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It’s official!  I am the mother of a preschooler.  Our three-year old son just got home from his first half-day and is all smiles!  No tears were shed, from either side, when I dropped him off at 8:00 this morning.  And while I know we will all continue to transition these next few weeks, I could not have asked for a smoother experience for the very first day.

As a former classroom teacher, I know the first week sets the tone for the rest of the year.  Here are a few things we did that helped make the first day of school a positive one:

We did the research.  
Truly, I have been praying about where we would send our firstborn to school since he was roughly two years old.  Academically, he is very advanced.  Maturity-wise, he’s three.

Over the years, I have spoken with public, private and homeschool parents.  I have asked many questions, including the hard ones.  I wanted to know what worked, what didn’t and why they chose to educate their children the way they had.  I read articles in the newspaper and spoke with educators and administrators.  I knew there was no 100% ideal educational model that existed; we simply wanted to make the best choice for our son.  And we did.

With BISD’s (Brownsville Independent School District) new open enrollment policy, you can send your child to any school of your choice, so long as you can provide the transportation.  We handpicked my sister-in-law to be our son’s first school teacher.  Back in May, we visited her campus and spent half the day there, eating lunch with the students before leaving.  This gave us a very clear picture of what the day would look like.

The countdown on the calendar!

We are excited about it!  
All summer, we talked to our boy about how he would be starting school soon.  Growing up, the first day of school was always one of my favorite days of the year!  That enthusiasm is contagious.

When August rolled around, we started a countdown in our eldest’s room.  We placed stickers on Monday-Friday of the first week he would attend preschool, and different stickers on his days of rest.  The night before, we had a pizza party in honor of school starting!

We treated everything, from shopping for school supplies to picking out his favorite backpack, like it was the best thing since sliced bread!  He began to feel that way, too.

We read books and watched shows about it!
One of our favorite series of books has been The Berenstain Bears.  In fact, I still own my childhood copy of The Berenstain Bears Go to School.  We read it multiple times over the summer.  There are many other books that also deal with school themes.

The Berenstain Bears Go to School

Our children are allowed to watch 1-2 educational programs per day, each about 20 minutes in length.  Right now, they enjoy Super Why and Leap Frog programs (which I highly recommend, but that is a different entry altogether!).  Leap Frog has a perfectly relevant one titled, “Let’s Go to School.”  Remember one of my earlier posts about making connections?  That’s exactly what we did here.  Our son made plenty of text-to-self connections through these learning extensions, and it made him more familiar with attending school.

We have a reward system.  
Different seasons of our children’s lives have called for different incentives.  We have done reward charts when potty training and encouraging independence with different tasks.  We told our son that if he did a great job at school, he could have one cookie when he got home.

Will we have this incentive the rest of the year?  Probably not.  But it will continue while we are transitioning.  After coming home and sharing his excitement about the morning with us, he asked for his cookie, and we gladly gave him one.

We kept calm and prayed about it.  
In my book, this was the most important thing we did.  Once it came time to make a decision, we were able to make one with supreme confidence.  It even made sense to us, though we had never considered this particular option before!  We were in agreement, and in complete and total peace as a family.

Speaking of prayer, we hope to make it a habit to pray the following over our son every morning (we started today): “The Lord bless you and keep you.  The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious unto you.  The Lord life His countenance upon you and give you His peace.  Amen.” (Numbers 6:24-26).

We also pray, continually, for our son’s teacher(s), administrators, classmates and staff at his new elementary school.  We also covet the prayers of those in our most intimate circles.

Does this mean we have all the answers and will never encounter obstacles in deciding the education of our children?  Absolutely not.  But we are so thankful for this current season of life, and are thrilled to come alongside this school in teaching our son!  Here’s to a great year!

It’s a lovely, rainy day in south Texas!  This recipe is one of many given to me by my grandmother, who we affectionately refer to as Abuelita.

I would not categorize myself as a foodie, but I do love food!  Any sort of baking or cooking skills I possess are due, in large part, to having my grandmother’s example growing up.  She showed me how to take joy in preparing meals, and especially in baking!  It still serves as a stress reliever for me.

