SCHOOL RALLY...

Were you at the school rally last Friday? It was not only intended to pump up our juniors, but to also tell ALL of our students that we believe in you!

Many times we get busy teaching and are so focused on getting you to learn that we forget to tell you we believe in you. Plus, students often mistake their teachers' "demands" and "pushiness" as us being upset with you or not liking you...when in fact, we're just trying to get our students to realize the potential we see in them.

The most frustrating part of being a teacher for me is to see students waste the potential they have to do great things and "settle" for less than the best just because they don't want to push themselves to be all they can be. Hopefully, over the last couple of weeks we have reached you in some way to let you know that we are here for you, our students, and that we want you to be the very best you can be at everything....classwork, tests, sports, competitions, and yes PSSA tests! After all, you know what my friend Chad Foster says...."never let anyone tell you that your best isn't good enough"....but you also know my follow-up "BE SURE TO BE YOUR VERY BEST & THEN THAT IS GOOD ENOUGH!"

WAHS TEACHERS ROCK IT FOR THEIR STUDENTS:

check out our Rally dance on YouTube (YIKES....luckily, you only see my "moves" for a split second!):

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

I visited New York City over the weekend. I just LOVE that place...and not just because of my beloved Mets! I don't know why I don't go more often...it's only a little over 3 hours from here.

SPRING FEVER...

I thought I died and went to heaven in the Mets Clubhouse shop! The others left me behind as I just couldn't tear myself away :)


SHOP, SHOP, SHOP...

'Til we drop, drop, drop...and that's what we did :)


SWEET LAND OF LIBERTY...

Nothing beats seeing the Statue of Liberty to remind us how lucky we are to live in the U.S.A.!


EMPIRE STATE BUILDING...

Speaking of the red, white, and blue...the view from here is amazing...especially at night!


CENTRAL PARK...

Have to do a carriage ride thru it!


SUBWAY OR CAB...

Heather prefers hailing a cab!


BRRRR...

I'd prefer visiting in warmer weather...but wouldn't trade this past weekend for anything! Seeing things with my god-daughter, Heather, who visited the city for her first time was priceless. I think she fell in love with the city and just may become a Mets fan too :)

Congrats Giants' Fans!

Congratulations go out to the 2008 Superbowl champs, The New York Giants, and their fans. My cousin Timmy is a huge Giants fan and won 2 bets we made on Eagles/Giants games this season. I am happy for him but am officially done cheering for them, as my sights are now set big for next season...when my Eagles will reign :) (I hope!)

SECOND SEMESTER STUDENTS

Well we've started semester 2 and all appears to be going well. My new students seem very attentive and are eager to get started after a week of reviewing rules and classroom expectations. We did manage to create class "symbols" in our short week last week. Each student received a square and had to put their name on it along with various pieces of information about their future dreams (car, house, career, salary, reasons for loving that career, marital status, children, college info, etc.).
Check out the cool designs:

PERIOD 1 ("#1" because we're period 1 and number 1!)


PERIOD 2 ("WE'RE #1" because we have an exclamation point!)


PERIOD 4 ("MONEY" because it makes the world go around!)


PERIOD 5 ("CIRCLE" because we're the center of attention!)


PERIOD 7 ("SEVEN" because we're lucky period 7!)



NICE WORK EVERYONE! I am looking forward to a great semester full of fun learning and getting to know each of you!

We're Halfway There!

Semester 1 officially ended Friday. 94% of you passed Keyboarding & Careers and earned 1/2 credit towards graduation :-) We celebrated having a successful first semester by playing some fun games.

THANK YOU to all of my first semester students...you worked hard, respected my rules, and made teaching fun for me. I WILL MISS YOU...please stop in to see me and let me know how you're doing! And remember to BEHAVE...life is tough enough when you're on the right path not to mention how hard it is to turn yourself around to get off of a bad path. YOU ARE IN CONTROL OF YOUR DESTINY...I BELIEVE EACH OF YOU HAS WHAT IT TAKES TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE & LIVE AN AWESOME LIFE...GO FOR IT!!!

