up with this--a list of 5 reasons. This is the most pinpointed I could get! 

1. I get to be myself
            I take teaching very seriously and I work hard to provide these kids with an excellent education. Not only are their parents paying for it, it is my responsibility as a teacher. That being said, I am also blessed to be at a job where I can completely be myself. Myself is a crazy, weird, quirky, loud, and jazzed about life person. My kids tell me "You're weird Miss Ongna, in a good way!" I'll take it :)

2. Books, books, and more books!
            I LOVE reading and it is so exciting for me to help kids further learn to read. I've said before and I've said to many people that one of my favorite parts of this job is helping kids discover books and get excited about reading! I think I scared a 4th grader this past week when I spotted him reading a book I've been wanting to read for a while and I yelled out of excitement! The best part? By lunch he had finished it and handed it to me to borrow. Sweetest kid ever! And no, I am not ashamed to say I am borrowing a book from a 4th grader.
 (The book is "Wonderstruck" by Brian Selznick, if you were wondering)

3. Speaking 8 year old fluently.
              Kids say the most fantastic things. I get to hear a lot of it and participate! It is exciting to be able to have a conversation with a student about something they are excited about or passionate about. It is also equally exciting when I share something about me or going on in my life and they remember and ask me about it! Kids rock. Just the other day, we had a moment of miscommunication between one of my students and myself, which resulted in the whole class laughing till there were tears in our eyes! Awesome, I tell you!

4. Teachers are awesome.
               Teachers are this special group of people, so I feel. When you get a bunch of us together, craziness ensues! I love my coworkers. They are the most fantastic group of people. We can share prayer requests, listen, give advice, and support each other. We can also be laughing at the top of our lungs and giving each other hard times for accents, footballs teams, and lessons gone wrong. I could not have survived my first year without the amazing group of teachers at my school.

5. Teaching is so fun/rewarding/awesome!
                As if you couldn't already tell from all my posts on this blog! It is so rewarding to go to work everyday and help a kid read, solve a math problem, study parts of a plant, or write a paragraph. I realize that I don't remember a whole lot from 2nd grade myself and most likely these kids won't either. But if I can help prepare them for the next step, I am a happy camper! I may not know where I'll be in a year, five years, or ten, but I pray that I will still be teaching.

Silent reading time. Loved by teacher and students alike!

The Tough Stuff

Sometimes life isn't all peachy. Sometimes I struggle with stuff. Sometimes it is really hard for me to stay positive. Sometimes things just don't work out the way you want.

I try to push those thoughts away and put on a smiling face, but I figured it was time for me to be honest. I would be lying if I wrote about life constantly being a bed of roses sans thorns, even though my life is pretty fantastic. I have this need to never show anyone my struggles, though I am positive I am not the only one.

Well, tonight I finally broke and had a mini meltdown.

As I allowed myself wallow a bit in my ickiness that was the meltdown, I realized that I am not turning to God like I should. In fact, I've been getting so caught up in my busy life that I haven't been giving Him much time at all.

Sometimes a mini meltdown is just what you need to realize just how much you really need God, not just during those hard times, but daily and consistently. If I can show anyone my struggles, it is Him! God has been showing that to me recently.  It just, sadly, took me this long to really open my eyes to it and really confront it head on. It isn't fun or easy to realize and admit you've been slacking in a relationship, let alone the relationship with your Lord and Savior. I can cast my cares on the Lord and He will take them upon Himself, keeping me in His care the entire time. How amazing of a deal is that?!

How wonderful it is to have a loving and patient God, who continues to stay by our side, love, and forgive us, even if it takes us a bit longer to realize it. Tonight, I am thanking God for His love and sacrifice for me, even though I most definitely do not deserve it.

"Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken."                                  
                    Psalm 55:22

A Lesson Worth Repeating!

Lesson planning can be a tough thing. Sometimes you work so hard at trying to figure out the perfect way to explain a concept to students. As a teacher, you want to make it 1.) easy to understand and 2.) exciting, interesting, and/or fun in someway. I will usually have these random moments where a bunch of ideas will all of a sudden flood my brain and I have to work through the logistics to make them into legitimate lessons!

I had one of these moments the other week when planning for a science lesson. I was planning for science and the first unit of science is all about plants and their various parts. I love doing hands on projects to get kids involved and excited about what they're learning. I had an idea that would really get my kids involved in exploring the fruit and seeds of a plant--dissecting fruit!

After talking with our upper school science teacher, I worked it out to have my students come down to her room to use her supplies. She also has tile floor! A must when having kids chop up fruit.

The kids were outfitted in lab coats, given some plastic knives, and, after talking about various rules, were given fruit and allowed to explore their fruit and seeds! I brought kiwi, nectarines, and a pumpkin. We cut each piece of fruit open and explored the location and size of the seed. We also talked about if we could eat the seed or not.

It was such a fun activity and the kids LOVED it! The pumpkin was most definitely the favorite. Don't worry...I cut that one up myself! It was so much fun to watch their excitement and see them explore. It was also rewarding to see a lesson that I really liked when I plan work out. As a teacher, you have lessons that can end up flopping. Fortunately this was not one of them! This one will definitely be repeated.

Chopping up fruit is so much fun!

Found it! The seed from the nectarine!

The class favorite...I wonder why? :)

Dutch Dancing, Pumpkins, and Soup.

The first few days of school have come and gone! They were amazing. My new batch of second graders are sweet, incredibly well behaved children. The first day of school I had them sit down when the bell had rang and they simply did it, sat silently, and smiled at me.

My jaw nearly dropped.

I was waiting for the excited chaos, telling them repeatedly to raise their hand, or having to settle them all down a few times.

Nope. Nothing. They were just sitting there, ready for me to fill their brains with new, second grade information!

So I have definitely took and will be taking advantage of that throughout this year. They are so eager to learn and I am so excited to, like I said before, amp up my lessons and improve my teaching! This week I have a few really cool lessons coming up. They involve dutch dancing, pumpkins, and soup. I am so pumped! I'll let you know how they go...

In other news, I had an awesome weekend with lots of time with friends. Julia and I talked a lot this past weekend about how crazy it is to look back at what we were doing a year ago this weekend. Hint: it involved a lot of "How are we going to do this?!" and "Over which hill are you talking about??" It is amazing how much this place has turned into home!

Friday night, Ryan, Julia, and I went out, seeing as we hadn't with just the three of us in quite some time. We literally laughed until we cried about 5 different times. We have become incredibly close this past year. If you knew the 3 of us in grade school and high school, you would have never guessed this possible. I love how God brought the 3 of us here together. Now we are all starting out our 2nd years and doing pretty darn well if I do say so myself!

So excited to see what God does in this next school year!