Classroom Pencil Sharpener

This post is for all of my teacher friends....

I know you can relate to my hate for pencils and pencil sharpening in my classroom.  I feel like whenever I turn around I've got a student that needs their pencil sharpened.  That's not even the worst of it - it usually takes them sooooooo long to sharpen their pencil because our $100 classroom pencil sharpener stopped working weeks ago and now it just eats pencils.  Nice.

Well, one day I was perusing Pinterest when I saw this:

This pencil sharpener from Classroom Friendly Supplies claimed to sharpen any pencil AND claimed to do it quietly.  Say whaaaaaa????  Surely this was an evil trap that someone had created to get all teachers to fall into?  Surely this wasn't real - I've never heard of a pencil sharpener that actually sharpened all pencils quietly!  I've heard of pencil sharpeners that sharpened expensive pencils (hello Ticonderoga Pencils! alas, I love you) but did it as loudly as possible while I shouted at the top of my lungs to continue teaching, but never one that was quiet AND sharpened ALL (what about Dixon???) pencils.  Be. Still. My. Heart.  

I did it - I got one and was so excited when it came!  One problem was that I got it at the end of the 2011-2012 school year and so it didn't debut in my classroom until this past year.  I waited all year to share this post with you because I wanted to see how it held up after being tortured used by my students for an entire school year.  After a year of using it, I've gotta tell you that I absolutely love it.  Now, it did take some abuse from my students....I won't share with you the look on my face when it dropped to the floor for the first time....

photo source

(whooooops - maybe I will...this was me...except I'm not a man)

....but despite that abuse, it held up quite nicely!  I am telling you what - this pencil sharpener sharpened like a dream!  Better yet, it sharpened EVERY pencil - from the Ticonderogas to the dollar store pencils, this sharpener works like I never knew I cared a pencil sharpener to work!  Even better than that (I know!? Can it get better?!) is that price tag - at only $24.99 a sharpener, how could you not want to have at least one for your classroom?!?!!!  I'm now contemplating purchasing the teacher special of 3 sharpeners, only I know that Stephen might struggle with me paying even more money for my classroom.  Below is the video from the website showing you how to sharpen a pencil using one of their sharpeners.  This video is incredibly accurate, right on down to the noise level you hear while the pencil is being sharpened.  While you watch it, I'm going to go figure out how to finagle a way to buy 3 new sharpeners for my classroom this year!

Happy Sharpening!!!

Holy Barracuda, Batman!

It's already JULY?!?!  When did this happen???  What happened to May?  Heck, what happened to April?  Time is flying around here and I can't seem to stop it or at least slow it down.  The good thing about time flying is that I officially have only 11 more nights of grad school and then I'm done.  Finished.  Done-zo.  I can't even begin to tell you what a blessing it has been for me to go to school full-time and not have anything else major requiring my attention.  I also can't even begin to tell you how much I miss being in the classroom and sharing my life with 25+ kids.  If there's one thing that God has made clear to me over the past 2 years, it's that He made me to work with kids.  I cannot wait to {hopefully} be in the classroom again this upcoming school year - prayers for that are appreciated!!!

Something else I can't wait to have back are my nights.  Night class is such a bummer, especially when you're in it for 4 nights a week, 4 hours each class.  I know, I know, suck it up!  This girl needs to just sulk and whine for a second.  I can honestly tell you that this past year and a half of grad school has been totally worth it.  I have learned so many things about how to work with struggling readers, how to set up reading and writing in my classroom, even just how to be a better teacher all around.  I'm just itching to start reading groups and work on word sorts.  Exciting, isn't it??? ;)

Wanna know something absurd?  I'm contemplating continuing some grad classes to get another certification.  Yup, it's official: I'm a glutton for punishment!

Anyhoo...there's a lot of excitement and craziness coming up in the lives of this crazy lady and her loving husband.  I'll fill 'ya in on all of it sometime next week when I have the time and stamina to keep up with the craziness.  Until then, if I don't talk to you, have a great 4th of July.  We're laying low this weekend; recovering from the past four weekends of fun-filled hectic-ness.  Ride a boat, shoot off some fireworks, grill out and layout this weekend for us!  

Can I Get a "Wha-Wha?!"

I finished my LAST full semester of grad school tonight....the only thing standing in between me and graduation is 2 summer classes.  YIPEE!!!  You'll be seeing a lot more of me around these parts!

What a Great Day!

I finished my semester tonight!

Now only 4 classes and 1 independent study stand in my way of having an M.Ed at the end of my name!

I can't wait to enjoy some free nights and NO CLASSES for a few weeks before I must go again!

