MY CLASSROOM!!

I don’t think that I have ever explained on here exactly the position I have taken through the Coop. It was kind of "hush hush" for a little while, as to respect the teacher to left. This was the first year that Maize needed a middle school structured learning (autism, mostly) program. There are 5 wonderful hyper young men in this class! The coop hired a teacher, and helped her build this room from scratch... She made it two weeks and told the Coop that she could not do it and quit! Leaving the boys without consistency or structure and the Paras in charge, for lack of a better work. After going through a few long term subs the coop brought over an IR teacher to hold down the room until they could find someone. I received a call from one of the Coop directors while I was still student-teaching. She asked me if I would be willing to come in and interview with them, for a structured learning position?! I assumed it was for the high school, as I knew this teacher and just given her two week notice. I will be totally honest... I had no desire to take on middle school! But once you have met these boys, you just fall in love with them! I have worked with all five before as a para, and am not super excited to be their teacher. While working with my mentor (everyday) this week, I asked her if I was being naive and that these boys weren’t that hard?! She told me she would be very honest, and that they were super hard, the hardest class she has ever had in her 8 years of structured learning. However, she assured me that with structure and positive behavioral support they can be very loving and flourish, this is exactly what I had seen them do in the past. When the environment is structured appropriately for them! I have spent the last week, along with my mentor trying to make my classroom jus that!!

This is a before..

an in between..

  finished independent   finished one on one area

We are not yet done, but getting very close!! I am taking my camera in with me tomorrow so I can take a few picture for one of my kids who uses digital pictures instead of boardmaker for his schedule, so I will have better photos soon!!

God is good, and will continue to guide my steps. I would appreciate a your prayers Tuesday afternoon when my paras come in to see all the changes (eekkk), and Wednesday our first day back as Mrs. Dyke the teacher!!

The Zoo...in December?!?!

I have been consumed with my new classroom, but more on that later. This afternoon we took a break from working in Mommy’s classroom to go to the zoo! It was beautiful outside!

Our "every time we go picture" of Curt and Cadie in front of the penguin chart.

Cadence’s absolute favorite part was the snakes.. I know!!

I truly enjoy spending time with my children. We still have a lot of molding to do in the coming years, but so much has been done right thus far, that I can take the two of them by myself and we have a wonderful time!

Still just trying to figure out when they stopped being babies???

Christmas 2011

History once again repeated itself.. at 8:30 we woke our children up!  

We had Christmas at our house, as a family, then we were off to church.

I had made these shirts and tutus for Cadence and Lexi! I was happy how they turned out!

**

We alternate years, either with my mom’s family or my dad’s family. This year we were with the Winsors. My Grandma has been saying that she didn’t even care if Christmas came this year, and I don’t really blame her. She buried her oldest daughter just over a month ago. We decided to go ahead and meet at the shed this year, instead of our "normal" meeting in my Grandma’s basement! For lack of a better work the absence of my sweet Aunt Ruby was a huge white elephant in the room. Everyone missed her, yet smiled through the differences of this year.

My Aunt Roxanne made everyone photo frames of my Aunt Ruby. They varied according to who she was to you. Such as Jerry’s was made for wife, my Dad’s was for little sister... These brought sweet tears of remembrance, sadness and love.

It would of course not be a "Winsor Christmas" without basketball!! So.. we cleared the tables away and picked teams. It is hard to sit on the side lines and not play, however with baby number three I am feeling this pregnancy a little more than the first two.  

I placed my Aunt Ruby’s frame next to my Grandpa Coslett’s things in my china hutch.

 

“Our family chains been broken, and nothing feels the same. But as God calls us one by one our chain will link again."

Christmas Eve 2011

We decided to do a brunch at my parent’s house this year for Christmas (eve), it was a nice time,

 

When we left my parents we had two hours before (during which I took a nap, I CAN NOT remember the last time I took a nap, it was wonderful) we needed to be to Brett’s parent’s house.

Grandma Cindy and Papa Terry got Curt and Cadie bikes for Christmas. This is Cadie’s first bike (and you could tell, we will be doing a lot of practice this spring/summer).

Of course we had to go out to the garage and try them out!

Galaxy Play doe

Today, I offered to keep Kristin’s kids so that my mom could get a few things done. While Lexi took a nap the bigger kids and Id decided to make galaxy play doe, that I had pinned from pinterest! Now I will be honest after my snowmen cookies were such a BUST, I was not holding my breath for this to work!

Levi, Curtis, Lucas and Cadence

IT WORKED!!

I had to half the recipe after we made the purple, because I knew that I would run out of salt!  The blue didn’t turn out quite as good as the first two, because Lexi woke up and I had to pull it off the burner a little early!

Mine                 Pinterest

We will definitely be making more galaxy play doe for my classroom in the next week!!