Another year of teaching done!

The 2017-2018 school year marked my 16th year of teaching! 

I worked 4 days a week teaching early childhood music. This included teaching 2 family classes, 12 preschool classes and 8 Kindergarten classes, on a total of 7 campuses. But my teaching didn't end there. I also subbed on Mondays as often as I could in the public school district and started teaching piano lessons again from my home. I continued volunteering as Primary President of our children's ministry at church and as Board Member at the Hormel Historic Home. Collectively, I worked with over 430 children on a regular basis this year. Yes, my schedule was crazy! Yes, it was very fun! Yes, it was one of my most challenging teaching years to date.

There are some highlights I want to remember...

Highlight #1 -- Wonderful times at Woodson! This campus is hands-down the best place I have ever taught at. The faculty have created an amazing culture here. Their focus is on the students and what is best for their learning and growth. The teachers are forward thinking, welcoming of new ideas, actively learning and improving their teaching strategies, and work in extremely collaborative ways. They are truly team players. Of course the students are amazing, too! This was my third year working at this campus. 

Highlight #2-- Field Trips at the Hormel Historic Home

This is something that I had been hoping to do with the History for Half Pints team for some time. So when we got grant money and enough volunteer helpers to actually make it happen, I was thrilled!! I took the tour ideas that I created for SPAMKids Fest and adapted them to fit within a school field trip set-up. The Shaping History Tour became a Shaping History Field Trip for Kindergarten. The Teddy Bear Tour became a Day in the Life Field Trip for first graders.

I had butterflies in my stomach when the first group came. They were from Woodson Kindergarten, and as they came through the door, I was SOO excited to see that it was MY SON's class!! So now Tanner and I can say that we were both involved in bringing the first group of kindergarten students to the HHH for the Shaping History field trip. In fact, this is the picture that was put in the Austin Daily Herald explaining the awesome programming:

The person in the lab coat with the funny hat is me, aka Shape Expert Mrs. Zavoral. I take the children on a fun adventure discovering shapes and patterns in the furniture, decorations, and architecture of the home. 

After the tour, the children get to learn about the importance of sewing and quilting at the HHH, and how shapes are used in quilting. The kids got to do their own sewing project with burlap. Tanner ended up LOVING this activity. He brought it home to finish, and was so proud of his work.

Next, the children engaged in a scavenger hunt. Working in pairs, they had to find various shapes and patterns that they learned about in the tour. They really enjoyed being able to explore independently to see what they could find.

Finally, we did Shape Dancing, which I think is my favorite part of this field trip. I led the groups in discovering how to move their bodies to make high, low and medium shapes. The kids responded really well to it, and the boys especially loved the challenge to move their bodies!

We brought in five Kindergarten classes and the teachers loved it so much that they decided they want to bring all 16 groups of Kindergarteners next year!! We also had several first grade groups from Banfield elementary come for the Day in the Life field trip, which included collecting Jay Hormel's teddy bears from around the home and learning how to make their own fresh butter. That school also requested to come back this upcoming school year! In August, I helped launch the Secret Garden field trip for older students. A group of 6th graders came and we discovered the gardens throughout the home's exterior and interior. Students also got to use watercoloring paints to create their own garden art. Doing field trips has been extremely invigorating for me. It is awesome to work with the HHH team and to create something completely new for the community to experience.

Highlight #3-- MacPhail Showcase Concert

All the children that have MacPhail music at preschool and kindergarten in our town were invited to perform together at a showcase concert mid-April. That meant that Tanner and Dallin got to be on stage together! And I got to be the teacher that led the students in their performance. It was really fun for all three of us to be together on the big high school stage!! The boys ended up standing front and center close to me. Dallin is wearing the red and blue "jeremy jacket," and Tanner is wearing a dark blue jacket right next to him. They look so little up there!!

Highlight #4--Enjoying Piano Lessons

In the past, I've been reluctant to teach piano because the majority of my teaching experience is with large-group instruction, and that is where I have felt most comfortable. But since I've had success teaching privately in the past, and people in town wanted lessons, I started offering them again this year from my home. I ended up loving everything about it, and my only regret is not doing it sooner!

My approach to piano instruction is very different from the way I was taught piano. My goal is to take everything that research tells us about how young children and their brains learn and apply it to the piano setting. Some of the renegade things that I do in my lessons include daily improvisation, composition and movement. I let my students guide the learning rather than stick to the limitations of an instruction book. I actually make customized music books for my students based on their interests, strengths, and learning styles. It's been a fun adventure, and this upcoming year I have already gained a few more students. Tanner and Dallin let me teach them from time to time, too, so it's been a great experience in many ways!