On another note, my friend Amy (I hope!) jokingly told me that she wanted to make these this weekend...maybe we'll make them to go on a small tree in the bathroom ;)!

My Week

I realized the other day that I don't spend enough time talking about what's going on in my life here at what is supposed to be a blog about my move to a new city...oops!  I've gotten into new hobbies and crafts of sorts and have neglected any of you who may be interested in what's up.  So, for those (few) of you who care what's up, here's a bit about my week :).

I had a good start to my week on Monday because I had just finished having a wonderful time with my dear friends, Anne, Derek and Sarah who came in (except Sarah who lives in Naperville) from Lexington to spend the weekend with me and Stephen.  The only thing that stunk about Monday was that I had been used to having a full apartment of 5 of us and it dropped to only me.  Sarah left on Sunday morning before church, Anne and Derek split town after lunch on Sunday and then Stephen left me early before anyone should even be awake on Monday morning to head to work and then to hop a plane to New York City for the week.  That's right - I've been alone for a week...ugh. Thoughts on that will come later.

I had classes all week and I've had this new "pressure" of my new job as a research assistant on campus.  I put the words "pressure" in quotations because I feel like I'm the one that's putting pressure on myself.  The people I work with are incredibly lenient on when I come in and my hours but when I'm not there, I'm constantly thinking, "should I be there?"  "do they think I'm slacking?"...that's me - overanalyzing e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g.  I really need to get over that!
I feel incredibly blessed to have this research assistantship for so many reasons!  The first reason is because it's such a great opportunity for me professionally.  My role is to act as a "liaison" to the elementary schools we work with and our project.  Our project is one that helps schools go through a reform to create more intentional teaching, which in return will create stronger students.  I feel like I'm constantly learning how I can be a better, more intentional teacher when the time comes.
The second reason that I feel blessed to have this assistantship is because it pays for my tuition.  You just read that correctly - I'm currently going to grad school for free.  On top of that, they pay me a stipend on top of it.  Unreal.
The third and most important reason that I feel blessed that I have this assistantship is to share my life with the gals who work in the office with me.  It's an interesting work situation - interesting because it's so different from what I've experienced in the Bible belt of KY.  I'm praying that God will show me how to love the people I work with and how to share my life with them in a way that glorifies Him and shows   how much He loves them.  Prayers are appreciated.

School is sucking my life out of my life.  It's okay, it's only because the end of the semester is creeping closer and things are drawing to a close, which means I have a lot to do before the beginning of December...eeek!  Did I mention that I'm enrolled in an Independent Study and my wonderful teacher who is working with me is going to allow me to turn my paper in after winter break?  You know what that means, don't you?  Yup!  I'm going to have to be working on that dang paper over the break...ay yi yi!  That's okay - don't feel too bad for me because after this semester has concluded I will only have 1 more semester and 1 measly class to take over the summer and then I am DONE - DONE-ZO - FINISHED!  ahhhhhhhh!

I started BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) officially for the first time this year and we've been studying the book of Isaiah.  Let's talk about how intense and difficult the book of Isaiah is, then let's talk about how incredibly happy I am that I'm reading it and diving into it through BSF because I'm getting SO MUCH information that I don't think I could have ever gotten if I had tried to read this book alone.  Talk about conviction and stretching.  I feel so loved by our Father who has every reason to wash His hands of me but doesn't because He loves me.  I feel blessed by BSF, my small discussion group in BSF and my discussion group leader.  It was hard for me to not compare her to my beloved Frankie (my old Bible Study Leader) and I finally snapped out of it.  Frankie will always be near and dear to my heart and she'll ALWAYS be my sister and mentor in Christ but I've moved into a new phase of life and God will bring new people into my life to show me His love and how to better know Him.

I feel like I just left you on overload...big time overload.  I'll stop for now.  I'll leave you with a video from a song I heard on the radio while I was driving to my friend Amanda's apartment on Friday (Amanda also shows me Christ's love, especially when she calls me throughout the week and invites me over because she knows I'm all alone this week while Stephen's gone).  I love this song because it makes me think about all the truths of the Bible, specifically from what I've been reading in Isaiah.  Despite who we are and what we deserve, God loves us.  More than I can possibly try to explain here.  I pray that you feel His love for you in this moment and throughout your day - it's unlike anything else you could possibly experience.

Good News and Busy Times

Hello Blogger friends!  I hope you guys are having a great hump day!  When I was teaching, this was always my favorite day of the week because the kids were used to coming to school but they weren't burnt out on it yet :).  Maybe you're feeling the same way?  Maybe you've gotten the Mondays out of your system but you're not quite counting down the minutes to clock-out on Friday?  No?  Okay, well, never mind.