Here is the recipe for her Presto Pesto Tart (one of my favorites):

You will need:

1 15 oz pie crust (I use Pillsbury)
8 oz shredded mozzarella cheese
4 Roma tomatoes, sliced lengthwise (using them without the seeds is preferred)
½ c mayonnaise
2 tbsp Pesto
¼ c Parmesan cheese
½ tsp black pepper

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees

After allowing pie crust to thaw at room temperature for about 20 minutes, place it on a pizza pan or other oven proof item where it will lay flat.  Pick the crust with a fork all over and bake it for 8 minutes. 

Here is the pie crust after it has baked for 8 minutes.

Sprinkle ½ c mozzarella cheese on the warm crust and let it cool 10 minutes.

Next, arrange the sliced tomatoes over the cheese.

In a bowl, mix the remaining mozzarella cheese with the rest of the ingredients until well combined.  Spread over the tomato slices (if a spoon does not work well, your fingers will do it justice!).

Presto Pesto Tart- a delicious and simple recipe (this is what it looks like before oven time)!

Reduce oven to 375 degrees and bake for 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5-10 minutes.  Cut into wedges and serve.  Serves between 8-12, and goes really well with a salad!

When I would meet with parents as a classroom teacher, I would always say to them, “You are your child’s first teacher.  I may have them all day now, but by the time they get to me (any grade in school), you have already laid the foundation.”  And several years later, as a parent myself, I stand by that statement.

The first year I taught, the importance of making connections with my students was constantly stressed, especially in the area of reading comprehension.  While reading aloud with sticky notes, I was trained to individually label them, “T-S, T-T and T-W.”  T-S stood for a “text-to-self” connection, T-T represented a “text-to-text” connection, and T-W meant “text-to-world.”  Soon, my students and I were making cross-curricular links, too!

As a mother who teaches her children, I constantly wear my “connection lenses.”  Every day contains a plethora of teachable moments that you can engage your kids in.  Below, you will find a lesson I recently did with my son that deals with this topic (to give you a tangible example).  Feel free to use it!  I often get my best ideas from other teachers, parents and observing my offspring.  Let me know how you encourage making connections with your students!

Lesson #1:  Making Text-to-Text Connections through Phonics
(Note:  this lesson works best for children who know the alphabet and the individual letter sounds–emergent readers)

How much do I love Pinterest?!  One day, as I was browsing educational activities for little ones, I came across this Word-a-Pillar (follow that link to print a copy for yourself!):

Here is part of the Word-a-Pillar in my son’s room.  There are a total of 28 sight words you can print (all FREE!).  My son can read them all (I introduced them, initially, in groups of 3-5 every few weeks).  He is an eager three-year old!

I would review these words with my son a couple of times a week.  If he was reluctant to read through them, I would encourage him to by providing some sort of an incentive (yes, I do bribe my children on occasion).  Eventually, he was jumping at the chance to do sight-word practice!  After one of our sessions he said, “I want the caterpillar to go all around my room!”  He then made an amazing text-to-text connection and said, “It’s like The Very Hungry Caterpillar.”  So naturally, we read that book next.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, a classic.  Don’t own it?  Check it out from the library!  I have also found some quality books at thrift stores.

The first thing he wanted to do before playing the game was to put the letters in order.  We eventually found the Letter C.  Magnetic letters can be found at Dollar Tree, Wal-Mart, Target, etc.

My firstborn enjoys puzzles, so a few days after playing, “Spell that Word!” he wanted to work on his word puzzles (they were a gift from us to him last Christmas).  They work very well for emergent readers and spellers because of the great illustrations that accompany each word.

Some of the Match It! Spelling words

I highly recommend this game!  We found this one at Tuesday Morning.

Tonight, my husband and I joined three other couples for excellent dining at Cheddar’s Scratch Kitchen, and we didn’t pay a DIME!  We were given the royal treatment, with a variety of menu items to choose from, which included appetizers, the main course and dessert.  “How did you get to do that?” you ask.

