Sunday was one of the nicest days in a while. We spent all day on the beach and just relaxed before we started our second week of student teaching. Since it was Alissa's actual birthday a few of us went to the pub for Karaoke night! It was fun Alissa and I did our usual song Dance with Somebody by Whitney!

July 17, 2010

On Saturday, we spent the day at the beach. Then Alissa's host teacher took me, her, and Kristina out to dinner with her boyfriend. They treated us to a delicious dinner and wine for Alissa's birthday. We went to this Chinese restaurant which is the best on the coast. They were super nice, and told us how they would take us on weekend trips, and fishing and things like that! When we got back we had a surprise party already planned for Alissa in our apartment! We celebrated her 21st birthday!!

Happy Birthday to Eddie too!

July 13, 2010

The first week of student teaching FLEW by. I can’t believe how fast the days go by. The kids are outside and have so many breaks through out the day. We start the day at 9 with “smart moves” which is when we go outside and play a game for a half hour. Than the kids come in and do some maths (not math.. maths) after they do their maths they get a fruit break for about 10m minutes. By now its about 10:15 so they come in and either do more maths, or spelling. At 10:50 the whole school has morning tea. This is for 40 minutes. The teachers get a break while the students eat for 10 minutes, and than play on the oval for 30 minutes. Than middle session starts. This only goes from 11:30 to 12:50 the students do some work with either science or English. Than from 12:50 to 1:30 the students have big lunch where they again eat for 10 minutes and play for 30. They day is broken up so much by giving the children a chance to play outside that it just flies by! "Afa" session or afternoon session the kids silently read for a while have a lesson and than get the last 15 minutes of the day to go back outside and play an organized game with their teacher. The students are not in the classroom for that long but they still get a lot of work done and complete what needs to get done. I love it! I have started picking up little think like doing their maths with them, and spelling. Each week I will take on more responsibility until I am teaching completely on my own. Every other Tuesday we have staff meetings which last for only about an hour. Since Danette is away for the first 2 weeks I have been working with Kris. She is awesome, she’s so funny and so easy going. She drives me home everyday even though its only a 5 minute walk. She also took me on a “field trip” to Daniel Murphy’s Discount Liquor store and bought me a bottle of wine. She’s taught at Mooloolaba for 26 years but recently became a contract teacher and just subs for teachers who are on long service leave. She pretty much runs the school because she’s worked there for so long. So one day when we had none contact time she drove us to starbucks and we drank our coffee on the beach for an hour. Everyone at Mooloolaba is so nice and so welcoming. I am loving my first student teaching placement! Tuesday night a bunch of us went and played OZ*TAG again. This time we played a real game and have the official shorts! It is so much fun.

July 12, 2010

Today was our first day of student teaching! The kids weren’t there and we were at the University for professional development. My principal picked me up and brought me home, which was really nice so I didn’t have to take the bus. Its called “Pupil Free Day” I followed around Linda from Mooloolaba because my host teacher Danette is in Hawaii. We went to different conferences about their curriculum, moving towards a national curriculum and bringing technology into the classrooms. I also went to one that taught us new math games to bring into the classroom and one where this guy bashed on the New York State teaching system. It got kind of awkward for all us New Yorkers… We got fed a lot though today they had lots of food for morning tea, and also for lunch. It was really nice outside so after Pupil Free Day I went and caught some rays at the beach. We all just sat around talking about what we all did that day, its going to great to be able to come lay on the beach after teaching all day ☺ I’m so excited for tomorrow when the kids are going to be there.

July 9, 2010

For the past few days everyone has just been relaxing on the beach and in the hot tub. We all finally caught up on some well-needed sleep, and did lots of laundry. We all went grocery shopping and pilled up on food because we hadn’t cooked for ourselves in 2 weeks and we needed to get food to bring to school with us. We went out to the Surf Club for a few drinks, and danced but we all kind of hung low because we were starting our student teaching on Monday!

July 8-9 2010

After having afternoon tea at the Longway Cattle Station we all got back on the bus. We had a long night ahead of us because we were driving all the way back to Mooloolaba. Emily and Kristina were our captains for the night and decided to have a Polly’s Prom 2010 (our bus company was Polly). The captains got everyone glow sticks, and necklaces and it was BYOB. The girls gave out superlatives to everyone on the bus mine was most likely to celebrate her 21st birthday for more than a week. Haha because everywhere we went I told them it was my 21st birthday so I could get some free drinks! We all got ballots and had to elect a prom King and Queen. The winner was Trevor our bus driver, and his wife Colleen who had joined us for the trip! It was so cute. We had a dance party on the bus that everyone enjoyed and we all got really drunk. People were passed out all over the bus, and in the isles. We didn’t get much sleep but it was a lot of fun!

July 8, 2010

Today was day 12 and the last day of our trip ☹ We headed for Longreach which is one of the biggest outback towns and is well known. Our first stop was the Longreach School of Distance Education. This school is double the size of New York State… virtually. The students all live too far away from schools so they go to school from their homes and tune into radios, telephones, or webcams for class. The teachers work out of the actual school building and hold 45 minute sessions with their students online or over the radio/ phone. A couple of times a year all the students actually go to the school and stay there for a weeks time. During this time the students would have a more normal school day with other students and a teacher in the same classroom. This is also when they get to bring in and show their unit projects they have been working on. It was interesting to see how kids from so far away could still “attend” a specific school even when they lived in the middle of nowhere.
Next we went to the Stockman’s Hall of Fame. We watched a cattle show, and sheep dogs round up the sheep. We got to see how cattle used to carry logs for farmers, and how long it took to transport just one log. There were also girls performing how to crack whips. After we got to walk the streets and go into different stores along the strip. All the stores sold were different cowboy and country things. We than went to this older couples house who owned and lived on the Longway Cattle Station. It was 40,000 acres of land and thousands of cattle. It is one of the oldest and biggest stations in the outback. The house was huge, and so beautiful with a lot of original features. They had gotten a lot of their original cattle from the King Ranch Station in Texas!