I have some GREAT news!  On Sunday night I found out that I have gotten a Research Assistantship on campus!  This is so awesome because I will be receiving remarkable training and participating in such an awesome project that will really benefit me as a teacher.  I will be working with Project Read which works one on one with Chicago Public Schools to help transform the culture and climate of the school in order to reform their literacy curriculum so that ALL students are reached and are able to reach their highest potential as readers.  I'm super excited but also a little anxious...my free time has definitely become just that: MINE and FREE.  It's going to be somewhat hard to get used to actually having a schedule and it's about to get really busy around here!  Prayers would be appreciated!  If you could pray for me during this transition and during this time when I go from having a really free schedule to having one that's not so much free.  I really appreciate it!

Because of this new recent job, I probably will be a little less present in blogland.  That doesn't mean I'm throwing in the towel, it just means that I probably won't be blogging on a daily basis, but instead just a few times a week.  I'm super excited to jump right in and be a part of this amazing project!

On another note, I've been put in charge of the kids' craft room at our church's fall festival.  I would love for some ideas.  Do you have any cool kids' fall crafts that you can send me a link to or describe for me? I've come up with a lot of stuff but I would love to hear all the great ideas that you have out there for me!

Happy Hump Day!

Yikes!

Hi Blogger Friends!
Grad school currently owns me...I'm crazily trying to figure out how I can change this.  Pray for my sanity :).
Hopefully I'll be back after this crazy week is over!
Thanks for understanding!

Light at the End of the Tunnel

This is my last week of summer classes.  If I could add music to this post, I would appropriately add Handel's Hallelujah here.  Unfortunately, I have no time to try and figure out how to do that because I have homework I must complete.  I know you're bummed...sorry! :).

Expect a more present me in the days following, as I'll have a MONTH off of school :).  See you on the flip side!

God is Good!

It is so easy for me to forget this!  I guess it's not necessarily that I "forget", but I guess I just don't consciously think about it or remember how great our God is on a regular basis.  Unfortunately, it takes great "ah-ha!" moments for me to fully remember and embrace this thought and feel a warmth of a reminder in how powerful it is.  I had one of these moments the other day.  It's a small "ah-ha" moment, but it is a reminder, all the same.

It all started on May 8, 2008.  That is the day that Stephen and I got engaged.  We were engaged for an awfully loooong time (we got married on Oct. 10, 2009) and it wasn't because we couldn't decide on a date or that we loved being engaged.  There were lots of different factors that kinda forced us into prolonging our engagement, one of these was the knowledge that when we got married we knew that one of us would be moving.  I had an eery feeling that the person who would be moving would be me.  The prayer between the two of us for those long months of our engagement was that God would lead our paths and make it evident to us where He wanted us to live.  

I have to admit, I never had a STRONG, loud gong-like feeling that I must move to Chicago.  I never said, "I'm moving to Chicago and I know that I'm supposed to move to Chicago."  Stephen, on the other hand, had a different experience, and I think that I felt peace about the decision (sadness and sorrow aside).  Now, since we've moved, I've had many moments where I think God is showing me that we did follow where He wanted us to go (again, sadness and sorrow aside).  One of those, I'm going to share with you (it's small).

In Kentucky, in order to keep your teaching certification, you are required to obtain your Masters degree.  You have 5 years from graduating from undergraduate to start and 10 years from graduation to finish.  My clock was ticking and regardless of where I lived, I was going to have to start a grad school program.  Here's the difference between me and some other teachers in KY: if I'm going to pay to get my masters, I WANT and DESIRE to learn and grow and become a better teacher.  This wasn't something that I was going to rush through and get over with because I had to.  I WANTED to go through a program that would strengthen me as a teacher in my weakest subject to teach: READING.  

So where was I going to go to school?  Well that depended on where I lived.  When I knew I was moving to Chicago, I did what any normal person would do: I looked up all the different universities and colleges in the Chicagoland area and checked out their tuition.  As you would expect, a public university was the cheapest out of the group.  That's where UIC (University of Illinois, Chicago) came into play.  Now, don't get me wrong, they had something else going for them, they offered a program that sounded really appealing to me; they offered a certification program to become a Reading Specialist.  This wasn't a program where I would get a reading and writing endorsement (like a lot of the grad programs in KY), No, through their program, I would become a certified Reading Specialist (what that means is for another blog).  So, I applied.  