BEAR, SALMON, MOSQUITO: this was kind of like paper, rock, scissors....with a twist! Students find a partner, stand back to back, and on the count of three turn around and pretend to be a bear, salmon, or mosquito. They must move/sound like the animal in order to win. Bear eats salmon, salmon eats mosquito, and mosquito has malaria so when it stings the bear, the bear dies! Oh what fun this one was...

FACE OFF: find a partner, stand back to back, on the count of three turn to face each other. The first person to laugh, smile, or talk loses! We had to try this one a few times before people could get their "game faces" on...everyone kept laughing at first, but once they got serious some people lasted a long time!

KNOTS: We did this one boys versus girls. Stand in a circle, grasp hands with people around the circle, then try to "untangle" without letting go. Students were "all tied up" with this one....and the boys untangled the best!

"I Need A Vacation From My Vacation!"

Have you ever heard that saying? Whew...it's been a busy week! One of you dropped me a comment asking how my vacation is going so I thought I'd update you:

I've been up in the northern tier (Blossburg/Mansfield) for most of the week. Celebrated my niece's 1st birthday on the 23rd with a big bash...of course, she didn't have a clue what was going on!


Came back to Williamsport that night and then headed back up there the next day for Christmas Eve. Went to church and then had a big dinner with the family. Opened presents Christmas morning (I'm going to need one of you to show me how to load songs on my new MP3 player because I just can't seem to figure it out!), had brunch at my brother's while watching the niece open even more presents (their house looked like Toys-r-us!), and then my cousins and god-daughter Heather were up to exchange presents. Heather found out that the big present I had previously put on the blog was a leopard print bean bag chair! Christmas night I slept at my brother's so he and his wife could get a full night's rest...I had baby duty...she did pretty good, just up a few times during the night.

I came back to Williamsport Wednesday afternoon just to catch my breath and check on Joey, the super cat :-) My cousin and her husband picked me up an hour after I got home and we went to the movies to see National Treasure...pretty good/action packed. Then we went to the mall, where I bumped into a few of you, and Wegmans before I finally got home for the night.

I went back up to the northern tier Thursday for a girls' day of shopping at the Arnot Mall in Horseheads, NY and eating out at our favorite spot up there, "Bernie Murray's"! Then visited with my great aunt until bedtime.

Friday morning I visited Ms. Carman, our horticulture teacher, who lives close to my parents. She and her fiance are building their house themselves and are doing a great job! Then I met the family for an afternoon of bowling. I tied my 6 year old god-daughter with a score of 87 on the first game and barely scored over 100 on the second game...but it was fun! Yes, we're all wearing the same shirts...it's a long story...ask me about it in school and I'll give you the scoop.


Met some friends for dinner and then came back to Williamsport Friday night. I need a day of lounging around my house and today just may be the day :-)

Hope you are enjoying your break as much as I am. TELL ME HOW YOUR BREAK IS GOING AND IF YOU GOT ANY COOL GIFTS (please put your name in there so I know who's commenting)!!

Advice From WAHS Grads

Thanks goes out to two of my former students, Naja Thompson and Kirsten Schuyler, who came in today and discussed college life with our Keyboarding & Careers classes. We've been busy researching careers and college options over the past week and felt that hearing from some current college students might be beneficial to our freshmen. Naja & Kirsten did a great job explaining their majors, college life, and more importantly what our high school freshmen need to be doing now and throughout high school to be prepared for their futures.

What I was most proud to hear was that they both felt Williamsport Area High School prepared them very well for the demands of college. They both said that they've seen other college students struggle because they didn't get the level of education that students at our school receive. THIS IS GREAT NEWS FOR US! Many times we, as your teachers, don't hear from our students again once they graduate so we never know if what we do every day makes a difference or not. It's very rewarding when we do hear positive feedback from our graduates or hear that they are doing great things with their lives and for our society.

I couldn't be more proud of these two Millionaire alums. They are set to graduate this spring and you can bet I'll be happy to be there cheering them on as they cross the stage to get their college diplomas. GOOD LUCK to Kirsten as she begins student teaching at Cochran in January and to Naja who will finish up her studies in Communications! THANK YOU LADIES FOR VISITING & SHARING YOUR ADVICE....YOU ARE FINE EXAMPLES OF THE GREAT THINGS WAHS CAN DO FOR THOSE WILLING TO BE ALL THEY CAN BE :-)