Hear those sleigh bells ringing...

Blessed Christmas break!

After three grueling and emotionally draining weeks I am officially on break!! I am so glad to have a rest and I can't wait to read for fun, bake Christmas cookies, drink endless cups of tea, catch up on Hulu shows, finish my painting, have coffee dates with friends, watch White Christmas (favorite Christmas movie of all time) go to Christmas parties, run, dress up, sleep in, relax, try out Pinterest ideas
(http://pinterest.com/emdrum/ ) and have lots of long wonderful conversations.

Praise the Lord for a rest because this fifth grade teacher is weary!

Dabbling in Theatre

So, Yesterday I was helping out with a theatre rehearsal of "Oprah's Favorite Things" and I stepped in as Oprah because the actress playing her didn't show up. It was great, we the heartthrob Santa Clause on the show and everyone in the audience got presents. This was just a rehearsal mind you, but after it was over the students suggested that I play Oprah in the real performance. Can you imagine that?? A white Oprah supported by an all black cast...I couldn't stop laughing just thinking about it!!

Tough Times

Wednesday night my car got broken into while my mom and I were eating dinner out. We got back to the car after a lovely dinner of shrimp and grits and found glass all over the place and my school bag missing.
In that one bag was:


New Macbook Pro (full of music, Africa pictures, and countless hours worth of lesson plans)
Paycheck (which was quickly canceled)
Digital camera (also full of pictures)
Wallet (driver's license, debit cards <already used by the time I canceled them> insurance cards, voter registration, and various and sundry store credits)


Yup, they got a lot! I bet they were celebrating when they saw this jackpot! Its been a tough week...just dramatic and draining. The main thing that it upsetting is the time lost....so many lesson plans!! God is good though and I am so glad that my hope doesn't lie in material possessions. Nevertheless, its a draining and rough thing to deal with in the middle of teaching and working 50-60 hour weeks.


Praises in this situation...I took the journal I've written in this whole school year out of that same bag that morning. Praise the Lord it wasn't stolen!!
They didn't steal my GPS or my new car!!


Prayers are greatly appreciated!! 


“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and rust do not destroy, and where thieves can not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:19-21

Enjoying Fall

                               

"I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house.
So I spend almost all the daylight hours in the open air.       -  Nathaniel Hawthorne




Last Saturday I enjoy a wonderful day hike in NC. A good 4 1/2 miles, deep conversations, an expansive view from the top and 2 giant honey crisp apples made for a perfect day!

Practically Perfect!

A huge benefit of teaching is I get to have an audience whenever I want one! I also get to dress up for Halloween!! I've always been a fan of Halloween solely because it gives me an excuse to break from the ordinary and dress up! I had so much fun as Mary Poppins on Monday!

(Thankfully most of my kids got it, though a few thought I was nanny Mcphee)

I made the hat using a 79 cent doll hat from Hobby Lobby that I spray painted and glued flowers to. The skirt was curticy of J.B. who made it for her role in the crucible. The lace "top" was actually a dress that I wore underneath the skirt. The red bow-tie was just a scrap of red ribbon tied in a bow and pinned to my shirt.

Wait, I did not teach that...

As written on a conservation poster that my students did to wrap up a unit on conservation and pollution:

"Obama wouldn't want you to pollute."

Sick Days

I had Bronchitis this week. Two days away from school. It was the strangest thing not to be with my kids and to know someone else was teaching them. "My kids" see how easily it slips out? I now have 46 kids, each crazy and wonderful. Each with their own needs and complications. Each at a different place in this whole learning continum. Its wild. I really can not believe I have been teaching these wonderful students for over 9 weeks. I am their teacher. I missed them for those 2 days that I did grading in bed and read children's stories. I went back and it took the last two days of the week to settle again. My little friends had to get used to me again and tell me all the horror stories of what happened and who got in a fight with who and who got suspended and who stole my candy, etc. Seriously the big event was that someone broke into my treasure chest and stole every single one of the 2 year old Dum Dums that are saved for elite prize winners. It was quite the outrage!