Highlight #5--Growing at Church

It has been a joy to work with the primary children at church. I serve as both the president of the organization and as the children's music leader. My two counselors in the presidency have been so supportive and amazing to work with! Looking back  on how this job paved out during the school year, I remember the primary program we put on in Nov, the church Christmas party that we hosted in Dec, the new ideas we were able to implement in Jan, the Easter party we hosted in March, the scripture guests we had in April, the class reorganzations that we made in June, and most recently the Scripture camp we hosted in Aug. We have been busy!

Tanner and Dallin get to take part in everything that I do with the primary. Sometimes they are extra goofy/difficult when I teach, and it makes me want to pull my hair out! And sometimes they are super sweet and help me know what kinds of activities they think everyone will enjoy in sharing time. The boys are really good about all the meetings I attend. Sometimes Jeremy and I have to attend the same meetings, since he serves as a counselor to the bishop. One of these meetings ocurrs every other week, early on Sunday mornings. The boys roll out of bed and bring their backpacks to church. During our meeting, they take care of themselves in the next room. They eat their packed breakfast, get themselves dressed and stay entertained with quiet acitvities until our meeting is over. (ok, they do interrupt the meeting about every 3rd time we meet, but I'm not complaining!) They actually look forward to this time and ask if we get to have an "early morning meeting Sunday"! This is shocking to Jeremy and me, but I think it is just something the Lord has made possible so that we can serve where we are needed.

Serving in this capactiy at church has been a great opportunity to exersize my patience and  to wait on the Lord's timing. I've been able to learn how to rely on personal revelation to know how to move forward with various issues. One thing I have been inspired to do is give more responsibility to the older children and to find ways to minister to each child individually. Acting on those inspirations has worked miracles. It is awesome to see the children growing in their faith in so many ways. Definitely a major highlight of my teaching this year.

Highlight #6--Learning My Limitations

During the year, I learned a lot about myself and what kinds of things truly "fill my bucket," as they say at Woodson. I started the year out with lots of energy and optimism. But that energy didn't stick around very long. Teaching jobs I could do before were taking so much energy of mind and body. It is so frustrating being tired and dizzy from just marching in place or taking a bin of instruments out of my car to the classroom. You might remember a post around my birthday where I decided to do more self care. As a result from that, I was finally diagnosed with functional hypothyroidism and adrenal dysfunction in November. It was nice to get answers, but not fun to realize my gas tank is emptier than I realized. Winter was especially hard for our family; sickness and vacations made my work schedules a huge mess. My brain was toast. Fried! I decided to drop a few classes in the Spring, as it was getting too hard to do everything. Facing the reality of the situation, I spent Feb to May trying to figure out what changes need to take place in my life so that it can be easier to get my "bucket" filled. 

Finally one day I got an idea that seemed to solve a lot of the challenges I was facing. It was not my own idea, but when God told it to me, I felt peaceful about it right away, even though it's not what I wanted to do. The idea was to substitute teach fulltime with the school district this upcoming year instead of teaching music at the preschools and Kindergarten. (I will keep doing the family music classes, private piano, events at the hormel home and my gig with primary at church.) I am going to miss teaching music with the partnerships I was involved in, especially with Woodson! It was really hard to hold back the tears when I said goodbye to each of my classes this past June. I balled like a baby in my car on the last day of school.

However, since making this decision, I have continued to have a lot of peace. It's wierd to have peace about something that is not my first, second or even third choice of how to handle something. The good thing is that I've always enjoyed my subbing jobs, so I'm excited to do it more often this year. I can sub in any kind of classroom setting in any grade because of the kind of teaching license I have. Subbing will give me freedom to get my health under control and to focus my energy in areas that are most important to me.

I am so grateful for the amazing opportunities I had to work with children this past school year. One of my favorite parts of the year was that I got to be both Tanner and Dallin's regular music teacher. 

My music students in Dallin's Class

My music students Tanner's Class

Dallin is FIVE

Dallin turned FIVE years old on May 18, 2018. 

Birthday theme- About a week before, he asked if we could go camping for his birthday. Luckily, the weather was beautiful and his birthday landed on a Friday, so we went camping!! I managed to order some camping cake toppers that got to the home just in time. The camping cake was complete with campfire, trees, pond, canoe, water rocks and a tent that looks just like ours AND that lights up! Jeremy made the cake from scratch, I decorated it and Tanner helped me decide where to put the figurines. The cake got a little dried out, so it didn't taste super good, but that's ok because it looked awesome! 

Cake reveal- I wasn't sure if it would survive the drive to the campsite because I didn't have a real cake box. So we let dallin see it ahead of time. We made him close his eyes until he was standing right in front of the cake. He had a grin on his face waiting to see it. As soon as he uncovered his eyes, his expression went blank. I thought to myself, "oh no! It's not what he was expecting. Is he going to yell?" He stood still, then got a twinkle in his eye, dropped his jaw a little, rocked back and forth, and then collapsed on the floor pretending to faint! What a goof! He said he liked it a lot. Woohoo!

