Last Day in Pictures...

I packed up my stuff on Thursday night so that I would be ready to leave straight after school on Friday afternoon...

All that was left in my room on Friday morning... :)

Honora and I in the kitchen....

Erin!!

Taking the role for the last time...

My lovely 4B kids!!!! :) Only 1 child was missing...

Smart moves time....

Playing the times table game...

Maths investigation...

The cake that Joel brought for me and the kids! :)

So my time in Tara is up. It was great and it was difficult all at the same time. I'll definitely miss my kids, but I'm so glad to be home again! :)

Final days....

Some pictures from my last days in Tara... gonna miss my lovely kids....

Helping kids with their picture books....

Today, one of my girls brought in a cake for me to say goodbye. She insisted that she made it herself... and I believed her. Haha. I decided to share it with all the kids at morning tea. The cake was so so hard that I had to use both hands on the knife to cut it up!! Joel laughed and laughed! It did taste good though, and it definitely was the thought that counts! :)

Maths bingo and times table time.... :)

Guided reading groups... my lovely cheetahs....

Mid-week dinner at the Commercial with some of the other teachers....

Less than 100 hours left!!!

I am so excited for the end of this week! Monday can be ticked off of my list of days left before I come home now. :)
Actually, the children made me reluctant to leave today. Either they were having a great day, or they have realised how little time they have left to impress me, but their behaviour today was so good I almost thought I had the wrong kids. Haha. When I lined them up for assesmbly, they listened. They sat quietly through assembly, they listened to the roll without rudeness. They even played games outside in Smartmoves without fighting or calling over me. They worked with dedication on their stories for 45 solid mins, they listened attentively during maths and completed their work. They even kept up the good behaviour after lunch and WOW! I am a happy teacher! :)
If every day were as good as today, they would be a delight to teach. When they listen, I'm able to lighten up with them and laugh about things. We just have so much more fun together. I have really enjoyed them though, even on the difficult days. Each little personality is so delightfully cute. I've been trying to think of a suitable farewell gift for each one. :)
I will spend my evening tonight creating bingo boards... sigh... haha.

6 days to go!!!

I know I haven't posted on here for almost a week now. I guess life got a little too hectic.
My week hasn't been the best, but it's improving now. Mum and Anna came to visit on Monday night and stayed through until Thursday morning. That was great and they cheered me up immeasurably! :)
I'm missing home pretty badly now though, and just can't wait for internship to be over. 6 weeks away from everything known seems an awfully long time.

Mum, Anna and I with our early morning faces... :)

The kids have also been pretty tricky this last week. Joel has been out of the room more and they have been giving me all their wonderful tricks. They spent quite a lot of time in detention. Hopefully next week will be better. On Friday morning I thought I was going to have to take the day off. I woke up dizzy and weak... almost fainted a couple times... felt very nauseous... and had a sharp pain in my side. Honora helpfully, or unhelpfully, suggested Appendicitis. I made it to school just on the bell and Joel kindly taught all day for me. I'm feeling much better today, so I haven't any idea what caused it. Perhaps I am just too tired.

I've spent today marking assessment and thinking about what I'll teach next week. I'm already starting to think about what I can pack up to come home. Haha. I guess that shows how keen I am to leave. Tomorrow I will be playing violin in church again. :)

Another Sunday...

So this Sunday I played violin in church again in the morning. It's great knowing I can be a part of the church community, even for a short time. All the lovely old people know my name and come and talk to me about their lives. :) I like it. I feel loved and accepted and like I can bring joy to their lives too. 

John and Daphne invited me out to their home again for lunch, because time is running out... only 1 Sunday left in Tara after today. This time I took the battery in my camera!

Here is their lovely back porch/conservatory.... I love it so much. We ate lunch out there in the cool breeze. I felt so completely at peace! :) 

Daphne fussed over me when I told her I hadn't been eating properly and fed me lots of vegies and icecream. :) I was able to share lots of my concerns with her as we cooked lunch. I really enjoy my time with them. I think lunch with them will be my favourite Tara memory. After lunch, I played their piano and had a great time chilling out. :)

John and Daphne :)

Me with Daphne...

This is a wheat field... almost ready for harvesting. The camera doesn't really show up how pretty it looks.

Cars, interviews and Toowoomba...

This past week has been very busy and full of interesting experiences. On Wednesday afternoon, I had my WIMBA conference with some of the other interns placed outside of Brisbane. It was great to hear from everyone and see what others have been up to in their teaching. It's a pretty novel experience using WIMBA...

The kids weren't too bad for the second half of the week. My lessons are going well and Joel seems happy to leave the room fairly regularly and leave them to me. I dealt with a fair amount of fighting over money... some kids have up to $15 at school with them each day! They lend it to each other and then get upset when they can't have the money back again! They continue to amuse me... I'm afraid I laughed at the wrong time on Thursday as I was trying to discipline one boy... I was sitting with the kids on the carpet, teaching something or other, and all of a sudden, one of the kids yells out, "Miss, Tyler's licking your chair!" I look down in annoyance to see that he was in fact licking and chewing on the wooden arm of my chair. I tried so hard to keep a straight face... but I laughed as I told him how revolting it was to put yucky things in your mouth. Then I tried to tell the kids to settle and stop laughing, but they just said, "You're laughing Miss!" Haha...

