Actually Summer!

Hello all!
As many of you may know, I recently began to doubt that summer would ever get here!!!
Well, today was Memorial Day, it was 90 something degrees and I had a picnic in the park. So I guess it really is summer. Other signs that it is not still winter: I am all done with school and all my grades are in. I moved out of the dorms and after a brief stay with my Aunt and Uncle on Long Island, I moved into my summer sublet in Brooklyn. Summer schedule has started at work and most of my babysitting jobs will start up in June. I have also had actual free time! I went to a museum! I saw the Alexander McQueen exhibit, Savage Beauty at the Met and it was amazing. I saw a MOVIE, Bridesmaids (very funny!), with my friend Pat who won free movie tickets for a short film he made.


Today, like I said, several of us got together in Prosepct Park and had a picnic. Prospect Park is a big park in Brooklyn only a 20 minute walk from my new apartment. It was designed by that guy Olmsted who also designed Central Park, so it is very nice. EVERYONE in Brooklyn was also having a picnic there or even a cookout on these little grills that everyone has. I made a pasta salad for my freids and we also had a bunch of fruit and stuff. We found a very since spot in the shade and ending up staying there for over 6 hours!

Now... I know a lot of you are curious about my new apartment!! To start with the neighborhood is pretty nice. Very residential, with more stores a few blocks over. Its near an expressway and my windows do face the street so I get a bit of noise, but it doesn't bother me at all. In fact, I can't sleep if its TOO quiet, so its perfect!

My building is in a row of four story buildings. There are two apartments on each floor. So here is a picture of the front. My room is on the second floor on the right (I have 2 windows)

And then, here is the inside view of my windows!

So, as you can see, my room is pretty spacious! I had so much fun moving in! But this is the best part of my room: the fireplace! It is non-working obviously but its a beautiful decoration. I am using it as a bookshelf!

Well, my roommates are also very nice. I have only really gotten to know one of them because the other two are away right now. We just recently discovered that their is a BEAUTIFUL back yard to our building, but we don't seem to have access to it. We are going to find out more. There is a fire pit, a grill, tables and chairs, and a  hammock. I think we have to befriend the people on the first floor.

Well, I hope everyone;s summers are also off to a nice start! Stay cool!

Summer Plans

Hello everyone!
I just turned in my final assignment! I'm done for the semster!!
Just wanted to update everyone on a few things.
I found a great place to live for the summer. A very big room in an apartment in a brownstone in Park Slope South. Its a nice neighborhood near Prospect Park in Brooklyn. I'll have my own room but there are three other college students living in the apartment.
I'll be working at my work-study job at Coles Sports Center and a few people have hired my for occasional evening babysitting.
A lot of  my friends will be staying in the city over the summer too. This is really the first time I've been in New York City for more than like a week where I did not have a ton of school work holding me down. I plan to enjoy every minute of it!
Tomorrow I move out of the dorms and I am going to stay on Long Island for a week until I can move into my summer apartment on May 21st.

To update everyone on the past few weeks: my allergies have been going crazy, I finally got a NYC library card... and I saw an interview/talk with Daniel Radcliffe at the 92nd Street Y!!!!! (sorry there no pics allowed, but hes short and adorable)

I'll probably write again when I move into my new place and I'll post some pics!

Rachel

Spring-ish

Hello everyone!
It is almost the end of the semester and I am way overdue for an update. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of interesting stuff to update you on! Since my last post, there was a lot more snow and terrible weather. Winter would just not end! We have finally started having some nice spring weather in the last week or so. Still, we have cold, rainy, wet days every week. Today, for example, it was in the 40s and rainy and the wind literally blew my hair out of the bun that I had it in! But I do think its safe to say that it is kind of spring. I put away my big winter coat and took out my summer dresses.



School has just been so busy. All of our professors have given us way to much work. In some classes, we've had to ask them to lessen our work load! There are about 40 students in childhood education and we all have the same classes, just with different professors. So, if enough of us get together and complain, we can usually get things changed! Still, there is a lot of work that we have to do.
Student teaching this semester has been a struggle. I've learned a lot of things and taught some really great lessons. However, there have been a lot of problems in the classroom I am in and I just overall am not too crazy about this whole school. I am actually able to find the time to write this blog because there is no public school for the next week and a half! It is their spring break! I still have all my classes and receptionist work, but no student teaching and no babysitting! However, all of our professors know about this break, so all of our big projects are due this week and next week!

Oh! one really cool thing I did was being an extra in my friends senior movie that he wrote and is directing for his class. It was so fun! One of my friends from student teaching came too. We were mourners at a funeral! I wore a cool hat. It premiers this summer.














Oh! Also, most people probably know this, but I got accepted into Kappa Delta Pi which is an international education honors society! We had an initiation ceremony and only a few other juniors got in.

ok, I have to get back to homework.