It was a very fun evening!

A dear friend of mine, Briana, entered her recipe into a competition for the restaurant and WON!  As a prize (outside of her creation, Briana’s Broccoli Salad, being featured in the menu!), she was allowed to invite three other couples to dine with her and her husband (that’s where we came in!) for FREE, and also received a $250.00 gift card to use at a future date.  How neat is that?!?!

The beautiful, and now famous, Briana!

And let me tell you, no one is more deserving of a celebrity evening than this gal!  She is one of the greatest servants I have ever known.  She is the coordinator of our local MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) Chapter—not a small feat.  There have been times in the past that I have been sick, or my children have not been feeling well, and she shows up on my doorstep with a homemade meal!  She is an incredible cook, wife, mother, friend and leader.

There it is in the menu—AHHH!!!  We were the first guests to try it.

Briana’s Broccoli Salad- we all enjoyed a serving of it during debut night!

Thank you so much to everyone who entered my first blog giveaway!  I am especially grateful to Vannia Gonzalez with Just a Creative Type of Girl, and  Melissa Guerrero Rivera with Owl Design It!  Please go to their pages and “like” them on Facebook.  They are very talented and were so eager to donate to the cause!

And the winners are…Mrs. Irene Rodriguez, a teacher in Los Fresnos that I worked with many years ago, and Mrs. Jessica Aguilar, a dear friend who is a counselor in Laredo, Texas!  Please keep your eyes peeled for another giveaway I will have in the fall, and keep reading and sharing my blog.  Your support means the world to me!

I’m not athletic.  At all.  In fact, I don’t believe there is a single athletic bone in my body.  In elementary school, I was that little girl who dreaded recess.  When we had free time, I would often sit and chat it up with friends.  And I hated rough games like dodgeball.

As I became an adult, I started to realize the importance of things like physical activity and eating healthy.  At the age of 23, a friend in Iowa invited me to train for a 5k.  “Why not?” I thought.  What I didn’t realize is that I would soon catch the running bug.  You know the kind… if you haven’t been bit by it yet, you know someone who has.  I wanted to run all the time.  I found myself regularly running three miles for the fun of it!

The following year, I was working on my bucket list and decided that one day, I wanted to complete a full marathon.  And for the added timeline incentive, I wanted it to happen when I was 26 years old.  There was something significant about about each mile representing one year of my life.

If running a marathon (or ½ marathon) is on your to do list, I hope you find this list helpful.  This is based solely on my experience, and what worked for me many years ago:

1.  Follow a Running Plan
Looking up a marathon plan these days is so easy!  There are a plethora of them you can find online.  Back in 2007, I stumbled upon a book, The Non-Runner’s Marathon Trainer, by David Whitsett.  The book is written by professors from the University of Northern Iowa who offer a marathon class every semester.  The majority of their students (most novice runners, as I was) go on to successfully complete the 26.2 mile race.  This book was my lifesaver!

2.  Run with Friends
Accountability is key when preparing for such a big race!  Life happens while training, but you are less likely to skip practice if there are people waiting for you.  And take it from me, if you must miss, do not miss a long run.  Those are especially crucial.

3.  Cross-Train
It’s important to get exercise other than running in when seriously preparing for a marathon.  Cycling is great cross-training for running.  Joining a gym and participating in their classes (yoga, body pump, etc.) will also prove very useful.  Because I wanted to run faster, for the six months leading up to Chicago, I worked with a personal trainer twice a week.  Once again, the accountability was great!

4.  Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate!

I HIGHLY recommend the Chicago Marathon!

Whether you run with a Camelbak, small bottles of water around your waist, or have other ways to access a drink on your route, drinking water is integral.  Rinse out your mouth and spit out the first sip, and continue taking small sips after that.  Don’t chug your water.  Ideally, you want to replenish the same amount of liquid you lose on your run.