I got accepted.  I attended (and completed...YAY!!!) my first semester there as of yesterday.  Here's the part where my "ah-ha" came in.  When I would go to class, I started to get glimpses of how awesome this University was for my particular needs, but it was solidified when I had a conversation with a girl from class one night.  This girl asked me why I had decided on UIC (she is a 7th year teacher who knows her stuff).  I was simple and honest in my explanation: I had to go to grad school and UIC was cheapest and matched what I wanted.  Her response, "You couldn't have picked a better school to obtain your Reading Specialist certification; there are so many amazing professors here that are doing amazing things."  And she's right.  There are professors after professors that teach at UIC that have written reading curriculum and books that schools across the country use....THESE ARE MY PROFESSORS!

God knew what He was doing.  God knew what I was doing.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Jeremiah 29:11

  

 

From Super Busy to a Slug-a-dug-dug

This is the new me...ugh!

Before I left Lexington, I was keeping myself super busy.  I know that busyness can be unhealthy and distracting and I'm sure that at times it was, but at the same time, I loved everything that was filling my time.  I rarely watched television and I was rarely at home for long, extended periods of time that didn't involve sleep.
...and then I moved...
at first, I was living in Louisville with my parents.  Of course there wasn't a lot to do because I wasn't working (I was only going to be in Louisville for 2 short months, too short to try and get a job; although I did try to sub, that's another story).  I was preparing for a wedding but honestly, at that point in the game, a lot of attention didn't need to be given to it (not until 2 weeks beforehand, anyhow).  So that's Louisville - long days at home while my parents were at work spending the day with my precious pup, Rosie.  Here is where the slug within me started to escape.
...and then I moved...
Chicago is now "home".  Before I started grad-school, there were only 2 things on my daily agenda: writing thank you notes and getting the apartment cleaned and in order.  Because the latter didn't really have a deadline assigned to it, I slugged my way through it.  Now don't get me wrong, I did complete everything, I just did it at a much sloooooower pace than old Kari would've done.
Then, starting in January I began grad-school.  Let me tell you a little bit about grad-school (for those of you who have gone or are in, you'll be able to relate) - they act as if you need to read everything that was ever written by any man at any time during the history of the world.  I spend so much time reading things (and half the things I read, I don't fully understand) and most of the time I read it so sloooowly because I'm slow now (in case you missed that earlier).
But here's the thing that bothers me:  I can do nothing but read all day long and I'm NOT okay with that. I get so much sleep and I'm still sleepy - WHY?!  Because I'm exerting little amounts of physical activity during the day - in fact I'm really not doing much of anything.  I NEED TO GET A GRIP ON MY LIFE!  I need to DO things.
So today, I'm meeting a woman at 2pm at the Starbucks down the street from my apartment.  I met this woman through Janet (her husband, Joel married Stephen and I) and she is looking for a new nanny for her three kids.  Is this something that I'm definitely going to do?  I'm not sure - I'm not sure that she'll want to work around my crazy class schedule (I go to class at night so 5-8, during the summer my classes will start at 4:30) but it is something that I think I need to do.  I need to have a reason to move around during the day :).
My prayer request is that IF this ends up working out, I pray that the sluggish me can handle reading everything UNDER the sun and being a quality nanny for three precious little kids.  I pray that a little bit of the old me can be revived and the slug in me will LEAVE!
I'll keep you posted my blogging friends - even if this nanny job doesn't pan out, I need to get out and about sometimes!

Just when I was getting used to this...change comes again!

You guessed it...I'm pregnant!

Ah-hahahahaha just kidding!  I really shouldn't joke like that, as I could actually get pregnant and then I wouldn't be laughing!  No, really the news that I want to share with you is that yesterday I received my acceptance letter from UIC for their M.Ed. program!

I will be starting my grad-school classes on January 11th!  While this news is so exciting, it's also kinda nerve racking!  I'm going to be a student again....I don't know what I think about that!  I loved NOT having to take tests or write papers once I graduated, and now I'm asking to be tortured again, and this time it will probably be even more painful as it's graduate school - they ain't messin'!

Anyhoo, some logistics on my program: I am going to be attending the Instructional Leadership Literacy, Language and Culture program in their college of Education.  In this program, I will earn my certification to be a Reading Specialist.  A Reading Specialist works with kids who cannot read and/or are learning to read and their job is to decipher where the problems lie and how to hurdle past them.  This degree would enable me to be a better reading teacher AND if at any point in time I do not want to be a "regular" classroom teacher, I can leave the general classroom and work solely as a Reading Specialist for a school building.  I believe that I can obtain my masters in about 3 semesters, so my plan would be to attend full time for the spring, summer and fall semesters and try to knock it all out in a time efficient manner.  Prayer is welcomed...I could use it as I get ready to embark on a whole new adventure within my new adventure :).