britt & craig

meet brittany and craig west. i lived with brittany for a year during our time together at nc state university. she married craig in may of 2007 and is now due with their first child in november! i enjoyed having some time to capture their last few weeks as an expecting couple! i can't wait to meet little speirs very soon!

writing journals

Growing up, I always loved Math and Science. I can take a formula and plug in some numbers, but I always struggled with the whole, "be creative and use your imagination," request from teachers. Reading and Writing were two things that I had to really focus on if I wanted to succeed in those areas at all. Yes, I eventually grew to love reading because I realized that I could learn so many new things from other people through books. But writing continues to be less than enjoyable for me.

Over the past weeks of learning about my students and who they are and what they enjoy, I have noticed that about 4 of them love Math/Science and the rest love Reading/Writing. Although I'm sad that most of them don't enjoy what I like doing so much, I have been able to learn so much from their love for writing just in this short time. I want to share with you 2 different writings from their writing journals that I collect and read almost everyday. I've found that their entries can make me smile and laugh uncontrollably, but some also bring tears to my eyes and sadden my heart.

This was written after being told to do a free choice writing, meaning that they could choose the topic and style of writing. This entry is called: "Miss Fallis"

"Miss Fallis is my teacher for 5th grade. She is always cheerful and wears silver jewlry. She is skinny and has light colored skin. She has short, dark hair and bright colored eyes. When she rings the wand she always expects us to listen to the speaker. When we follow the rules she gives our team a stick. I love Miss Fallis!"

This entry was the result of the prompt, "Tell me about something that happened yesterday."

"I found out that my brother had a kidney tumor. When my mom got home, the first thing they did was cry in my dad's arms. Then, she came in my room and said, "Roman and I went to the hospital and they said that ROman has a kidney tumor." When she said that, my heart sank on top of my stomach and tears ran down my face like waterfalls. At that moment my dad came in and hugged me and said, 'We'll get through this.' I believed him."

Life is sweet.

a first time for everything

On September 6th, I shot my first wedding by myself. It was fun! The couple were married outside on the Cape Fear River in Wilmington. Here are a few images from the day:

the bride and groom by the river

one of the sweet flower girls

the beautiful cake!

this is my life...

...and i LOVE it.

of course i wanted to put a picture of every single one of my kids, but i decided that i would just pick one that depicted what i get to enjoy every weekday. meet johnny (code name). he loves to play sports, talk about sports, and only sports. but i finally figured out today that he enjoys math and is really good at it. i'm excited to see him excel in this area, and be pushed in other subjects. and i hope that whatever he's doing with his hands is not a gang sign of any sort.

i don't think that my first week and a half of teaching could have been any better. i absolutely love every minute that i'm with my kids. whether i'm ringing my wand (yes, i have a wand and it is amazing) or repeating the same instructions for the eleventh time or shooting half court shots during recess or teaching fractions or reading frindle aloud or making copies or eating lunch in 10 minutes or reading their writing journals late at night...i love it. i guess i thought that after a week or so i would maybe get tired of being there, but honestly, the kids make me want to be there. it's wonderful.

so here are the top 5 reasons i love 5th graders:

5. they don't take your word for it. you have to prove everything to them. including that their teacher played basketball in high school. or that i sometimes wear glasses.
4. they think it's the funniest thing EVER to call me katherine instead of miss fallis. (took care of that one REAL fast)
3. they taught me that 3 pillows, a bean bag, and a rocking chair are the greatest items ever invented.
2. they love to talk. and i love to listen.
1. they aren't scared to be themselves. (wait til they get to middle school...scary)

i'll try to keep you updated with some funny stories that come from my classroom. here's one for now: person # 1 sent a note to person #2 that said, "you're hot." person #2 wrote back and said, "me?" person #1 replied by saying, "yes. who do you like in class?" then i caught them and collected the note. the next day: person #1 wrote a note to person #2 with their phone number written on it. person #2 replied with their number. then i caught them again and had a little chat with both of them. :)

thanks for reading! happy wednesday!