5.  Pick an Exciting (and realistic) Marathon Location
I chose to run the 2008 Chicago Marathon because I had heard, from other runners, that it is one of the greatest marathons in the country, with the best fan base!  I also knew that it was a flat course.  Training in South Texas wasn’t going to prepare me to run a race through the mountains of California, for example.

Team St. Jude!

6.  Run for a Cause
Do you love children?  Consider raising money for the St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital (that was the fundraiser I chose).  Think about what you are passionate about and go from there.  If you would rather not raise money, that’s okay, too.  Meditate on something that inspires you.  One of my closest friends had just given birth in 2007, and I got to witness most of it.  She inspired me because I knew no matter how uncomfortable I became, it was nothing compared to what it takes to bring life into this world.

7.  Pace Yourself
I remember when they played the Star Spangled Banner at the beginning of the 2008 Chicago Marathon.  Looking around at the thousands of other runners, I was overwhelmed by us being there with a shared goal and vision.  I got goosebumps!  It’s a moment I’ll never forget.  It’s easy to take off like a bat out of you know where with all the enthusiasm and camaraderie in the air.  Don’t do it.  If you have a finish time goal, look for the runner holding the sign with that particular time on it.  My goal was to finish, and try to finish in 4 hours and 30 minutes.  I finished in 4:33:27, so I was happy!  Find the pacer, and stick with them as best you can.  It’s normal for your speed to fluctuate over such a long distance!

4:30 was my finish time goal.  I completed the race in 4:33:27. 🙂

8.  Eat Everything…Sort Of
Every few miles, there will be fruit available to snack on.  If you are hungry during the race, eat it.  Every couple of miles I would alternate drinking water and gatorade.  This system helped fuel me.  I also started eating “running goop” that they sell at athletic stores the last couple of months of my training, and on the day of the race.  Do not do anything different the morning of the race as far as your diet goes, and make sure that your body doesn’t react poorly to the food that is available.

9.  Pray
Running such long distances gave me plenty of time to pray and reflect.  I prayed for others, for endurance, and for next steps in my life.  It was a very special season that I know I will never get back.  It helped me tremendously during the difficult transition of moving back home to Brownsville, Texas, from Des Moines, Iowa.

26.2 miles of Heart

10.  Enjoy the Moment!
Take in all the sights, sounds, smells and diverse group of runners during your race.  While training, I often jogged with headphones (unless I was running with others) and inspiring music (I currently enjoy the Eye of the Tiger station on Pandora).  Not so with race day!  I wanted to experience it all!  And I did.  And you will, too.  If I can run a marathon, most anyone can do it!

P.S.  I’m still not athletic.  But I do enjoy a nice run from time to time. 😉

And the answer to a massage afterwards is always, “Yes, please.”  You’ll need it. 😉

It was the first week of school during my very first teaching assignment.  I was assigned to a beautiful 5th grade classroom on the third story of a building that was built in the early 1900’s in Des Moines, Iowa.  The room even had wooden floors, which are my absolute favorite.  I had only been with the children for four days, but I already loved them.

My first school picture as a teacher.  So young.  So thin.

Thursday morning had finally rolled around, and I had been anticipating it all week.  I was going to read aloud to my class.  A scene I had envisioned many times before, I had the perfect book for the occasion:  Thank You, Mr. Falker, by Patricia Polacco.  (Spoiler Alert) The author writes and illustrates her children’s books, and this one is autobiographical.  The story tells of a little girl in elementary school that struggles with dyslexia, and the teacher that went the extra mile to help her.  You do not find out that the book is about Mrs. Polacco until the last page, when she is done telling her tale.

I sat reading the book in a rocking chair, with my students huddled around me on the carpet area.  I could tell they were completely taken by the story by the looks on their faces.  “Yes,” I thought to myself, “I have arrived.”  I turned the page for the exciting reveal, the part where I would read that the whole story was about Patricia Polacco herself!

