Starting Business

Yesterday we got our final inventory in and within minutes we had our first customer calling to tell us they needed their mats, towels, and aprons asap! Nothing like preparing and preparing for everything to go smoothly and then comes chaos. Thankfully Shane and I were able to get everything together and delivered to Chops by 5pm when their doors opened. Check us out at www.peachmatservice.com. It feels so good to finally have our business up and going after months and months of working to get everything together.

Soon to be Mrs. Bridges...

So I have been engaged since March and we have finally decided on a wedding date but we can't book the event place until October 21st. I am counting down the days til I can book the pavilion. I will feel much at ease once this is done. I have been planning most of the details already and I am so grateful for the Internet: I have found several great ideas on how to save money and create an Eco-friendly wedding. Shane and I are very Eco-friendly conscious and we want to be able to show this at our reception. We are going to create our own invitations and wedding favors. We are going to leave our reception in a very unique way:) 
A huge plus for Shane and I is my mom already has a business that creates flower arrangements for weddings!!!! And her friends will be a huge help in creating this unique wedding. Also one of my close friends will be helping me with some of the plans: Casey Lavender Mims with Modern Events; check out her website~ modernevents.biz
I think theknot.com is an incredibly helpful website and I wish I would have created it:) My main concern at this point is the wedding dress. For the first time in this planning I do not know what I want- I have looked and tried on several different dresses but have not found the one yet: I like too many different things.

Corporate World

Today, I have been contemplating the corporate world. As I mentioned in my last blog I have started a business. It is a floor mat rental and dust control company called Peach Mat Service. We have started this business in Milledgeville, GA because there is not a local company that offers this type of service. However there are several national companies that currently service the Milledgeville area. We have landed the hospital and three other restaurants and are super excited to start this new adventure. In our few days of selling we have encountered problems with trying to get corporate businesses to use a local service. A lot of the corporate chain restaurant managers are not allowed to make the decision on what vendors they want to use. I could understand this when it comes to the food product considering that they want all the restaurants to have the same food quality but when it comes to servicing floor mats and dust control products you would think these corporate businesses would allow general managers to use a local business if they wanted to. In this struggling economy it is important to shop local and help support local businesses.
 

Beginning Blogging Again...

The first blog that I created was for an Education class that I had in the Spring. I have decided to go back to blogging but instead of writing about school I will be writing about my everyday life! I have a lot going on in my life: engaged and planning a wedding, starting a new business, searching for a family who needs a nanny, working for my family's dry cleaners, and more!
To begin, I am engaged to the most incredible man, Shane Bridges. To describe him I will sum it up with his favorite quote: "Do not speak-unless it improves on silence"~Buddhist Saying. Shane and I met in Lake Oconee and started a wonderful relationship. We are planning on getting married October 2011 in Lake Oconee where it all began. We are both ready to be married and travel through this life's journey together.

The End

I am so glad that the end is here! I enjoyed my student teaching but I am worn out...
This semester has definitely been an "eye-opener" to a lot of things. For the most part I had a wonderful group of students. My main concern was the absences and the suspensions. I constantly had students not coming to school or being suspended repeatedly. This makes it difficult trying to keep up with make-up work and moving on to the next lessons. My students enjoyed my literacy engagements and action research which both were of the same. My students made connections to other classes they were taking or had already taken in order to determine definitions to new words or phrases. Also my students had computers everyday in the classroom so if someone didn't know the definition of the word we would have contest to see who could look up the word and find the definition the quickest!!! Most of my students enjoyed this activity. It kept the students on their "toes".
Readicide has taught me a lot and i recommend this book to all teachers and parents! I have been able to implement Gallagher's instructions but it was a slow process and of course not enough time during my student teaching. However with this experience I will be ready and willing to put the effort into my first year of teaching and there after! I have realized some of the strategies that worked and some of the strategies that did not work or needed twicking.
Now on to all the papers and graduation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Student Teaching

My student teaching is going great! I am constantly engrossed in content literacy with my students. My action research involves students reading business content news articles and working through the text in jigsaw groups. I have taught the students different reading strategies and vocabulary techniques. Through reading Readicide I have followed along Gallagher with the Article of the Week. After watching him actually implement this technique/strategy I have been able to similarly carry out the same strategies within my business classroom.
My students are currently learning about Cyber Ethics and have been extremely receptive to reading articles that relate to their lives directly. I am now stuck with the problem of getting the students to stop discussing one subject topic and move to the next!(good and bad). Through this experience I have realized I need to set time limits for the students when reading the articles (but at the same time be cautious that all the students do not read as quickly as others) and when each group is discussing their particular article.
To be honest I have not done anymore research for reading class but thankfully my action research and my literacy research go hand in hand! So Sunday Funday will now be Research day, GSTEP day, and TWS day...
See everyone in class Monday!

Student Teaching and Readicide

My student teaching is going great!! I taught my first lesson yesterday and was observed by my supervisor. Everything went great and I got some good feedback. I also had one of my students tell me that I was going to be a great teacher!:)
I implemented my first literacy engagement last week. The school that I am at as Silent Reading 2 days out of the month at the start of each period. I had my students use the knowledge chart that I found in the More Tools for Content Literacy book!! I had a good response from most of students and I was suprised how many students actually brought in their own personal books to read during Silent Reading. Through this activity I was able to see the different kinds of books that my students like to read and also see how they react to doing activities that peratin to reading.
My action research is directly related to content literacy involoving reading comprehension through business articles. I did my first lesson yesterday involving cooperative groups and reading. My students did a great job working together and talking through the text. They were able to better understnad the material that directly related tho the lesson.
I have finished reading Chapter 3 in Readicide and this is thus far my favorite chapter because it has perninent information for my action research!!
I hope everyone else is having a great time student teaching. See everyone Monday!