This morning, I flew back to Michigan so I could see Libby's High School Graduation. Seeing her and all of her friends graduate makes me feel old!
-Aly
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
1,728.5 Hrs.
I can't believe how close we are to wrapping up this year! Pretty much everything at the school is all done, including interventions, BBL, J. A., and Starfish. Starfish Graduation was held after school on Thursday, and it went really well. One thing about the graduation that turned out particularly great was that a lot of parents show up. At all of the schools City Year works in here in Miami, parent participation is something that always needs to be improved. I was told to expect between one and five parent to show up for the ceremony, but we actually had around 20 people show up!
Yesterday, the corps split up into groups according to interests, and I got to visit the Humane Society, which was really great, because that meant that I got to play with dogs and cats all day yesterday!
In a couple of hours, I will be heading into the office to help prepare for the Young Heroes Graduation, which will be taking place this evening.
-Aly
DUG: 18
Yesterday, the corps split up into groups according to interests, and I got to visit the Humane Society, which was really great, because that meant that I got to play with dogs and cats all day yesterday!
In a couple of hours, I will be heading into the office to help prepare for the Young Heroes Graduation, which will be taking place this evening.
-Aly
DUG: 18
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
1,704 Hrs.
Springtime in Miami has proven to be beautiful. It rains almost every day now, but the torrential downfall only persists for about five minutes each time before giving way again to the sunshine. Fifteen minutes after a storm, you would never be able to guess it had ever rained, because the sun and heat will have already dried everything. I have never liked rainstorms, but they seem more peaceful here than anywhere else. The sunshine is also amazing. I know that Florida is the "Sunshine State", but it truly is wonderful to see the sun always shining. Another thing that is amazing is the sweet scent of mangoes! A fruit that was always a luxury to find at a store back in Michigan, grows in abundance on the trees here. The smell is in the air almost everywhere, and so many of them fall of the trees that anyone who likes mangoes will have more than they can eat.
I am very exhausted, because last night I woke up with a roach in my bed! Luckily, my cat was able to kill it for me, but I had a hard time sleeping after thinking about 4-inch roaches crawling over me while I sleep!
The past couple of days have been a flurry of planning for Starfish Corps Graduation, which will take place after school tomorrow. Wish me luck!
-Aly
DUG: 21
I am very exhausted, because last night I woke up with a roach in my bed! Luckily, my cat was able to kill it for me, but I had a hard time sleeping after thinking about 4-inch roaches crawling over me while I sleep!
The past couple of days have been a flurry of planning for Starfish Corps Graduation, which will take place after school tomorrow. Wish me luck!
-Aly
DUG: 21
Monday, May 25, 2009
Sunday, May 24, 2009
DUG: 24
A lot of sleeping yesterday, and probably a lot more today and tomorrow. What a glorious way to spend a weekend!
-Aly
-Aly
Friday, May 22, 2009
1,677 Hrs.
This morning, we didn't have to be in to work until 9:00! What a luxury!
Today, we had our service day at Myrtle Grove Elementary School, which is another school at which City Year Miami has a team - in fact, my roommate, Beth, works at that school. For the service today, I spent the day pulling bushes, weeds, and trash out of a garden, and then replanting the bushes neatly along the fence of the garden. The bad part was that the three people supervising the project all had different ideas of what should happen with the garden, so that meant that I had to pull up and plant the same bushes three times. : ( Also, it was pouring rain most of the time we were doing service, so I got EXTREMELY muddy; I feel like I have never been this dirty before in my entire life!
I know you will never believe it, but I have a three-day weekend ahead of me! I don't even know what I will do with myself!
-Aly
DUG: 26
Today, we had our service day at Myrtle Grove Elementary School, which is another school at which City Year Miami has a team - in fact, my roommate, Beth, works at that school. For the service today, I spent the day pulling bushes, weeds, and trash out of a garden, and then replanting the bushes neatly along the fence of the garden. The bad part was that the three people supervising the project all had different ideas of what should happen with the garden, so that meant that I had to pull up and plant the same bushes three times. : ( Also, it was pouring rain most of the time we were doing service, so I got EXTREMELY muddy; I feel like I have never been this dirty before in my entire life!
I know you will never believe it, but I have a three-day weekend ahead of me! I don't even know what I will do with myself!
-Aly
DUG: 26
Thursday, May 21, 2009
1,669.5 Hrs.
Today was an amazing day!
Unfortunately, I did not get to take part in the last BBL session. I do not like doing BBL, but I kind of wanted to one last time perform the lesson I had spent hours working on.
