Pajama Party and Freckle Juice

Yesterday was one of those days when I felt like a fun teacher, the kind of teacher I always dreamed about becoming. I wish I put forth the effort to be this kind of teacher more often, but it's just so hard sometimes when so much is demanded of you and things change constantly. Ah, well, such is the life of a teacher.

So, let me tell you about my first 3 hours of teaching. I'm not sure if I've ever enlightened you all to Teaven and my teaching schedule. I guess that's an idea for the next blog post (a year late, right?). Anyways, on Thursdays, I teach a beginning phonics class for 2 hours.

We are currently finishing with the letter P, so I decided it would be fun to have a pajama party. The kids loved the idea, as did my boss, apparently, because she had someone in my class taking pictures and video for the entire 2 hours. 

We played musical chairs, but we used pillows instead of chairs.

We made princes and princesses.

They got to choose the name of their prince or princess. I believe we had a Prince Pancho, Prince Patrick, Princess Penelope, and Princess Patsy.

Then, we had a pillow fight. I think this was their favorite part.

They were allowed to bring a stuffed animal that started with the letter P. We had a penguin and puppy.   We also had pretzels and punch as a snack while we watched a short episode on WordWorld.

My next class is one of our lower levels made up of elementary and middle school students. We are reading the book Freckle Juice this session. If any of you are familiar with this book, you know that the main character really wants freckles, so he gets a recipe for freckle juice drinks it, thinking it will give him freckles.

So, of course, we had to make freckle juice in class. 

Because I have them every other day, I told them I would make it and drink it on the day before this lesson so they could see what would happen. So, before class, I had Teaven face paint some freckles on my face. When the students saw me, they were shocked that it actually worked, but weren't completely convinced. I took them to Teaven, who told them that I tried to wash my face, but they wouldn't come off. That worked. Some of the students refused to drink it because they thought they would get freckles. Hilarious.

Here are the ingredients:

-grape juice

-vinegar

-mustard

-mayonnaise

-mustard

-ketchup

-salt and pepper

-juice from one lemon

-a speck of onion

Sounds delicious, right? The students worked in 3 groups to create their own recipe because the recipe in the book does not give specific measurements for each ingredient.

Looks pretty nasty, huh?

 I'm pretty sure theirs tasted like pure pepper because they added at least 1/2 cup of pepper.

According to the girls, theirs was actually pretty good. 

As you can see, it was a pretty fun day. The only negative part was the nasty stench that lingered in my room for the next 3 classes. 

Running

Last night, I went running for (I'm ashamed to admit it) the first time in a long time... probably close to a month. tsk tsk. Anyways, I decided to listen to a podcast during my run. There was one from The Village Church that I wanted to listen to, so I thought "what the heck." Before I started, I was almost positive that I would get bored and wind up changing to music halfway through. However, I was presently surprised. I really enjoyed it and felt it made it slightly easier to run.

You see, I don't know about you but I am the type of person who will constantly look at the clock or wonder how much farther to go.

Ok, only 2 more minutes. I can do it. 

Half a mile to go. Don't stop.

Last night, though, I started the podcast and told myself to keep running until it was over. I found it nice to be able to focus my mind on something other than the same songs I always play or how much farther I have to go. It was a breeze (read: slightly less difficult than usual). Although I had my moments where I wondered how much time was left, they did not come as often, and it was refreshing to use that time to learn and glorify God.

So, I highly recommend you try it. You might find you like it. I ran tonight with my same old mix of Justin Bieber, NSYNC, and Lady Gaga, and let me tell you, it wasn't as fun. I think I wanted to check the clock every 2 minutes.

Maybe I should run more.