Sunday, November 25, 2012

STUCO


Short for Student Council.  Year #2 of being co-sponsor and I'm loving it.  It's a lot of work (more than I knew last year), but the kids make it so worth it.  Especially 2 of the girls.  They're in charge of the subcommittee called "Outstanding" and they basically do a lot of community service projects, which is right up my ally.  So they come to my room every 5th period (my conference period) and plan/do stuff for our Thursday meetings and projects in general.  These are my two girls, Taylor and Sayra...

Side note: she had to wear this for Clinicals and then get teachers to sign as she explained what everything was for.  Most people just signed after they heard the little speech but I refused until she put the whole outfit on...priceless!

Love her...she is so sweet!

Our school district was the first to host our STUCO district meeting, so we held it at our awesome M.O.C. Campbell Center.  Our group was in charge of welcoming students as they came in.  It was a lot of fun!






 Inside, they have simultaneous student and advisor business meetings, then a guest speaker.  Of course there's a bunch of chants and songs throughout, some original to STUCO and others not.



For Homecoming, we had events during lunch the whole week leading up to our game.  We were playing Lee's team, Eisenhower.  We played well, but we lost by a field goal in overtime.  It was disappointing but still a good time.  This was one of the events we did that week:  Pie a Teacher!  Also known as "Pie a Hooker" when I stepped in (last photo).





Cori: one of my new friends, also from Rochester!
That's me!  All of my students missed horribly.  HAHA.

One of the projects Outstanding has hosted so far has been a bead workshop.  Vicki, the lady standing on the bench, goes around to schools, churches, scout groups, anywhere really and promotes her non-profit organization called Erin's Dream Lanyards.  Erin, her daughter, died from neuroblastoma a few years ago when she was just 11 years old.  Toward the end of her life, she began to make and sell lanyards with her friends, giving 100% of the profits to children's cancer research foundations.  Her family now continues the dream.  To find out more, or to buy your own lanyard, you can check out their site at ChooseAVerb.  We held this in a small part of the cafeteria, and we had about 60 kids show up!  It was great, the kids enjoyed it, and we've raised close to $500 so far!











This is Erin's 7-year-old cousin who came to help.  She was so adorable.




On November 13, we went to our second district meeting at Deer Park High School.  Because the meetings are on Tuesday's and because Wings 'N More has 1/2 price wings on Tuesday's, it seems to be a match made in heaven.  Our meeting is usually over by noon, then we go there to eat lunch/waste time til school is done.  :)



Taylor again.  You may never see her face...

One of our most recent projects has been Operation Christmas Child!!!  This was one of my favorites, as many of you know how close it is to my heart.  It was a little rough starting it up, and we really only had 3 weeks to collect and organize it all, but in the end it was a good first year.  We ended up with 27 boxes...not bad when all we had were bulk donations (no one completely packed a box themselves.)  Hopefully next year we can get even more!  These are a few pics of the packing party we had in one of the conference rooms at our school. 






And that's it so far!  I'll keep you updated as we do more awesome things.  :)

~Hooks

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Hey, Wanna See My Classroom?


Not too late to blog about it.  It's only October 28th, you know...a quarter of the way through the school year.  Probably why I have time to blog now.  Because I don't have grading to do.  That, and the fact that I was supposed to be at jury duty tomorrow so I had to make sure my lessons were 100% planned for Monday.  Then I got a nice little email saying jury duty was canceled, so now I have to go in to work anyway.  Oh well, at least now I kind of have a free weekend.  I was looking forward to sleeping in though.  :(  Anyway, here's my room!


I love all the color!

Board for displaying student work, my Word Wall, and calendars

Word Wall

Cute little bags for supplies that Grandma Nobles made for me this summer!  I have gotten sooooo many compliments on them, especially from old students who come to visit. ("Miss, why didn't we have these last year??")  They have scissors, scissor protectors, glue, index cards, and markers.  The only drawback is that the kids are too lazy (incompetent?) to put the caps back on the markers, so almost every bag has stains on the bottom now, but they're still holding up.  I haven't tried washing them yet.  But maybe this will just be something I have to ask for every year for my birthday.  (Shh, don't tell Grandma.)  ;)


Calendars and work for when kids are absent

Front of the room, and yes...that is the famous swag bag hanging on the closet door

Best. Poster. Ever.  I point to it often.