New Friends

On Friday, I took my students on the long awaited "good behavior" field trip. My principal is passionate about rewarding the kids who do a good job and taking them on field trips. When I asked what we should do with the other 67% of my class I was told to tell them to stay home. Oh ok, thats new. : /

Anyway after much confusion (including the destination of our trip being cancelled at 3:00 the day before and me having to completely come up with a new plan) we did go on a lovely field trip! The kids were great and everyone had a nice day. Near the end, we were hanging out a park when a girl came up to me and asked if I was Emily Drummond. Well, yeah I am...
Turns out she and I had e-mailed about possibly rooming together some months ago, she recognized the name in our school bus, and looked me up on Facebook to make sure it was me. I am so glad she did!!
We ended up getting together with another sweet friend on Saturday for some shopping, cooking (a delicious broccoli and spinach frittata with garlic roasted potatoes) and movie watching.

Have you ever hung out with a group and gone away encouraged? uplifted and refreshed? Thats what this was like. I haven't hung out with girl friends like that since I moved. I hang out with people, but no relationships like this. I didn't realize how much I missed it. Going from college where I was surrounded by like-minded girls to here where I haven't had any. It was so wonderful to have uplifting conversations that went past the surface. These were godly girls that I could actually talk to! Oh, I am so blessed!
I have 2 sweet girl friends!!
And so the journey continues...

Do ever just want to cry? Just let the tears flow? Wallow? drink tea and eat toast? pretend life doesn't go on? listen to the rain and really sad music?
Thats me right now. No particular reason...just gloomy.

Some Snapshots

So, what have we been doing these past few weeks you ask.

We've used colored counters to learn how to graph raw data.

My classroom got a "college corner" in which Erskine plays a prominent part!










 We studied clouds and made some awesome cloud projects featuring Cirrus, Stratus, and Cumulus clouds.






My fifth graders made some phenomenal Ecosystem projects. They were each assigned an ecosystem (Ocean, Estuary, Forest, Grassland, or Lakes/Ponds) and they build their own ecosystem that clearly showed the biotic and abiotic factors.

The students also put together food chains that were specific to each of the ecosystems.















We studied expanded notation by writing down expanded notation on strips of paper then folding them to show the original number. This really helps students to conceptualize the "expanding" part of expanded notation.






And now, my crowning glory!!                 The Wall of Science!!


(where everyone in the whole school gets to see what we've been doing!!

These are just some of the beautiful projects done by my students.

Insanity

Today was absolutely insane! No really...wild things just kept happening.
I can't really tell you everything because this is the internet, but ask me some day and we''ll have story time over a cup of coffee, ok?

For now, I am exhausted and drained. To bed!

A Taste of Fall

Yesterday, I helped to chaperone a field trip to Brevard, NC for the advanced chorus and theater students. Despite the fact that I had to wake up at 5:00 am on a Saturday, it was nice to get out of town for a day, relive some choir tour bus memories, get to know the high schoolers better, help critique some monologues that are really coming along, hear students sing beautiful music, hang out with other teachers, and of course enjoy weather in 50s!!

One of the moments that struck me the most was when driving up the mountains we told the students that their ears might pop from the air pressure. A good many had no idea what we were talking about. They screamed and wondered at what "ear popping" meant. They had NEVER been to the mountains before and had their ears pop. Many we found out had never been out of their small town. Such a small thing that I've taken for granted my whole life. I've grown up with a vast range of experiences that these kids have never experienced. They don't have a reference point for common things. This trip wasn't just about working on their musical/theatre skills, it was about getting them out of Lake City, taking them to a new place, broadening their view of the world, telling them about college, letting them see a beautiful concert hall and organ, pushing them outside of comfort zone, strongly critiquing their work, and in a very real way pushing them to a new level. What a day, what an opportunity.

Meet Riley!

Meet my new car. His name is Riley!
I hadn't really planned to buy a car today, but we were out looking and we came across a great deal...then there I was an hour later making the largest purchase of my life thus far. I knew it was going to happen sooner or later, but wow. After a bit of wheeling and dealing and some number crunching, I am the very proud owner of a 2009 Hyundai Sonata. Red wouldn't have been my original color of choice, but its certainly growing on me! The Erskine sticker goes on tomorrow!

Big grown-up stuff! Big purchase! 

Big day!!

Noise

There was so much noise today. My head is about to explode. The kids were unbelievably talkative today, everything was a joke, everything was laughable and hilarious.
Many feelings were hurt.
I was doing damage control all day. Now the band is practicing right outside and the drums mixed with the yelling students outside my door make me want to put my head down and cover my ears. Some days are just too much!