Mexico day was today! Since Javon and Jeremiah loved Greece day so much last week, Madeline and I had Mexico day today, and had quesadillas, tortilla chips, and "Mexican soda". We also played cool guitar and castanet music, and played with bubbles (since Madeline said that Mexican like to party and have a lot of fun and use bubbles???). Hopefully we can have Italy day some time before the end of the year. (Included below is a picture of Jeremiah and Javon on Greece day. Jeremiah is on the left, and Javon is on the right. I'm not sure why Javon is making that face...)
Today was also the last day of intervention tutoring. I think that both the kids and I are happy about that. Last night, I made chocolate chip cookies for them, but they were still able to find a way to argue with me about even that - they wanted more than the three cookies I gave each of them.
The last day of the penny fundraiser today, and it was a huge success! The grand total for what we collected is $759.07!!! Now is the hard part, though: getting a bank to take all 75,907 of our pennies.
After school, we spent the time making invitations for the parents to invite them to the Starfish Corps Graduation next Thursday.
-Aly
DUG: 27
Unfortunately, I did not get to take part in the last BBL session. I do not like doing BBL, but I kind of wanted to one last time perform the lesson I had spent hours working on.
Mexico day was today! Since Javon and Jeremiah loved Greece day so much last week, Madeline and I had Mexico day today, and had quesadillas, tortilla chips, and "Mexican soda". We also played cool guitar and castanet music, and played with bubbles (since Madeline said that Mexican like to party and have a lot of fun and use bubbles???). Hopefully we can have Italy day some time before the end of the year. (Included below is a picture of Jeremiah and Javon on Greece day. Jeremiah is on the left, and Javon is on the right. I'm not sure why Javon is making that face...)
Today was also the last day of intervention tutoring. I think that both the kids and I are happy about that. Last night, I made chocolate chip cookies for them, but they were still able to find a way to argue with me about even that - they wanted more than the three cookies I gave each of them.
The last day of the penny fundraiser today, and it was a huge success! The grand total for what we collected is $759.07!!! Now is the hard part, though: getting a bank to take all 75,907 of our pennies.
After school, we spent the time making invitations for the parents to invite them to the Starfish Corps Graduation next Thursday.
-Aly
DUG: 27
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
1,660 Hrs.
The last two days have been a whirlwind of activity for me. Between counting pennies for the SFC fundraiser, performing BBL sessions, and preparing SFC lessons, I haven't had a single free moment. Tomorrow will be the last day of intervention tutoring, and I will be (kind of) sad. It will also, though, be the last day of BBL (thank goodness!), and the last day of the coin drive - we have already raised almost $600!
-Aly
DUG: 28
-Aly
DUG: 28
Monday, May 18, 2009
1,641 Hrs.
Today was a pretty good day for me, as far as successfully pulling off several projects I have been working on.
The BBL lesson for this week is the last one we will be doing for this year. The book we are doing is called "Actual Size", and is a picture book full of "actual sized" picture of animals such as a giant stick bug, a giant earthworm, the eye of a giant squid, the atlas moth, great white shark teeth, and the mouse lemur. This weekend, I spent a whole lot of time tracing and cutting all of the figures out of cardboard, and the kids liked being able to see and hold the figures and compare them to their own features.
The third day of our St. Jude fundraiser was also a success - the total so far is $391.51. That means that we have already beat our goal of $250, and we still have three days to collect!
The kids also loved the Starfish lesson plan I created for today. Continuing in the unit of "wants and needs", we learned today that some people have to meet their needs, such as clean water and clean clothing, in different ways than other people may meet those needs. The kids are used to getting clean water from a tap and clean clothes from a washing machine, so the kids today got to try out hand-washing clothing, and filtering water. Everyone got really wet, but that made things even more fun. The kids also loved being able to wash my City Year uniform shirts. : )
It is hard for me to believe that it is practically the summer season. Since the weather never changed here in Miami, and I am used to seasons changing dramatically, I do not feel that we have already gone through fall, winter, spring, and now summer again. What a shock it will be for me to go back home to Michigan!
I am REALLY looking forward to going home, but I have just begun to realize how much I will miss the kids. This week is the last full week and the last week for intervention tutoring, next week is the last week for Jaguar Academy/Starfish Corps (next Thursday will be SFC Graduation), and the week after that is last week of school. Today we were told that we should start taking down our classroom decorations, and I wanted to cry.