On Thursday afternoon, I packed my suit and headed off to Toowoomba for my Ed QLD interview on Friday morning. I barely made it out of Tara when my car started misbehaving. I feel like I've had every possible problem with my car over the last couple years; I've blown up the radiator, had the alternator fixed numerous times, had flat batteries... but this time, it was a new problem. YAY. This time something was going wrong with the overdrive function. I won't pretend to know anything about it, for fear of sounding very silly with my very inexpert description of the problem. All I know is that if I drove with my hand on the gearstick, then the car worked properly.

So I drove all the way to Dalby with one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding the gearstick still. If I went over a bump in the road, the overdrive would turn itself off and the car would rev really hard until I wiggled the gearstick again. Haha. It's kind of funny now... but it wasn't at the time. When I arrived in Dalby I drove straight to a mechanic. He took my car for a drive and then told me that he didn't have time to fix it, but that if I gave the stick a bit of a tap everytime it played up, I should get to Toowoomba ok. He didn't exactly boost my confidence, but he gave me the number of a mechanic in Toowoomba to call. So I kept going and made it to Toowoomba. I pretty much leapt from the car when I arrived at Ruth Louden's house. Haha. I was so glad to be with people and escape the silly car. :)

I spent Thursday night with the Louden's. It was so lovely to be in a home again, with people who I knew! It felt like an incredible luxury to sit down to dinner at a dinner table and eat food that I didn't have to cook. To walk on carpet and shower in a nice clean bathroom, and to sleep in a bed that didn't sag in the middle, and to feel warm and comfortable and at home. :) I really enjoyed my time with Ruthie. In the morning, I got dressed for my interview... and had lots and lots of nervous energy. Haha. But I think I did look very cute for the interview... with my heels and stockings and cute shirt and little business skirt!! :)

So my interview was at Aubingy House... the regional office for Ed QLD in the Darling Downs region. It was a huge, imposing old looking building on a very busy street. Everything was very formal. I went inside and I was asked to sit down and wait until exactly 10:15am. At 10:15am, a lady came out and took me to a small room with a table and a chair. She gave me a clipboard folder with a sheet of questions on it and left the room. I had 15 mins to think about the questions they would ask me. The questions couldn't have been better if I had written them myself!!! God really provided for me in that! I was asked 5 questions:
1. Explain the process you would go through to plan a unit of work.
2. Imagine you are planning a SOSE unit, describe how you would incorporate literacy and numeracy.
3. How will you deal with different needs in the classroom.
4. How will you create a safe a supportive learning environment.
5. Imagine you are posted somewhere unfamiliar. Explain how you would get to know the students, staff and community.

I have just written a SOSE unit that integrates many Literacy concepts, and I am already in an unfamiliar location. My children certainly present the full variety of needs that can come up in a classroom, and I've never seen a school more in need of a SAFE learning environment. I felt really confident once I saw those questions!!! :) At exactly 10:30am, another lady came to the room and escorted me through a maze of offices to the interview room. I had two interviewers on my panel. They were both lovely and seemed very impressed with my work and responses. Normally the interview lasts for half an hour.... mine went for 45 mins. :) So I feel pretty happy that I had so much to talk about! I left Aubingy House walking on air!!

Lauren and Emily met me then and we went out for lunch and took my car to the mechanic. They weren't quite sure what was wrong and were very busy... but they decided to work on my car anyway... sometimes being young and female and looking cute and helpless is a great way of getting help! We visited a beautiful garden after lunch to wait for my car to finish. I haven't seem such a lovely garden in a very long time.. it was a very peaceful way to spend the afternoon.

Lauren, Em and I after lunch!!

Ruthie and Ruthie :)

Very happy-to-be-finished-interview me in the garden... Haha...

Soooo pretty! I would love a garden like this!

I wanted to pick a yellow rose, but Em and Lauren wouldn't let me... I just wanted one!!

The cool hedge clipping...

Laying in the sun... :)

Finally, they finished with my car and $170.00 later, I was on the road again. Apparently they replaced some wiring that was faulty and the bushes... whatever that means...
I got back to Tara at about 7:30 Friday night, exhausted, but happy to have the interview and car ordeal over. :)

Tuesday already...

My week is half over already... I breathe a big sigh of satisfaction. :) Things are going really quite well. I have taught full days so far this week and have found that I enjoy the greater workload more than sharing the teaching with Joel. I'm able to keep on top of the curriculum and behaviour management much better.

Below is the finished work of art from Friday's painting time. The kids did such a great job... but you can definitely tell that some have more artistic flair than others!!

Tomorrow I'll have my online conference with uni and then on Friday I have my big Ed QLD interview to look forward to. This is a pretty busy week.

Hanora moved in yesterday. She seems really quite nice. A little eccentric perhaps, but I guess Erin and I are too in our own separate ways. She seems a little horrified by the lack of furniture and comforts in this house... but to be honest I am getting pretty used to making do with what's available. I had forgotten that we didn't have a microwave until Hanora asked about it last night. Haha.