Tobacco Festival

I guess its part of the Lake City experience to go to the Tobacco Festival, eat chicken on a stick, almost get blown away by a helicopter dropping candy, walk around the Tobacco Museum, munch on funnel cakes, buy a mini bamboo plant, and chat with new friends. What a memory!

Estimating Raisins

Raisins + Math = A Fun Mess

1. Estimate how many raisins are in your box without opening it.
2. Open your box and count the top layer of raisins. Re-estimate how many are in the box total.
3. Dump out your raisins and count them all.
4. Record how many raisins each group had.
5. What was the maximum number of raisins found by a group?
6. What was the minimum number of raisins found?
7. What was the range? Subtract the minimum number from the maximum number.
8. What was the mode (most frequently found number)?

Now clean up all those raisins you dropped on the floor, oh wait they're all over the seat of your pants and your shoes and our floor. Cool, I hope you learned something!!

Good Day

Encouraging day! So yes, I live in a new city and I know very few people. Today however was probably the best Saturday so far! I slept late (9:00am!!), drank coffee while watching shows on Hulu, listened to a great John Piper sermon, took more than 5 minutes to get dressed, went to a coffee shop and did significant lesson planning, and spent the rest of the day hanging out with a fellow teacher playing scrabble, eating Mexican, and talking to strangers in checkout lines. Praise the Lord for these little encouragements!

The Case of the Missing Pencils

So, I buy a lot of pencils. I buy them, I give them away, they never come back...end of story. Yeah its a real problem. What am I going to do? Tell the young learners that no they may not have a pencil and they must sit there and write nothing/not take the test just so that they learn to come prepared...some say yes. I just can't do it. I've tried..I've been tough..to no avail. Anyway I'm spending a fortune on pencils and there has to be a better way. My solution: make all my pencils into flags (see below) that say things like "give this back," "don't take me!" or "I belong to Ms. Drummond" I have become very possessive as you can see, but I don't know what else to do. I'd rather go broke another way besides  buying pencils. :)

My Routine

Wake up before the sun, work a 10 1/2 hour day, drive 35 minutes home, run a couple miles, eat, plan tomorrow, go to sleep, repeat...

Tales from the Field

 Here is my classroom. I found out at 2:00pm the day before school started that the portables were not going to be ready. (they still aren't) This was my view of the classroom before I got to move things around. To the right of the yellow wall/divider is the cafeteria. Yes, that is a portable basketball hoop in my room :)

• Below is what we came out with and basically (minus a few changes since then) what the room looks like now.

Quotes of the Week

• "Ms. Drummon yo feet are blushin'. They all red.

• "Can we please stay in your class, we love it here"

• "I'm sorry, I'll have a better day tomorrow."

• Ms. Drumm....Drummenson...Drum..er...."

• Child: "You remind me of Karmin" 

         Me: "Who?"
         Child: " You know, that rapper on youtube?".....yeah that made my day!!!

Watch her here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khCokQt--l4


Here are 2 projects that we've worked on...the first was an introductory science lesson. We're working on inquiry skills so observation is big. Knowing that science is a method..a way of knowing and learning is important. They drew pictures and wrote a description of what they wanted to learn about this year. (part of a modified KWL chart)

The second was their first math project. I made an example, but basically it was a poster/paper that used numbers to describe themselves to the class. They had to include:

A picture (drawn or photograph)
A one digit number
A two digit number
A three digit number
A four digit number
The number had to relate to them

Those are the adventures so far! Every day brings something new!

3 days

Wow!! I've been a teacher for three days. 

I've woken up at 5:15am, stood for 8 hours straight, told 42 wonderful children that I love them, given hugs, taken recess, scolded, praised, cleaned up rooms, run across the playground, talked over the noise, whispered  requests, filed stacks of papers, laughed, dramatized, written on the board, passed out papers, listened to projects, assigned work, straightened up lines, demanded their best, chatted with parents, made requests of the dean, answered letters, told kids "no," told them "yes," given my all and fallen into bed at 9:00pm.

I have had a wonderful 3 days. They've been challenging for sure but they are more sweet than I can say!

Thank you for your prayers!!