I have begun to think seriously about becoming a teacher. Education is something I was never before interested in, but I have come to really love helping and teaching the children. I'm not sure, though, that I have any kind of talent at it. Maybe someday...
-Aly
DUG: 30
The BBL lesson for this week is the last one we will be doing for this year. The book we are doing is called "Actual Size", and is a picture book full of "actual sized" picture of animals such as a giant stick bug, a giant earthworm, the eye of a giant squid, the atlas moth, great white shark teeth, and the mouse lemur. This weekend, I spent a whole lot of time tracing and cutting all of the figures out of cardboard, and the kids liked being able to see and hold the figures and compare them to their own features.
The third day of our St. Jude fundraiser was also a success - the total so far is $391.51. That means that we have already beat our goal of $250, and we still have three days to collect!
The kids also loved the Starfish lesson plan I created for today. Continuing in the unit of "wants and needs", we learned today that some people have to meet their needs, such as clean water and clean clothing, in different ways than other people may meet those needs. The kids are used to getting clean water from a tap and clean clothes from a washing machine, so the kids today got to try out hand-washing clothing, and filtering water. Everyone got really wet, but that made things even more fun. The kids also loved being able to wash my City Year uniform shirts. : )
It is hard for me to believe that it is practically the summer season. Since the weather never changed here in Miami, and I am used to seasons changing dramatically, I do not feel that we have already gone through fall, winter, spring, and now summer again. What a shock it will be for me to go back home to Michigan!
I am REALLY looking forward to going home, but I have just begun to realize how much I will miss the kids. This week is the last full week and the last week for intervention tutoring, next week is the last week for Jaguar Academy/Starfish Corps (next Thursday will be SFC Graduation), and the week after that is last week of school. Today we were told that we should start taking down our classroom decorations, and I wanted to cry.
I have begun to think seriously about becoming a teacher. Education is something I was never before interested in, but I have come to really love helping and teaching the children. I'm not sure, though, that I have any kind of talent at it. Maybe someday...
-Aly
DUG: 30
Sunday, May 17, 2009
DUG: 31
As we do each Sunday, Erin B., Erin M., and myself treated ourselves to dinner tonight. Each week, we like to try a different place around where we live, and today we visited the Taco Shop. Apart from everything being a little sticky, the place only taking cash, and the small menu, the food seemed to be pretty good; I had a vegetarian taco salad.
-Aly
-Aly
Saturday, May 16, 2009
1,631.5 Hrs.
Today was the last Young Heroes day, and most of the day was consumed by service in which a handful of the Heroes led us - I got to do some mulching.
When I got home this evening, I spent several more hours working on the BBL lesson for next week.
-Aly
DUG: 32
When I got home this evening, I spent several more hours working on the BBL lesson for next week.
-Aly
DUG: 32
Friday, May 15, 2009
1,617.25 Hrs.
Just a quick post tonight, since it is already really late and I have to get up early tomorrow for Young Heroes.
This morning, we skipped P.T. and met in the office instead. The reason for this was that we were all wearing business attire instead of our uniforms, and they didn't want to make us do P.T. in our nice clothes. The reason we were in business attire was because of the luncheon we attended today. An organization called "Cool Kids" hosted a luncheon at the Four Seasons Miami Hotel today, and all of City Year Miami was invited as guests for the extravagant event. The food was wonderful - everyone else got to eat some kind of chicken thing, but since I am a vegetarian, I was given an amazing dish of butternut squash ravioli. And key lime pie for dessert. Yum!
-Aly
DUG: 33
This morning, we skipped P.T. and met in the office instead. The reason for this was that we were all wearing business attire instead of our uniforms, and they didn't want to make us do P.T. in our nice clothes. The reason we were in business attire was because of the luncheon we attended today. An organization called "Cool Kids" hosted a luncheon at the Four Seasons Miami Hotel today, and all of City Year Miami was invited as guests for the extravagant event. The food was wonderful - everyone else got to eat some kind of chicken thing, but since I am a vegetarian, I was given an amazing dish of butternut squash ravioli. And key lime pie for dessert. Yum!
-Aly
DUG: 33
Thursday, May 14, 2009
1,604 Hrs.
Today, I only spent a little while at the school before having to leave for an event at the office. I was at the school until 10:30, which was just enough time to count $212.15 in pennies!
