Reflection...

So many things have happened this past year.  Some quite wonderful, and some quite hard.  Something  I have discovered this year - and am learning more every day, is that no matter what happens in life...God is always good.  When things are great and life is happy - God is good.  When things are rough and life is hard - God is good.  He is good in spite of...and I'm so very thankful for this amazing truth.  I don't know what I'd do without Him.  I hope that in this new year I can be a better light to the people around me, and to share the joy that He so freely gives. 

One of the main things that happened this year - is my first real teaching job :D  As a Pre-K teacher my head has kicked in to extra high gear and it hardly ever stops.  I took my first Grad class this Fall and I learned that teachers make around 900 decisions a DAY!!  Can you believe that??  No wonder I'm tired, lol.  I have discovered first hand that there is NO possible way to get everything done in the normal 8/9 hour day...or...at least there's not to get everything done that I want them to be able to do.  The past few weeks I've worked on rearranging my room - changing up centers, doing this, doing that, etc., in order for the kids to have a better learning experience.  I can honestly say that I love teaching, and I love teaching Pre-K, though it is definitely a challenge.  But I wouldn't trade this year or the kids I have for anything.  I'm so thankful to be able to be their teacher.

Another wonderful thing that happened this year was being able to go to Hrvatska (Croatia) for a second time!!  I was able to see all of my dear, dear friends once again :D We had such a blast at camp!! Again :D!  And walking around Varaždin with Ivana and looking at the castle...sigh...I miss them!!

 

Moving on - I have now started some classes on Graphic Design, which I'm super pumped about :D  It's been kind of a slow process because life's been so crazy, but I have enjoyed it thus far!

 

I'm so thankful to be able to end this year with all of my family and friends.  God's been good to me.  I have new projects to work on in the upcoming year, new things I want to do, things I want to try, things I want to accomplish.  But instead of calling them New Year's Resolutions, they're just going to be goals.  Things to strive for.  I may not be able to do all of them at once, but a little bit at a time can make all the difference in the world! 

I'd like to share a verse with you that I found the other day.  "In the fear of the LORD is strong confidence:  and his children shall have a place of refuge."  Proverbs 14:26  Isn't it wonderful that as long as we have the Lord we can have the confidence to face whatever comes against us?  And not just confidence, but STRONG confidence. :D For when has the Lord ever failed?  Never...and when the waves are crashing and the winds are howling - He is our place of refuge.  Comforting words to take with us into the New Year.

 

To end with, I'm thankful for all the things that've happened this year - good and bad.  For without the good, we wouldn't be able to cherish life quite so much, and without the bad, we would never grow and become the person we're meant to be.  I'm also thankful for this New Year.  Time to start fresh :D  No actions have yet been done, no words have yet been said, no mistakes have yet been made. 

 

Happy New Year, my dear friends. 

May you find the Lord real in this New Year.
I love you all.
Jenn

Give Me a High Five!!!



That's right...I said it...Give Me a High Five!!!  In case you don't know...this is the coolest kind of high five there is!! :D  Today my Pre-Kids were having an absolute B.L.A.S.T. playing in shaving cream and food coloring while we were making bookmarks.  Whoever came up with it  is pure genius. 

 

And just in case you're wondering - I did give them a high five :D  Only once did shaving cream go flying...but it's all good. (;

 

 

For a bonus - I'd take a high five right now, lol.  These past couple of weeks have been so busy my head has been spinning non-stop....which might explain the exhaustion..hmm..I'm sure that doesn't happen to any other teachers though, right??



This is one task I had to complete this month - our main bulletin board.  It was my turn to fix it, and this is how it came out...the kids did such a good job on their angels and stars.

 

Oh Deer!!!!!!!!!

Oh Deer is right!!!  I must say that doing two bulletin boards, our classroom door, Christmas crafts, lessons, normal everyday things, Christmas party's for my little duck class and Sunday School, having to rearrange my room and change what feels like a gazillion things, and finishing my first semester of Grad School has been just a tad bit OVERWHELMING!  But I've had fun, and I'm pretty sure that my little duckies have too.  They laugh when Miss Jennifer gets crazy - they just laugh and tell me I'm funny, lol.

 

Despite all of the craziness, doing this bulletin board was way too much fun :D  Using Google search I found an awesome teacher who used something similar to this on her classroom door.  "Rudolph" has been a huge hit throughout the school.  I love it just because it's a cute & funny twist on the norm. 

 

The ducks have had fun doing this activity as well.  I had a canister of holiday cookie cutters which I traced on posterboard with a pencil and then a marker.  They go through the cookie cutters and find the matching picture. 

 

Finger Painting Christmasy things - talk about beautiful...

I'm sure a million teachers have thought of this before me, but I bought this ice tray to use with a water experiement with the ducks and I thought I'd try it with the finger paints - and it worked wonderful!! 

