<![CDATA[Eversmashing]]> Freewebs http://eversmashing.webs.com/michiganadventures.htm <![CDATA[Fredrik Meijer Botanical Gardens]]>
























For now, we want to relate the "weird Michigan thing of the day" -- the encouragement of U-turns.  Somehow it seemed that in Wisconsin, they discouraged U-turns as an evil, vile thing that could only result in chaos.  Here they seem to have the opposite perspective.  Not only are they allowed, but they are favored over the traditional "left-hand-turn-at-an-intersection."  As in, if you are on the west side of an intersection but want to go northbound, you must turn right (southbound) and then make a U-turn at the nearest gap in the median.  They even have signs pointing this out.  Very odd indeed.

Rockford review of the day: Arnie's
We went to Arnie's (downtown, near the river) for supper today.  Not only did we enjoy good service, but they also had very delicious meals, and -- best of all -- gourmet filled cupcakes, FREE with any sandwich purchase!  I had the raspberry white chocolate one and it was quite divine.  We got our food quickly, but didn't feel rushed, and we were all quite full by the time we left.  All in all, two thumbs up.
]]> http://eversmashing.webs.com/michiganadventures.htm?blogentryid=4518733 2009-7-13T19:56:00-0100 <![CDATA[Day Two]]>
One of the highlights of our day, though, was going to visit "our" house again.  I brought my camera to take some pictures -- interior pics are HERE, and here's a mini-tour of some of the fabulous plants growing in "our" yard...

Tiger lilies!




Blackberries!  (I also have some white blackberries!)


Other plants in my garden include hostas, bleeding hearts, crabapples, grapes, and lemon balm.  Fantastic!  I'm super-thrilled, and excited to start working in "my" garden soon!
]]> http://eversmashing.webs.com/michiganadventures.htm?blogentryid=4518301 2009-7-11T22:42:00-0100 <![CDATA[Our Michigan Adventures Begin]]> Once again, this blog has changed names and changed purposes.  Now instead of telling about our exploration of a foreign country or our struggles in managing a classroom, we'll be sharing our day-to-day adventures in our new home in Michigan!

Today was our first day living in Michigan!  We use the term "living" loosely, since we're still technically homeless nomads.  We're hoping that situation should resolve itself within the next few days.

The drive through Michigan was fortunately quite uneventful, and the traffic was quite bearable.  Jon and I had perfected the art of caravan driving, keeping in line together for all but two sections of the entire trip.  Having driven through Michigan before, we weren't really surprised by anything or taken aback by anything new.  After driving through Grand Rapids, it seems to be quite like Milwaukee... which is either really comforting or really scary -- we're not sure which yet.

After dropping off Jon's car in "our" new garage, we got to drive together to find our nearest post office, and -- when we weren't able to get a money order there -- we then went through Rockford to find our nearest credit union -- in a Meijers.

Our Meijers is a huge, giant, gargantuan Super Walmart... on steroids.  The entire front of the store is lined with little shops where you can get your nails or hair done, do banking, eat lunch, or even get your daily dose of caffeine (thank you very much, Starbucks!).  I think I counted 20 or 30-some registers.  A bit excessive, if you ask me.  However, we were excited to find that they had some pretty good deals -- Amp energy drinks 10 for $10,. and the 11th is free -- woohooo! (For Jon, not me... Baby doesn't need THAT much caffeine.) ... compared with the "actual retail price" of $1.99.  We had some time to kill, so we meandered through the rest of the store, basically just window-shopping and price-comparing.  It was exhausting, and in my pregnant state I had to use the bathroom twice during our journey around the store.

We stopped at church and saw Jon's "un-office."  It has his books and -- after this afternoon -- now also has some folding tables and chairs.  Exciting!  Furniture is due to arrive in a few weeks.  We did get a super-awesome welcome basket from our church, including all sorts of food goodies, gift cards to a baseball stadium and a local restraunt, and even a cute little Rockford t-shirt for Baby!

One oddity about our new home... while it was overcast in the afternoon, our GPS lost all signal to all of its satellites.  As soon as it cleared up and the sun came out, the little GPS was fine.  Hmmmmm... not cool.

After supervising the movers at "our" house, we had more time to kill, so we decided to check out our local Goodwill stores -- yay thrift stores!  The first one took us a bit by surprise.  Unlike most Goodwill stores, this one actually had more stuff from local department stores -- perhaps things that they overstocked, or items that were slightly irregular -- as opposed to honest-to-goodness "previously owned" stuff.  It threw us for a loop for sure, particularly since we were looking for furniture and home goods stuff, and they were severely lacking in that.

However, after our Goodwill bummer, we decided to try out what I think is destined to be my newest favoritest store -- a thrift store by the name ValueLand.  Not only did they have tons of awesome random stuff of all shapes and sizes and styles (including HUGE carpet pieces), but they also had an entire used book store as part of their store... it was absolutely enormous, and it's probably a good thing I'm no longer teaching in the classroom, since I'd most likely spend ALL of my salary buying new books for the kids to read.  Kids' books were 50 cents for paperbacks and $1 for hardcovers; adults' books were $1 for paperbacks and $3 for hardcovers.  I promised Jon, though, that I would at least wait until I had found places in our new home for all the books I currently had before adding more =)

The third thrift store (another Goodwill) was another bust... it was in downtown Grand Rapids which was NOT fun to drive around and had no parking.  Plus, it seemed like a rather run-down part of the downtown, so we didn't even bother stopping.  Thrift store #4 was yet another Goodwill, in which we found a cute penguin for Baby's room.  Oh, THE most awesome thing about the Goodwill stores in this area, however, is that each of them that we went into included a cafe in the bookstore area!  They had all sorts of coffee drinks for reasonable prices, and even cute little coffeeshop tables and chairs to sit in.  Fabulous!