Most of my time at the office was spent doing prep work. Today, Leadership Florida, which is like a leadership fraternity for the most influential people in Florida under the age of 40, came to visit CYM headquarters. My job was to give my testimonial. After that, I got to be in a group that brainstormed how organizations like City Year can better build better relationships with their sponsors. Later in the afternoon, I realized that the man I had been talking to all day has been on the "Top 40 Under 40" list! How cool!
-Aly
DUG: 34
Most of my time at the office was spent doing prep work. Today, Leadership Florida, which is like a leadership fraternity for the most influential people in Florida under the age of 40, came to visit CYM headquarters. My job was to give my testimonial. After that, I got to be in a group that brainstormed how organizations like City Year can better build better relationships with their sponsors. Later in the afternoon, I realized that the man I had been talking to all day has been on the "Top 40 Under 40" list! How cool!
-Aly
DUG: 34
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
1,593.25 Hrs.
Today was an exciting day. This morning with my first-grader Jeremiah, we had a "Greece party". A couple of days ago, I took hummus to school for lunch, and let Jeremiah and Javon, a first-grader that Madeline works with, try some. They loved it! Since I thought that they probably don't get a lot of chances in their lives to experience cultures outside their own, Madeline and I decided to make a lesson about it. Today, we taught the boys a little bit about where Greece is and what their alphabet letters look like, and we also had hummus, pitas, pita chips, taboule, grapes, grape juice, yogurt with honey, and dark chocolate. Javon loved it all and shoveled as much as he could into his mouth, but I'm not sure that Jeremiah liked much of it.
Today was also the first "official" day of our Starfish Corps fundraiser for St. Jude, and we collected $90.03! Our goal is $250, but with eight days to go, I know we will be able to raise that amount. $90.03 is 9,003 pennies, though, so I spent a lot of my day today counting change.
After school, we ran the SFC collage lesson again, this time for the Wednesday/Thursday group. This group was a lot better behaved than the Monday/Tuesday group, so I don't quite feel right now like my head is ready to explode.
After work, Mr. Moss again treated City Year to dinner. : D
-Aly
DUG: 35
Today was also the first "official" day of our Starfish Corps fundraiser for St. Jude, and we collected $90.03! Our goal is $250, but with eight days to go, I know we will be able to raise that amount. $90.03 is 9,003 pennies, though, so I spent a lot of my day today counting change.
After school, we ran the SFC collage lesson again, this time for the Wednesday/Thursday group. This group was a lot better behaved than the Monday/Tuesday group, so I don't quite feel right now like my head is ready to explode.
After work, Mr. Moss again treated City Year to dinner. : D
-Aly
DUG: 35
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
1,584.25 Hrs.
Today was a totally crazy day. Not even counting the rest of my crazy day, my fourth grade intervention session was terrible because one of my students called 911 during the lesson in order to ask them to come save them since I was supposedly being mean to them. Thankfully, the police didn't actually come, but instead called the school to see if there was a real emergency. My student only spent about ten seconds on her telephone, and I never believed that she was actually calling anyone. I only found out the truth later when the Principal was walking around the school, trying to discover who made the 911 call. I feel completely awful about the whole situation, which makes it look like I let my students run around unsupervised and doing anything they like, which is totally not true. I mean, who would have really thought that a ten-year-old would mess around like that? I certainly never would have believed it to be true. : (
-Aly
DUG: 36
-Aly
DUG: 36
Monday, May 11, 2009
1,572.75 Hrs.
Back at Moton today, the day started out with the last of the picture testing. I finished with that just in time for my first grade group, which consisted of Jeremiah finishing his alphabet poster today. Jeremiah is one of my first graders who doesn't even know his alphabet, so we've been working on a poster where he gets to copy the way I do all of the letters, and then he got to draw a picture to go along with each letter. Now we are going to work on memorizing the alphabet and the way each letter looks, both upper-case and lower-case.
The rest of the day ran smoothly, and I didn't even have to freak out very much today because my Starfish lesson didn't require much preparation.
During Starfish Corps, we continued with our "needs and wants" unit, and spent the hour making collages. The students got to cut pictures out of magazines, and paste them to paper under either the "need" or "want" heading.
-Aly
DUG: 37
The rest of the day ran smoothly, and I didn't even have to freak out very much today because my Starfish lesson didn't require much preparation.
During Starfish Corps, we continued with our "needs and wants" unit, and spent the hour making collages. The students got to cut pictures out of magazines, and paste them to paper under either the "need" or "want" heading.
-Aly
DUG: 37
Sunday, May 10, 2009
DUG: 38
What a fabulous day! Church, then mall, then dinner with friends - who could ask for better!