 

Just in case you don't know - "I don't cook" :D  And the reason I "don't" is because I'm terrible at it!!  I set things on fire - it's not pretty...............or.......at least that's the way it used to be.  But for whatever reason I've been cooking quite a bit more here lately, which has actually been kinda cool - and fun!  The pic above is for a recipe I found on Pinterest that's super easy - and it turned out pretty amazing tasting. 

 

 Sausage Crumble Bake

 

Oh yea - and is this not the cutest little guy ever??? :D:D:D:D:D  I made these melted snowman cookies for my Sunday School kids and they were popular except for a couple who kinda stared at and poked them then told me they didn't want to eat them lol!!

 

More to come...

Croatia

I'm really missing these peoples today...sigh...):

How many ways can you spell F.U.N.??

 

Hello my dear blogger friends!

  So much has happened since my last post that it's hard to even remember everything that has happened lol.  So let me start at the beginning!! (;

  July 24th I left for the amazing country of Croatia.  Most people in America seem to not even know this place exists.  So let me help you out just a little bit. 

Croatia is.....HERE!!!!



 


--------------------------------------------------------------->>>





Or literally, on the other side of the world. 

This was my second opportunity to go and this year I was able to stay for four weeks.  I enjoyed it immensely!  Two of those weeks were spent at camp.  One week with the older kids/young adults and the second week with the little peoples (:


One exciting thing that happened this year was the Croatian Bible!! For us Americans, this Bible is to the Croatian people like a KJV is to us. It was such an honor to get to be there when the Bibles arrived and to help unload them!! I was SOOO excited! :D:D

 

The Bibles have arrived!!

 

 

This is me :D:D  I really need to work on my posture, lol!!
BTW...notice the mountains in the back???  They're one of my most favorite things about Croatia.

After the unloading was complete :D

Here are some more pictures from Croatia!

One of the many kinds of (amazing) desserts they make over there...but don't ask me what it was called, because I don't remember lol.

Beautiful, breath-taking church.

Anna, Ivana, & I.  A lot of the young people met this day and played games and made pizza!!

Ivana & I.  She helped us during a visit to town.  Plus a gazillion other things :D  She's quite amazing!!

The castle in Croatia...it's humongous!! 

  

Close-up!



Back view



 

I had such a wonderful time there, and I miss it!!  I can't tell you how many times I think about the people there.  I hope to see them again one day. 


When I came back to America I had a few days to recuperate before I started my job as a Preschool teacher.  Readjusting to a 7 hour time difference is not the easiest thing in the world...and it does take a while, lol.

But since then, I have been teaching my "Duck" class and taking a Graduate class, working towards my Master's Degree.  I can honestly say that I have greatly enjoyed both!!  Oh, and did I mention also being a Sunday School teacher?? :D  I became the Beginner's Sunday School teacher at my church just a few weeks before I left for Croatia. 

My world is full of little peoples, but oh, how I love them.  They make my days!  I'm so glad that God has placed them in my lives and given me the opportunity to care for them and teach them for a little while.

Here are a couple of pictures from my Pre-K class.

There is a soldier who is a friend of one of the fellow teachers.  The teachers family was going to send the soldier a care-package for Thanksgiving, and we got to help!!

Painting the Flag

After the painting...didn't they do a great job?

This is just a random picture.  This is when we did the corn-cob art.  I think one of the kids gave me a high five or something and it made handprints...the picture of the corn cob art is farther down.

handprints on my hand...I thought this was cool, lol :P

Another thing we did for the soldier was to make our own soldiers!!  The kids did a WONDERFUL job on these, and I think they turned out pretty awesome!

Close-up of soldiers

Soldiers

Corn cob art!!  The picture really doesn't do it justice.  It was extremely messy, but oh so fun!

Corn cob art - F.U.N.!!!!!

Our latest creation...A CASTLE.  This past week we learned about the letter K and about kings, etc.  So, we made a castle for our home living center, and they ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT!!! 

Our castle!! :D

The only way to enter the castle was to crawl through the opening :D  They wanted a window, so I added a box for them to look through. 

Front view

It's amazing what some boxes, spray paint, time, and a little imagination can create :D

  Teaching pre-school has been such an exciting and fun experience, although I must admit that it does wear me out :D  But I still wouldn't trade it. 

  My Grad class is almost over for the semester, and I have learned so much from it.  I won't be taking any more Grad classes for next semester, but I will be taking some online classes...for Graphic Design...AUGH...I can't tell you how excited I am about that!!!!  I hope it goes well, and I hope that I enjoy it as much as I think I will :D:D 

Croatia

Two Weeks and one day...AAUUUGGGGHHHH!!!  I'm Sooooo excited!!!!!  More to come!! (O:

Yes, I know...I'm behind...(:

A lot has happened since I last blogged.  I am down to ONE job now :D  and I cannot tell you how...W.O.N.D.E.R.F.U.L. it is :D  God is faithful.  That's for sure.  However, with a little bit of extra time on my hands...I almost don't know what to do with myself (:  But I'm finding things to do...like reading (one of my most FAVORITE things in the WORLD to do), studying my Croatian (:  This requires a LOT of work...I need a personal tutor (:  But in a few weeks, I'll be over there, so I know I'll have tons of help (:  Just so you know...Croatian people...are AMAZING!!! 