Anyways, I'm sure we've just hit the service with our "weird observations about our new home," but that was all we got to today.  Tomorrow we're out for more exploration!  Wish us luck!
]]> http://eversmashing.webs.com/michiganadventures.htm?blogentryid=4518091 2009-7-10T20:36:00-0100 <![CDATA[School's Out For Summer!]]>
Our last days of school went well.  Monday I had asked off in order to travel back from Ottawa.  Tuesday we had a field day where we went to a park on the north side and played relay races and outdoor games.  The park was right around a very posh neighborhood, and the kids oogled over all of the houses on our way there.  We told them to use that as motivation to do well in school, go to college, and get a good job :)

Wednesday was a tough day.  I think after the field trip the kids expected a bit of reprieve from regular school stuff, but I -- being the mean, mean, teacher I am -- got us right back into our regular schedule of learning.  Thursday morning was the same, and then in the afternoon I put them to work in groups working on some projects related to the book we just finished.  Finally, Friday rolled around.  After breakfast and a bit of work, we had chapel and our award ceremony, and then spent the rest of our half-day watching a video that was related to the book we just finished reading.

The award ceremony was a great experience for me this time around.  I had more kids make the honor roll than I had in the previous three quarters, and there were a handful in there that had made the honor roll when previously they were getting Ds and Fs.  These two in particular I had really worked with that last quarter to keep them motivated and encouraged, because I knew they could do better than what they were accomplishing at the time.  I was very proud of them as they went up to get their certificates.

Being my last days at HOPE, it was quite bittersweet for me... it had been an intense year, with the full range of emotions -- from frustration and desperation to excitement and pride over my students' accomplishments.  It definitely will be something I will never forget!
]]> http://eversmashing.webs.com/michiganadventures.htm?blogentryid=4510735 2009-6-10T10:29:00-0100 <![CDATA[Random quote of the day]]> Student:
Mrs K, do you ever get the feeling like they're making strawberry shortcake in the shape of a heart for Valentine's day?

Mrs K:
(nothing... I was pretty confounded)
]]> http://eversmashing.webs.com/michiganadventures.htm?blogentryid=4507397 2009-5-28T15:12:00-0100 <![CDATA[Desk Clean-Out (The Sequel)]]>
- a fake fingernail
- a library book that a student 'lost' about a week ago
- a mayonnaise packet and a mustard packet (two different desks)
- a week's worth of missing homework which the student hadn't even started to work on
- three different students' progress reports which were supposed to go home to parents two weeks ago
- teddy grahams (yup, just the crackers, no packaging)
- $1000 in Monopoly money (why?  I have no idea)
]]> http://eversmashing.webs.com/michiganadventures.htm?blogentryid=4506292 2009-5-25T13:15:00-0100 <![CDATA[Last Month of School]]>
- I'm really generally quite happy with how my class is right now.  After so much stress and hard work, I feel like I'm finally benefiting from the fruits of my labor.  Major accomplishments over the year...
  • My students are now able to work independently!  At the beginning of the year, they were unable to work on their own for extended amounts of time (like, over 15 minutes) without getting antsy, losing focus, and pestering one another.  Compare that to yesterday's class, where they took a 30-minute math test, a 30-minute reading test, and a 20-minute religion test all on the same day without losing focus or motivation.
  • My students now know what to do when they've finished their work.  At the beginning of the year, it was a constant question of what to do next, and I had to talk each student through what to do when their work was done.  Now, the kids who finish their work early know exactly what to do and without any prompting can pull out their other classwork, their homework, or a book to read.
  • My students are flexible!  At the beginning of the year, they would get super-stressed if the regular routine was thrown off in any way.  This past week, they had a fire drill, a tornado drill, and a major change in our breakfast routine without batting an eye.  We also had a major change in our math lessons (since we finished up our Saxon math textbook) and they've been really great about moving smoothly into that new routine.
  • My students can get out to the bus without giving me a headache!  This was a severe point of contention for the first three quarters of the school year.  It seemed that as soon as the last class of the day finished up, they would go nuts and lose all interest in following directions, or getting quietly into line.  Through a series of punishments and rewards, they are now "trained" to quietly get their stuff, pack up, and get into line without any sort of shouting, pushing, or horseplay.  Whew!
  • My students enjoy independent reading!  My thousand-book classroom library has been a great resource for the kids, and throughout the year, most of them have become very motivated to read on their own time.  My entire library wall is completely full of certificates for 100% reading comprehension tests for books that the kids have read this quarter, and even with four weeks left of school, about 1/3 of my kids have already met their reading goals for the quarter.  I'm very proud of them :)
]]> http://eversmashing.webs.com/michiganadventures.htm?blogentryid=4501351 2009-5-09T10:51:00-0100