Other front corner

I changed it to this about 2 weeks ago when another teacher gave me a bookcase, so I have more room for all the binder crates.

Stupid objective that is a waste of time, agenda, homework, and attendance

Awesome poster that I made over the summer in a word document then had blown up

MacArthur bulletin board

My personal space :)  Students: noooo touchie.

My "Happy Bulletin Board."  I only put stuff on here that makes me smile - no school stuff allowed.  And yeah, I decorated it myself.  :)

Books and Princess calendar I'm waiting to put up in January.

I bought it because of this GORGEOUS picture of Belle (pshh, as if I needed another reason to buy a Disney Princess calendar)

Magnet Mom bought me :)

Supposed to be inspiration for my students...but all they say is, "Miss, your name used to be QUIGLEY?!"  And they can never say it right.

Probably the most important thing on my desk...but my devotionals and continual to-do lists are close seconds


I changed my Word Wall!  First time since last year.  I'm not kidding, I was really bad at this last year (and this year until now).  It's just always that thing that gets put into the "yeah I should do it, but I have more important things to do right now" category.

Outside, door open

Outside, door closed

Best thing I ever made...."Where is Mrs. Hooker?"  I made and laminated the arrow, then super-glued a magnet to the back so I can slide it along my metal door frame to let kids know I AM STILL AT SCHOOL I JUST HAD TO PEE (errands), SO DON'T LEAVE.  YOU STILL NEED TO RETEST THAT 7% TEST GRADE YOU GOT.

I've re-thought this several times since school started.  I'm considering adding a "Here...But don't come in" spot.

Errands (bathroom included)/Morning or Stair Duty

Student Council Stuff/Department Planning Period

Lunch/Home/Not at School Today

I love moving that magnet to "Home."  :)

~Hooks

Saturday, October 6, 2012

You Know You Need to Clean Your Home More Often When...


  • You spend an hour cleaning a bathroom that usually takes 20 minutes.
  • You can't find your new cleaning supplies because you never put them away after you bought them 2 weeks ago.
  • Your garbage piles up...like this...
  • You have 7 loads of laundry.  And there's two of you.
  • You want to stay in the first room you clean because it's the only space that doesn't seem hazardous to your health.
  • You load the dishwasher and you still don't have enough room on your drying mat for all of the "extras."

  • You have been cleaning all day and you still haven't dusted/vacuumed.
  • You have 3+ old fast food containers littering your living room.
  • You change things like this at least every time you clean...and it's October 6th.




~Hooks

Friday, September 14, 2012

Dolphins/Texans Game

For Lee's birthday, we all pitched in to buy him tickets to go see the Dolphins play against the Texans on September 9th.  We were both excited to go (it was the first game of the real season), but the Dolphins lost horribly.  Sorry, Lee.  :(  Here are the highlights...





 
Enter Dolphins.

 Enter Texans.








 This scared me.  When the game started, they showed these bulls running through the streets of Houston crushing Dolphins players.  Violent!

 This guy's big hairy leg was touching me practically the whole game.  He did NOT understand the concept of personal space.  Ick...

He stood up and danced every time the Texans scored a touchdown (except the one time I was trying to capture it, of course).  And when he bends over...butt graze on my arm - GROSS!

 Despite hairy leg guy and the Dolphins massacre, we still had a good time. :)

~Hooks

P.S.  This post is dedicated to Jessica Kelly, who inspired (threatened?) me to keep writing.  ;)  

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Ode to My Phone

Ok, so I should stop making blog promises because I can't seem to keep them, but here's a poem I wrote that should hopefully hold you until the weekend...


ode to my phone

new phone, you are so pretty
the best phone in all the city
in my hands you look so right
your little screen oh so bright
how did i live before tonight

i love your moving background
the jellyfish swimming round
and your whistle letting me know
to my new texts i need to go
just like a present with a bow

wake me in the mornings
give me calendar warnings
shine your little flashlight app
add my sticky notes with a tap
win words with friends in a snap

phone, we are true friends
i hope our love never ends
if you succumbed to theft
of your company i’d be bereft
only emptiness left

new phone, you are so pretty
the best phone in all the city
in my hands you look so right
how did i live before tonight

~Hooks