We were only in school Monday and Tuesday of this week because of the 4th of July, so I have had a mini vacation, and half of me says this is wonderful, and the other half of me says, I can't wait to go back to work lol.  I miss my kiddies, and I miss teaching!  We did a lot of interesting things this week, as well as last week.  Last week I taught on Independence Day and just carried it over to this week.  It was my intention to make fireworks on Tuesday, especially since we weren't able to shoot off real fireworks this year because of the drought, BUT, we also made an apple pie from scratch, and that took FOREVER!  The kids and I both were so ready to be done with it.  It turned out great (according to them, I never had a chance to have a piece lol), but it took way too long, mostly my fault.  But that was my first time to do something like that, so that's how you learn I suppose.

Looking at another blog I follow - Fab-u-lous in First - she shared a website that's called mpm school supplies.  So I decided to take a look, and it is a fabulous website!  I loved it instantly.  It's super user friendly, and I found a bunch of stuff, not only for classroom, but for Sunday School as well.  Sigh...I just need an endless $$ supply for school stuff.  I find SOOOO many, and TOOOOO many things that I love and want.  But that's where self-control comes in I guess lol. 


I HIGHLY recommend this website - please take a look!!

Some pics, as always (;
.........

This was a little difficult for some of my younger kids, but they still turned out pretty good!  They used crayons to draw "fireworks", and then they used black watercolor paint to color over them - giving them a night sky with their own fireworks display!

We were supposed to create these on Tuesday, but we ended up not having enough time.  These were supposed to be our "fireworks".

Me painting a foot!!  I think I got this idea from an issue of "The Mailbox", which, by the way, is amazing!!

The finished product!  The kids had a blast - it's so much fun trying to paint their feet when they're ticklish lol!

If you didn't know, it has been HOT!!!  here in Arkansas.  My car has showed it to be in the 120's before sitting out in the sun.  But we have been having temps in the 100's almost everday for weeks except a few days, without any rain )':  I've been praying and praying for rain!

The other day we had two fires close to our house.  This one was by far the worst!  I think it ended up burning over 500 acres of land, thankfully no one was hurt, and no houses were burned!!

Some ingredients for our apple pie!

Some COLORFUL 8D pom-poms I discovered the other day.  They made my day lol!  I am planning on using them in my classroom in the fall!

Lunch date with the Big Sis (;

Sno-Cone!!  My first one for this summer.  This was at our Freedom Celebration that we had at our church.  It was pretty good...hmm...I may just have to go get another one :P

This is Sam :D  She'd probably kill me if she knew I posted this on here :D  But she loves me (:  That's what best friends are for, right? :D

O..and do you remember me mentioning earlier that I've been praying and praying for rain?  Well, guess what it did today???  AUGH!!  ANNNNDD...it's supposed to rain for the next four days! Woot woot!!  Who says God doesn't answer prayers?!?!

This is one of the latest additions to my life.  A brace...I actually have about four...this one, a compression glove, a brace with metal supports on top and bottom, and another brace that is for support.  Yeaaaaa....from my research I have a Ganglion Cyst.  Apparently these are not uncommon...especially in women (: Lovely...

Anyway, according to the research, I have 3 options.  I can have it surgically removed, o_O.  Or, I can go to the Dr., have them stick a needle in it and extract the fluid, and it has the possibility of coming back  :S  Or, I can wear a brace.  Since I have very little pain tolerance, I'm opting for the brace (:  It causes me quite a bit of pain when I do too much, and/or I don't wear my brace, etc.  It goes all the way up my arm.  But the thought of surgery and a needle SO:  ummm...no thank you!  I also decided to play volleyball the other night (with a brace)...yeaaa....let's just say that didn't turn out so well!!  But!  I figure we'll be playing lots of volleyball in Croatia in just a few weeks, so I'm either going to have to deal with the pain, pray that it goes away before then, or sit out of the game...):  I really LIKE playing volleyball.  So I need to start praying that the Lord will heal me before I go! 

"Sh" word wall

Here's a pic of the word wall from this week!

Week 4

Shoes, Shoes, Shoes!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is exactly what we learned about for week 4!  It was all about shoes...we tie-dyed shoe strings, wore our favorite shoes, decorated shoes, had practice shoes to work with, and made a painting with shoe strings.  Overall, I think the shoe string paintings turned out to be my favorite! 

A few of the shoe string paintings.

A few pairs of the tie-dyed shoe strings...the kids did a great job!! (;

I would highly recommend this book when teaching the "sh" sound.  The kids were able to come up with SOOO many words for the word wall, I was running out of room to write them on!

On a side not, even though we're in a drought - we've been getting my favorite type of clouds...the Big, Chunky, Fluffy Ones :D:D:D  They make me happy lol :P

Mom, Brandi and I had a game night this week, and it was so much fun!  We hadn't done it in such a long time...I lost :D  But that's ok. (O: