Almost Over

The Spring Semester is almost over! I am very excited for Summer Semester... my last hard math class!!! As you may know I am planning to get my Bachelors degree in Elementary Education. Recently I have decided to add to that by getting my Masters in Communication. I just love my speech class; I have a wonderful teacher... she is really hard but I have learned a lot. I plan to become a public speaker later in life so I think it would be very beneficial to me.

For those of you who don't know I am waitressing at the IHoP Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings. I really like it. I get to work with cool people and don't have to work on Sundays. I think I could waitress until I am done with school. So if you are hungry come see me at the IHoP! The Strawberry Banana Pancakes ROCK!!!!

I have recently made some new friends and am enjoying spending time with them. I have also attended a few Mid-Singles Adult church activities and have met some lovely girls and look forward to becoming friends. It’s been nice this semester to have a little free time for friends.

Sunday school singing time has been going great. Last week the kids were hopped up on their Easter candy and when I walked in the primary room the kids were literally running in circles around the room. My singing time activity was for kids to come up one at a time and pick a plastic egg with a song in it from the Easter basket. I quickly realized this wasn't going to be enough since they were so active so I changed the activity to include hide n seek on each song. Two kids would come up and one would go out of the room while the other hide the sticker somewhere in the room and then the other kid would come back in and we would sing until he found it. The closer he or she got to the sticker the louder we sang. It went over well and the kids had a lot of fun. Next Sunday we will be learning two new songs, one for the End of the year Primary program and one for the Mother's day program.

Well that’s my life in an Easter egg shell... school, work, church and a little fun. I hope you all enjoyed the Easter Holiday!

Love Lanie

I Love To See The Temple!

Woooohoooo I am 31! No matter how old I get I will always love my birthday. Its a day to celebrate ME! I get all the attention and everyone makes me feel special. My sweet mom made me a pineapple upside down cake for the first time in 20 years. It is my favorite cake and I was just thrilled. There is a reason she hasn't made it for me in 20 years... I decided to have a food fight with the last one she made. I did have it cleaned up before my parents got home but when it came right down to it I just couldn't lie to my parents about where the cake went. I also got a homemade Icecream cake from Kara; it was really yummy. It was fun spending time with everyone.
I receive many wonderful gifts this year but the most wonderful birthday present was making covenants with my Heavenly Father. Tuesday, February 24th I took out my Endowments in the Rexburg temple; it was closed on my birthday February 23rd. It was the most wonderful day of my life. I was surrounded by family, friends and the spirit. The next week I went to the Idaho Falls temple. It was lovely. I hope to visit every temple in the US.

Sent Back To 1st Grade…But Not Like Billy Madison!

Friday morning I went to Elementary School. Mrs. B let me help with her 1st grade class. I was a little nervous at first but it wasn’t long before I got into the swing of things. Mrs. B introduced me to the class and explained what we were going to be doing while I passed out the Y and Z worksheets. Mrs. B called each kid to her desk one at a time for reading assessments. I went around the room helping the kids with their worksheets. Making sure they were doing them correctly and quizzing them on the Z or Y word that they had to write on the worksheet. The ones who didn’t know the word I helped to sound it out.

Once they were done with the worksheets I passed out kids news and read the cover to them. It was about animals and bugs that blend into there environment. I asked the kids if they could tell me a bug or animal that blends into its environment. Almost every kid raised his hand. They were just so excited to participate and it warmed my heart. I think that is when I fell in love with 1^st grade. They gave really good answers; one boy said “a preying mantis”. I thought that was the best answer. Then I had them open up the newspaper and asked them if they could see the animal in the red picture and so on with each color. They got most of them but a few were hard and I helped them find the animal or bug. After we went through the 6 pictures I had them turn to the back page for the matching exercise. They had to match the word color to the color picture. I went around and helped some of them sound out the word colors so they could match up the pictures.

Once they were done I had a contest to see what row could be the quickest and quietest putting their papers into their box. Each child has his own box with his name on it by the door. Then I gave the winning team each one skittle.

I followed that with a story about a man’s winter hat that had blown away. A rabbit found the hat and made his home in it. Then a skunk came along and the rabbit didn’t want to make the skunk mad so he let him move into the hat with him. I asked the kids what happens when a skunk gets mad or scared. They said “Stink.” I said “that’s right skunks spray & stink and no one wants that.” Then a porcupine came along and moved into the hat with the rabbit and skunk and they moved as far back in the hat as they could to avoid the porcupine. I asked the class what porcupines do when you get to close to them. They said “Poke.” I didn’t get to finish the story because it was time for PE.

Mrs. B had them line up at the door and fold their arms. Then we all marched down to the gym. While we waited for the gym teacher we played a little rhythm game called who stole the cookie from the cookie jar. It was fun and the kids enjoyed it. When the PE teacher came in we left the kids with her and went back to the classroom to visit for 40 minutes until they were done.

After we brought the kids back to the classroom I passed out a workbook to each kid and explained what we were going to be doing. Then I went around and made sure they were copying the two sentences correctly and once they were done they could start coloring the picture that went with the sentences. I told them the best picture would get one skittle as a prize. Some of the kids tried to start coloring first but I steered them back to following my directions of writing the sentences first. They were so wonderful and obeyed me. I was so proud of them. After that it was lunch time and so I headed home.

I just LOVED it!!! I can’t wait to be a teacher. It was so much fun. I can’t wait until next Friday so I can do back again. It is my only day where I don’t have school and I normally work in the evenings so it is the only day I can volunteer. Mrs. B is a wonderful teacher; I am glad she is mentoring me. Well folks that is all for now. Tootles.

Lanie

Dean's List

I received a letter from Idaho State University and was pleasantly surprised by the contents. As you may have guessed by the title of my blog it informed me that I made the Dean’s List for Summer Semester. I just thought it was so cool to get a letter from them acknowledging my hard work.

Last night I had a strange dream that teachers from Summer Semester took my A’s back and gave me B’s instead. I was so glad to wake up and find that it was only a bad dream.

School is going pretty well so far. Very busy and a lot more work this semester. I am kind of glad my job has only been scheduling me for 3 days a week. Well speaking of work I better get to it. I have a paper due tomorrow. Over and Out…

Lanie