My Future Home

with my future children. ...all 50+ of them. Fifty kids who will show up in just a couple a days. Yet these portables still have gaping holes down the middle and 2 of the 6  have still not arrived! Am I freaking out you ask?? Well, a little, but what can I do? We may well have our class meet in the cafeteria for a little while. Isn't it funny though? I had all these grand plans of the perfectly decorated and themed classroom, glowing and clean for the first day of school. Instead, I might be meeting anywhere... most likely just a very new and very empty portable. God does that...he takes our big, self centered plans and teaches us instead to rely on Him, trust Him, and rest in yet another area of our lives. I'm excited though...even though things are different than expected. My students come in days and I get to meet them, teach them, love them, be challenged by them, and somehow in all of this

 teach for my very first year. 

Isn't that wonderful? 

Quite Distressed

 An old chair that I bought for only $2 at a thrift store this past weekend. I had been wanting to "distress" something and I though this would be the perfect opportunity.


1.The chair was a bit wiggly so I screwed an "L" bracket under the seat which totally anchored the seat. It is now quite comfortable! I then sanded the chair well and gave it an even coat of spray primer.

2. After the primer dried, I sprayed only key areas (edges and corners) with an ivory satin coat. These are the areas I wanted to show through when I distressed the chair. I let this dry.

3. I evenly sprayed the whole chair with a deep blue enamel. After the enamel dried, I went over the whole chair with a fine grain sandpaper. I smoothed the whole chair, but focused on edges and corners.

Ta-Da!!! My beautiful new chair that only cost $2.

Books!!

All these for under $5!! I'm on the hunt to fill my math and science library and today I visited several thrift stores. I was very happy to find a great selection! With a few more trips like this I could have a well-rounded collection! I wiped them off and fixed ragged edges with clear packing tape. Some of these books would go for over $20 in book stores, but I payed no more than 75 cents for each and as little as 10 cents for some. Hurray for bargain shopping!!

I'm employed!

I accepted a job. I am gainfully employed as a fourth and fifth grade math and science teacher! I am so excited but I am also heavily relying on God as I move to a new city with no friends, start a new job, and live on my own! So many new and potentially wonderful things!

Tomorrow!

Doesn't that word hold promise? Its always fresh and new and wide open.

Tomorrow is the day that I decide about jobs. Where will I live? Where will I work? I have an inkling where it will be...I can see God leading in that direction.
However we'll see what phone calls happen and how training looks...
In other news, today was my last day with the two sweet girls I nanny. They were sad but we cheered up over Avocado frozen yogurt. (its actually my all time favorite flavor even though it sounds gross)

The Painting is Complete!!

I'm done! My very first painting of consequence. Based on a picture I took in Uganda of a tea field out the window of a bus. My lovely friends Sarah helped me with paint mixing, artistic decisions, and canvas selection. Today I drank Ugandan tea in honor of the occasion!

Its Official

I have an official offer to teach fourth and fifth grade math and science at Lake City College Preparatory Academy. I have until Wednesday to decide. Do I move to a totally new city where I know no one, have no church, no friends, and no housing? Blows my mind that I could move in a week.
Already making some contact with churches there and working on the housing situation...
Updates to come!

Waterfall of Decisions

Chris Martin sings that every tear is a waterfall. I had one of those this week, no really I did. It seems that nothing at all has happened on the job front until this week. Then suddenly, BAM a waterfall of things rushing through my mind! A waterfall of tears trying to wade through it all and a whole lot of decisions to be made. (Also, I really love that song :) I had three interviews this week, one on Skype to Uganda and two in person. I've been offered the job in Uganda and one in Lake City, SC. Where is Lake City you ask..good question. I've only been there once and I'm still unsure..there were a lot of potatoes, corn, and tobacco. I actually looked at an appt. complex that was IN a corn field. yeah...

Anyway, Africa. I'm drawn to it in conversations, pictures, music, and certainly in my job hunt. This was an offer at a Christian international school that teaches over half nationals. I want to go so badly. I ache sometimes when I think how badly I want to go. I also respect my parents greatly and i know that they are given wisdom. They don't want me to go, they feel its unsafe, unknown, and too soon. I agree, yet... I would go tomorrow if I could. I'm very emotional about Africa. Its dear to my heart. Anyway, if God wants me there, I will go. Simple as that.

I hope to have until Wednesday to give an answer on the Lake City job, then I will have heard about the other one. I'm so glad its not just me all on my own making these decisions. Stay in the word, get counsel, pray about it, and just do something. (Kevin DeYoung)