Apple City

This past week was pretty good.

Overall I think that the kids are getting to feel more comfortable with me. When I walk about the halls they all say hi like I'm a regular teacher in their lives. It is really nice to get to know them. Since this school has an entire population of half what my graduating class was I get to see and know a large percentage.
    This week I wrote a small article on the Ag Olympics an submitted it to the Gettysburg Times with a photo. It was a nice way for the kids to show the public what they were doing and that the FFA chapter worked hard to create an event for their peers.
  I started doing some observations of other teachers in my prep periods. I visited two science teachers presenting labs, two learning support classes of different types, an English teacher, and a band class. This was AMAZING. The greatest thing to see was the band. It was 8th grade. This was my first experience with that age group. Can you say eye opener!!! They were phenomenal too , I loved it. I learned a lot of great tips from observing .
  I had another observation this week. I still have a long way to go but it was better. I think any improvement  is a step in the right direction. Overall I believe that this experience is has taught me a lot and will continue to help me grow.
  This was the first full week of school with no delays or cancelations since I got here. It was tiring but went well.
  I think that the massiveness of this experience really hit me this week. You are taught to teach, and you are told that it will be a certain way when you go through student teaching.  Im not sure anything can truly prepare you for the mental toll that this can take. When you go from college to a setting where you don't see people your age and you do 4-5 hours of work a night. There is this culture shock that takes you by storm. To be an ag teacher is to be an ag teacher. There is a life style change. I've never wanted to be anything else from the first day I had an ag class in 9th grade. I think that the desire to be what you want to be can make you feel even worse when things don't go your way. This week has really been about that mental and emotional shift that happens in order to become what I desire most to be. Welcome to the learning process......

National FFA Week

What a crazy week again.

     This week was jam packed once again. so many events and new things going on. My first person triumph for this week was really becoming one of the group. I was able to create some new relationships by working with two floral independent study students. They got really comfortable with me which made teaching them a breeze because they wanted to hear what I knew and about my experiences actually doing floral for a job. Today there was a fabulous moment where a student came into the classroom to specifically show me a project he had finished that he had been working on all year. He was so excited and I felt really privileged to share that moment of success with him. His bookcase was beautiful by the way.
  This week I started working pretty heavily and on my own with the independent study kids. I was able to teach them some basic floral design skills, and even some theory and thought process behind the business. Words cannot even describe how happy this made me feel this week, I got to teach in a relaxed setting my favorite thing in ag. One of my girls went to winter skills to compete at Bermudian. She came in second for the floral design component of the floral competition. Oh heck yes. She made it on the front page of the Gettysburg times.
  I helped out winter skills a ton. I actually was in charge of the floral arrangement component. Mr. Tindall came in and out to help me and it was the greatest experience. I graded all of the arrangements.  When it was over the students were allowed to come back in obtain their arrangements. One of the students wanted to know why I graded how I had graded their arrangement, so I explained everything to them and gave them suggestions to fix it. When I looked up I had maybe 20- 25 kids in a line that all wanted suggestions and to speak with me. It was crazy incredible fast floral craziness. I spoke with each one and evaluated their arrangements with them. I think the thing that really topped it off was the fact that my student competed against students that my ag teachers had trained. What a wonderful thing.
   This week I also had my first observation. I was able to speak with my supervisor and Dr.Ewing. That was priceless .I got so many really great suggestions. I felt like Penn State was really there for me. I think that all students should have the opportunity to meet with two supervisors if they wish. The amount of help you can get from meeting with your cooperating teacher and two other professionals at once is beyond helpful. It was also really cool to have them see a little known ag dept. My objective is to work on planning, and writing more complete impactful lessons. I learned a lot and am ready to work hard to get up to level that I need to be. It really hit me hard after that visit.
     I helped out with Agriculture Olympics today. The first thing I noticed was how hard that my students had worked in order to pull this off. I was so proud of them. When I walked into the gym the first thing I saw was that their entire school population was half of my graduating class. What a culture shock. But we had a ton of fun. The girls asked me to help them out with their posters, which was an honor. Their was an egg toss in which the girl missed and the egg splattered all over Mrs.Miller. oops!
Great week!!
  I was able to use the supplies I got from the creativity lab Laura. I used the foam to represent a landscape and the students used pins to signify elements in a landscape and the student created these crazy amazing ideas. They created keys with the designs as well so that I new what each pin stood for. I made one with them at the same time. It was a group activity. Theirs was way better than mine!
Happy National FFA week! Here's a through back from my career, which is why I am here

Pesticide suits are great for pie eating!