He was really excited to kiss me because he loved the cake so much.

Dallin's Growth & Personality- Before camping, we went out to eat dinner at Pizza Ranch for his special birthday dinner. We talked about all the things that Dallin has learned and done this past year while being four. Some firsts included first (and only) year of preschool, first trip outside of the country (Costa Rica),  first helicopter ride, and first two trips away from home without his mom and dad (colorado and texas). He learned how to take baths amd showers almost all by himself,  unbuckle his seat belt all by himself, and how to pump on the swing all by himself! He improved in drawing, writing, using scissors, climbing, jumping and computer games. He is actually pretty good at navigating computer games and video games. He is often showing Tanner how to find websites and use the mouse. 

He can write names and sentences with inventive spelling, and can read a handful of sight words. He knows a few songs on the piano and improvises songs called "napping songs." He can sing in tune, keep a beat, play rhythms to songs he knows, and recognizes tunes and rhythms. In the world of sports, he's gotten better at floor hockey, ice skating, baseball and basketball. 

His sense of humor is growing and expanding. He likes quoting funny parts in shows, telling knock knock jokes and giving goofy answers to questions in casual conversations. He's basically just a goof ball most of the time. But he's a responsible goof ball. He gets himself ready for the day in the morning, which includes get dressed, make bed and get his own breakfast, and when I let him, he turns on his own TV shows.
Our Dal Pal loves to help people. He is the first to jump up when anyone asks for help. Even when no one is asking for help, he quietly goes around the house doing things that he thinks will be helpful. Sometimes, he even chooses helping over playing with Tanner or neighborhood friends, right in the middle of a game they are playing.
Dallin is still our big Cuddle Bug. He will cuddle all morning long with us. He is still taking naps about 5 days a week, too! When we cuddle, he still loves touching and stroking the mole on my face, a habit he developed when he stopped breastfeeding. He also likes Jeremy's mole, too, but "mom's mole is the best." During the day, when he gives me hugs, he reaches for my mole and says, "Mama's mole!" I love it, and wonder how long he'll keep that up! We can't wait to tease him about it when he is older.
DJ has grown a bunch in height, fits into 5t clothes in his arms and legs, but he is pretty thin around the waist and bum. He still wears 2t-3t undies, so idk how that works! He wears pullups at night. His shoes are one size less than Tanner's, and his hands are the same size if not bigger than Tanner's.  Also, this past year, Dallin has gotten much better at standing up to his big brother when he doesn't want to do what Tanner wants. He will say no and if he gets beat up on, he will fight back, so it makes for some intersting dynamics now.

At the site- As soon as we got to the campsite, the boys did not waste any time getting the fire started. Then, we had cake and opened presents. Tanner was really excited to watch his brother open presents. Jeremy and I gave Dallin his cake, balloons and dinner. The rest of his gifts were from Tanner and grandparents.

Racoon story- Right after we fell asleep, Jeremy heard and saw a racoon scuffling around our campground. The racoon found one of the cake toppers that we left out on the table. It was the little tent that lights up. He could hear the racoon chomping on the plastic. There must have been frosting still on it! Then Jeremy saw the little tent glowing everytime the racoon pushed the button, haha! Jeremy scared off the critter and put the cake topper in the car. The next morning, Dallin was snooping around for his cake toppings to play with them. He found the tent piece and showed us that there's still frosting on it. Before we could get it out of his hands, he took several big licks all over the thing, in the same spots where the racoon had licked. YUCK!

It was a very relaxing birthday party/camping trip.

Here's some pictures from our little hike.

Birthday Service- At home, we finished up with Dallin's birthday service project that he had been working on for about a week. I brainstormed all kinds of things he could do, and he said no to everything until I suggested making cards for people, particularly for the parents of all his cousins and his grandparents. He decided to make flower cards for the girls and drawings for the boys. We looked up ideas for the flower craft, and he chose what to use for the stems and petals. He wrote "love Dallin" in some of the sunshines. With each picture, he tried to make it personal for the person he was drawing for. They turned out absolutely adorable.

We love Dallin so much!! He helps keep us from being too serious and keeps us laughing. One day I asked him, "Why are you so funny all the time?" He said "Because my name is Dallin Jerold and Jerold loved to tell jokes!" Which is true. Even though Dallin will have to wait until the next life to meet his great-grandpa, I am glad that he feels a connection to his namesake at such a young age. Dallin is kind, helpful, silly, active, and did I say goofy? I am so grateful for all the amazing fun we've had with him this past year and look forward to the neat adventures he'll take us through this year!