Also, Happy Mother's Day, and Happy Birthday to my little sister, Libby, who turned eighteen today!
Also, Happy Mother's Day, and Happy Birthday to my little sister, Libby, who turned eighteen today!
Saturday, May 9, 2009
1,561.25 Hrs.
This past week has been really crazy.
Tuesday morning, I spent my morning in our downtown office doing a roundtable. The guest was a lady who is thinking about giving money to City Year, so she got to meet me (a real live corps member) and speak with me for a while before I had to hurry off to the school.
This week was a BBL week, which meant that all of my free periods I usually have during the day were devoted this week to BBL. The problem, though, is that I also needed to devote all my free time toward helping out with the school play, planning the Starfish Corps fundraiser, putting together SFC lesson plans for the rest of the year, planning SFC graduation, completing the testing that needs to be done for each student in the school, and grading science fair projects. As a result of being stretched so thin, I got very little accomplished of each thing, and seemed to disappoint a lot of people with how poor of a job I did putting each project together. For example, our SFC lessons this week were supposed to take place on a "deserted island", and all I got to do as far as setting up a deserted island was to make a few tiny trees out of brown and green paper to hang on the wall, and they didn't even really look like trees. : (
Also, I have been stressed out this weekend because my landlord is threatening to evict me in three days because he insists that I haven't paid my rent this month, even though I am 100% positive that I did. : ( : ( : ( I think I finally got the whole situation taken care of...
-Aly
DUG: 39
Tuesday morning, I spent my morning in our downtown office doing a roundtable. The guest was a lady who is thinking about giving money to City Year, so she got to meet me (a real live corps member) and speak with me for a while before I had to hurry off to the school.
This week was a BBL week, which meant that all of my free periods I usually have during the day were devoted this week to BBL. The problem, though, is that I also needed to devote all my free time toward helping out with the school play, planning the Starfish Corps fundraiser, putting together SFC lesson plans for the rest of the year, planning SFC graduation, completing the testing that needs to be done for each student in the school, and grading science fair projects. As a result of being stretched so thin, I got very little accomplished of each thing, and seemed to disappoint a lot of people with how poor of a job I did putting each project together. For example, our SFC lessons this week were supposed to take place on a "deserted island", and all I got to do as far as setting up a deserted island was to make a few tiny trees out of brown and green paper to hang on the wall, and they didn't even really look like trees. : (
Also, I have been stressed out this weekend because my landlord is threatening to evict me in three days because he insists that I haven't paid my rent this month, even though I am 100% positive that I did. : ( : ( : ( I think I finally got the whole situation taken care of...
-Aly
DUG: 39
Monday, May 4, 2009
1,525.5 Hrs.
Today was like a nightmare. For some reason, every kid in the whole school decided to act up today, so I am now feeling incredibly tired and frustrated. I didn't even get to run the Starfish program I have spent weeks working on, because the kids couldn't handle it and had to sit in silence with their heads down for 45 minutes. Hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day.
Because I haven't include many photos lately, included below is a picture of a lot of the first graders I work with.
-Aly
DUG: 44
Because I haven't include many photos lately, included below is a picture of a lot of the first graders I work with.
-Aly
DUG: 44
Sunday, May 3, 2009
DUG: 46
This two-day weekend has been fabulous - all I've done all weekend is read, sleep, and go to church. I might get another weekend like this in two weeks from now, so I'm enjoying this one while it lasts.
-Aly
-Aly
Saturday, May 2, 2009
1,516 Hrs.
Yesterday, instead of joining the service day at Oleta River State Park, the R. R. Moton team went in to the school to help out with the school's May Day celebration. The day began with all of the classes out on the P.E. court to watch a dance put on by each grade, the wraping of the may pole, and the crowning of the May Day King and Queen. After that, we got to supervise the bounce houses and face painting as the Pre-K - 2nd graders enjoyed themselves with those things. A little later in the day, we got to chaperone the 3rd/4th grade dance. The 5th graders did not get to participate at all in the festivities because they apparently had very bad behavior yesterday while they were trying to practice their dance. At 3:00, we helped with the kids getting to their buses, and then we got to leave the school at 3:20 - what a treat! On our way home, Madeline, Patty, Nick and I went to Chipotle for dinner, where we met Mrs. Webster, who is the reading coach at Moton. We stayed and chatted for about two hours, and had a great time. What a great start to a wonderful weekend!
-Aly
DUG: 47
-Aly
DUG: 47
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