Birthday!

So, a little bit late, but I'm finally gonna post about my birthday. Right before my birthday all the teachers here flew out to Valencia for a teachers conference. We left Thursday evening and got to our hotel Thursday night. We had to be at the conference early the next day. The conference was good, but I didn't feel it was as good as the one I had went to in Puerto La Cruz this past fall. I went to one workshop on standards based report cards and another on professional learning communities. They gave me some key vocabulary that might be good in future interviews, but I think there were too much to these topics for me to really get much out of them in an hour long session. After the professional part of the day there was a big party. Waiters carried trays of beer and wine and there were raffles, unfortunately we had to make a plane and didn't get to stay for that fun part... We were back in Anaco by 9pm Friday night.

On Saturday a bunch of us (Me, Dereek, Shannon, Jay, Morley, and two of Dereek's friends from work, David and Camilo) decided to go to the islands for my birthday. We rented a small wooden boat to take us out to "la piscina" (a really nice swimming area) then around to the beaches so we could choose which one we liked best. (All for the grand cost of the equivalent of $3 a person). We decided on staying at Punta La Cruz. It was the least crowded and had a bar on the beach. All day we just kind of hung out, ate food, had drinks, and swam. I know... my life is really hard sometimes. We didn't actually "do" much so here are pictures from the day.

Battered Venezuelan flag on our boat

Jay trying to bother Morley

Getting back onto the boat is difficult. Especially when you try to do it that way.

Pretty La Piscina

The ladies. Relaxin' on the boat.

The boys being silly

Work friends!

Punta La Cruz

We were running out of beer so naturally we had competitions for the last few.

First it was a planking contest

Then a pushup contest

Then a sit-up contest

I'm sure everyone around us was super thrilled we were there. lol

Having fun on the boat ride back to shore

Shannon and Jay

Dereek and I

On Sunday (my actual birthday) I had a bunch of grad school homework to do so Dereek was a nice boyfriend and cleaned the house, did laundry, cooked, etc so that I could relax and do my school work and play with puppies. Azabache had puppies and they live right outside by house. Here's a cute video of one of them falling:

So yeah, overall it was a good birthday weekend. School has been pretty good this week, too. Maybe my next post will be of a whole bunch of classroom pictures.

Two Weeks into January

Oops, sorry I'm so bad at updating. I feel like I've been fairly busy lately trying to get lots done. I'm trying really hard to start exercising again every day and on top of teaching, graduate school, starting up a TPT store (which I've made almost $70 total so far. yay!) and just the general fun parts of life I've ended up being really busy. It's okay though, I think I'm happier when I'm busy, so this is good.

Obviously I made it back in one piece, despite almost missing my flight. Because of the winter storm my flight had left JFK significantly later than it was supposed to and, long story short, I ended up running barefoot through the Miami airport and JUST made check in. I was the only one there and was told it closed at 1pm. I got there at 1pm. It was a slight miracle, but all worked out okay.

Not last weekend, but the weekend before I went to the beach with Dereek, his brother Randy, Morley and some of their friends. It was definitely a good time. Pretty crowded though so we didn't get out to any islands. We just hung around one of the local beaches instead. I stole some of Morley's pictures to show you.

This is the beach we were at all day.

Sometimes Dereek and I are cute...

...but more often we look something like this.

Super stylish

Part of the group. Morley, me, Dereek, and Jeysa

The whole group

Being weird

Randy and I in the water

I wish I had time for the beach more often, but I've also been at school the past two weeks... The kids have been pretty good, especially since I introduced some new things to them. We've started using interactive notebooks for homework and a little bit in class. They're working out pretty well. The kids are still getting used to how they work though. We've also started lots of new units. We're doing measurement in math, learning about famous artists in art, community helpers in SS, and the scientific method in science. And of course language arts is filled with learning to read and write activities. 

I've also gotten a new student, Raul. He is able to read really well, but pronounces everything as he would in Spanish and I'm fairly certain he does not understand what he reads. He seems to understand me for the most part, but will not speak any English other than "bathroom." I like having another student though. 8 is a much better number then 7. It makes making groups much easier. Of course, I have some cute school pictures to show you all. 

Kids learning to paint like artists would.

Oh yeah... Azabache had puppies again. Really cute and good bribery for the kids.

haha. I agree Marcel, I feel like this about work, too sometimes.

And sometimes I feel like this.. My kids are funny.

Learning about Michealangelo and trying to draw above just like he did on a ceiling.

Getting ready to start our snow science.

Kids loving snow.

So much fun to play with.

It doesn't mold together like snow, but it was cold and wet.

Snow science.

Very focused on painting.

A little Georges Seurat inspired dot painting

They traced themsel