Busy Busy Busy

WOW,
Could this week be any more busy and strapped for time?
I picked up two more classes this week. In addition to going to record book contest, and ACES.

ACES- It felt so weird to be going to this conference with students. I went there with my chapter just 5 years ago. It is crazy how time flies. I chaperoned the dance. I felt out of place because here I was watching kids and enforcing rules that I myself used to bend . I was also a part of  "courtesy corps" . I walked the halls at nigh looking for rule breakers. I was assigned to work with another teacher. We must have knocked on 20+ doors. it was crazy. I was in that teacher position handling real problems. I attended the seminars for the teachers as well. They were very informative and entertaining.  When Mr. Brammer was speaking he kept trying to get teachers to engage and no body would say anything. So I posed a question to him and engaged a conversation. I was kind of proud of myself because none of the teachers in the room said anything to him.

Landscaping- This class was rough this week. I had my first real flop lesson. I felt like I have een doing pretty well, but I guess we all have to crash and burn at some point in order to learn more. I tried twice to teach scale to my students and I just wasn't cutting it.  but we recovered with a project the following day.

Small animal care- I picked up two small animal care classes this week. These are the rabbit classes. The first period class has 9 life skills students so I had to make sure they were covered with the material so I created a guided notes for everyone and gave them a simple section to share with the class. It went well. The 5th period version of the class is much smaller and has very talkative young lady that will take the whole class from you if you don't watch her. So I placed her at the board writing down the answers to the packets as each group talked about their sections. By making her the scribe she couldn't take my class, yet she still felt important like the center of attention. Score for both parties.

What a wonderful sonw covered world...

This week was very, well SHORT.
Monday we had a snow day. We got about 3.5" and we couldn't get anywhere. So we went for Tuesday. Tuesday was a shortened day due to a delay. Many of my students live in very rural areas that make travel after snow difficult. Tuesday I had my class finish up the last presentation left over from careers. This way I could finish all of the grading from the previous week. We started a discussion on cost and price in my landscaping class till the period was over. I asked the students what the difference was. They had no idea and then I saw an unexpected hand. The young boy in the front row that is one of my special needs children had the answer. He told the entire class very clearly what the difference was! Heck yes you go boy! I was very proud of him. we then took a few notes and before I knew it the period was over.
   Then Wednesday was wash out..or freeze out. An ice storm caused slick roads and power outages. I took that day to catch up on some school work and fill in my grades. Then came a shortened day on Thursday. In that short time I managed to cover more landscaping material symbols with my kids. they drew and labeled the symbols and then answered some questions from the chapter. In the other periods I aided Mrs.Miller with rabbit breeding. That was interesting to say the least. We put those rabbits together in the cages and the students jaws all dropped. That was mind blowing to them. New quickly spread that we were the classroom with the sex. Geeze did we hear things all day. After school I helped Mrs. Miller with some of the rabbits and she taught me some cool stuff about them that I definitely did not know. That lead me into the evening where Mr. Tindall picked me up, along with Tyler Cremeans and we all went to record book. That car ride was really cool. We got to talk about teaching and the ins and outs of the ag world. Mr. Tindall  had some great stories. It is always nice to have causal conversations about ag ed, I think you learn the most from them.
Thursday nigh was full of meeting new teachers and learning new grading skills. I don't think I have ever spent so much time looking at forms. It was crazy.
Friday was good. I got early for a breakfast at the new Ihop to make sure that I would ready and willing to grade more books. I worked with the AET books today. That was the first time that I had seen a completed book. I thought grading them was easier, but you definitely tell that people were still getting used to the system. There were a ton of odd blanks. I almost feel bad for the original SAE books it feels like they are being out moded. There's this feeling of nostalgia about them. I can remember working with my teacher on them. However I fell that there is a time and place for everything. If AET is best for the kids then its time to switch to it. Plain and simple.
This weekend I will be attending ACES. Talk about full circle. I will patrolling the halls for kids doing the same things my friends did not so long ago. Its crazy. We are taking some really great kids so I look for this to be conference for everyone involved. I am looking forward to learning more about AET. I think it will be a good knowledge base for me to have in order to help my students.