School, Snow

More details of my frist week,
After my 8 hours of windowless class on Monday, I had a pretty short day Tuesday. I worked at my NYU Athletics job at Coles for a few hours and then went to my Spanish class. The class is good because I have it with my friend and suite mate Dasha but its terrible because its going to be the hardest class ever. The class is about reading literature and poetry and stuff and analyzing it and writing about it. The would be lame anyway but all this reading, discussing, and writing is in Spanish :( I would never take this class but its a requirement to take the other classes I need to have a Spanish minor, which I still might do.
So that was all for Tuesday :D I will babysit on some Tuesdays later on this semester.

Today was my first day of student teaching!
I'm at a wonderful school in Brooklyn. PS 10. Its actually pretty close to the school I was at last semester.
We met with the principal this morning and she told us all the awesome stuff the school has been doing to improve over the past few years. It was just an average school but a few dedicated teachers and the old pricipal applied for lots off grants and now its an amazing school that everyone wants to go to. It is a barrier free school which means that is is completely acceceable for anyone with limited mobility (think wheelchairs). They have the most beautiful library that I've ever seen in a school... or maybe anywhere. Its really nice.
I'm in whats called a Collaborate Team Teaching Class, or CTT.  Basically this is a class with one general education teacher and one special education teacher but around the same number of students. Up to 40% of the students in the class are in special education. This is a really innovative setup that I have always been really interested.
Quick Lesson:  Special Education is a service, not a place. Students are required by law to be in the general education curriculum as much as possible with any need supports. This is called the Least Restrictive Environment. So this is a really good way to do that!

In this classroom, the kids are completely integrated. The kids with special ed services are never separated from the others. I was there all day and I have no idea which kids are in what category! I'll learn because I can look at their records.
So there are 2 teachers, like I said, Sarah and Jimmy. They are so nice! They were really welcoming and enthusiastic. I absolutely love the way they work together and teach the students.
Oh and its a 2nd grade class.

After being in student teaching all day, I had 2 other classes- Teaching Elementary School Math and Language and Reading Instruction. The amount of work we have to do for those two classes is unreal.

Tomorrow I have Spanish again and then my first day of babysitting.
Also its snowing a lot.
Wish me luck!

Monday: 8 hours of classes

Hey yall,
I thought I would surprise you by blogging 2 days in a row! Surprise!
Today was the 1st day of classes. It was 7 degrees. The bus didn't come so I walked to class. I was still on time though because it was a really early bus. It was an NYU bus and they dont come here that often.

My first class was from 12:30 to 3:00 and it was the one about Students with Severe and Multiple Disabilities. The professor was very intense but I liked him. He paused and said INTERESTING really dramatically every time he said something interesting. He's done a lot of cool stuff and is currently in a law suit over some special education laws.
My next three classes were all in the same room with the same group of people.
The first one was Classroom Assessment where we learn about student testing, assessment and evaluation- specifically testing students for special education.
Then we had our Integrated Seminar about student teaching. We had a new professor for some reason (we were supposed to have the same lady as last semester- this one was a guy but he was really nice anyway).
The last class was Integrating Curriculum in Science, Health and Math. Its going to be a lot of work but should be pretty fun because honestly elementary school level science is pretty fun. Each week we have to write and perform a simple experiment with things we can find in our kitchen or easily buy at the grocery store.
That class got out at 8 and I came home and had dinner and then we had a floor meeting in the dorm.
now I'm super tired but since I don't have any homework to do right this second (its all due next Monday) I thought I would do this instead.

New Year, New Semester

Hi everyone,

As part of my New Years Resolution, I am going to try to blog more often.
I am going to try to post once a week.
Please feel free to call, text, or email me and complain if I am not blogging enough!

I have been back in New York City for a week now. All my roommates and most of our other friends are back too.
I went back to the school that I student taught at last semester and went on a field trip with them. It was one of the most tiring field trips I've ever been on! We went to the Queens Museum of Art. The class was supposed to have a bus but did not get one, so we had to take the subway! Three different trains and a pretty lengthy walk from the station to the museum. It only seemed lengthy because it had snowed 5 inches the night before and it was still freezing cold. The kids were pretty good, if they ever complained the teacher told them that they were New Yorkers and to act like it and stop complaining about 5 inches of snow. haha.



Well I will be student teaching again this semester. At another school in Brooklyn called PS10.
I'll be in a third grade class for 2 full days a week.

I'll also be taking the following classes:

• Principles and Strategies for Teaching Students with Severe and Multiple Disabilities
• Classroom Assessment (I think this is another special education class)
• Integrated Seminar II(talking about student teaching, learning really usefull things like what to do when a kid throws up) 
•  Integrated Curriculum in Science, Health, and Social Studies 
• Critical Approaches to Text and Cultural Analysis (Spanish)
• Language and Reading Instruction II
• Teaching Elementary School Mathematics II

I also work at the NYU Athletics again, 2 mornings a week. And I start my babysitting job on Thursdays and some Tuesdays.

So. I will be super busy! But, like I said, I am going to try to blog more anyway.