As I got ready to share the part about her running into Mr. Falker and thanking him thirty years later, I looked into the audience of students who were now mine.  A small lump began forming at the back of my throat.  “Hold it together,” I said in my mind.  I continued, “thank you, Mr. Fal…”  and then I lost it.  Not a “single tear down my cheek,” kind of lost it.  But rather a, “heavy sobbing where your whole body weeps,” sort while I finished what she said to him.  If there was ever an awkward classroom moment, this was it.  Complete silence.  I didn’t know what to do!  No amount of training or education had prepared me for this.  In fact, we were often encouraged not to display such emotion in front of our pupils, especially during the first week of school!

Zach, who sat right in front of me at my feet with his head down, stifled a nasal laugh.  And then it happened.  I don’t know who started it, but I heard a single hand clap at the back of the classroom.  And then another.  And another.  Before you knew it, the whole class had exploded into thunderclaps!  It was as if I had just won the Academy Award for reading aloud.  One of the children handed me a tissue, and we went on with our day.

Of course, it became the running joke the rest of the school year whenever we went to the carpet area for story time.  “Grab the tissue box,” someone would say, “she might cry.”

McKinley Elementary in Des Moines, Iowa, the first school I had the privilege of working at. Pictures are in black and white because they are from the school’s yearbook.  I didn’t teach that long ago. 😉

“Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing so some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” -Hebrews 13:2 NIV

It was the summer of 2006, and I was living in Des Moines, Iowa, with my roommate, Steph.  I was in charge of an at-risk program for youth; she worked part-time at a coffee shop in Ames, Iowa, about 35 miles outside of Des Moines.

She called me one day and told me about an old, upright piano that sat towards the back of the cafe.  Dusty and terribly out of tune, the owner announced that he was planning on pushing it out into the alley to see if anyone would take it.  “I know someone who might like it, ” she said.

That someone was me.  I grew up playing the piano and studied seriously for twelve years.  After confirming that it only needed a good tuning, I told her I would love to have it.  It was hard for me to imagine receiving a piano for free.  “What’s the catch?” I asked.  “The catch is that we have to figure out a way to get it from Ames to Des Moines,” she responded.  Fair enough!

I quickly got to work on rounding up men I knew at my workplace.  Many of them were always willing to serve.  I talked to a few different ones over the span of a week, but nothing seemed to work out.  I spoke to Steph about it and told her I was at peace if I did not end up with the piano.  I didn’t currently own one, so I wouldn’t know the difference.

One morning while at work, I received a phone call.  It was Steph.  She told me, “Hey, Giana, I just want you to know that my parents and I are driving the piano to Des Moines right now.  Please pray that we can get it into our duplex.”  I was completely humbled.  They were driving the piano all this way for me?  I said that yes, of course I would pray, and we agreed that if it did not fit they would drop it off at Goodwill.  I continued to be at peace about the whole situation and went right back to teaching.

A couple of hours later, Steph called again.  This time, she had different news:  “I’m so sorry, Giana.  We did everything we could do, but the piano didn’t fit through the front door.”  We lived on the bottom story of a duplex, and the front door opened up to a small hallway with three doors:  the door on the left for our duplex, the one across from it on the right leading to the basement, and the second door on the right that led to the duplex upstairs.  I understood why it was a hard space to maneuver.  I thanked her and told her to thank her parents—a teacher and a coach—from the bottom of my heart.  It meant so much to me that they would serve me in such a way.

Our Duplex

My heart was perfectly at peace, and with ten at-risk students to cater to, I went on with my day.  Shortly after lunch, I saw that I had a voicemail.  Once again, it was my roommate, saying, “Um, there’s a surprise waiting for you in the living room when you get home.  Call me when you see it because I have the story of the century for you!”  Steph was not a dramatic person, and those were big words she had used.  My heart skipped a beat.

After pulling into our parking garage, I slowly walked up the backstairs to our home.  I didn’t want to get too excited, but I knew what was waiting for me.  Opening the back door of the kitchen, I carefully put one foot in front of the other and peered into the living room.  There it was.  The old, mahogany upright piano that was now mine.  It looked so grand!

I immediately called Steph and asked her what happened.  “Well,” she relayed, “on our way from Ames to Des Moines we were praying that the Lord would send us help.  We knew we weren’t going to be able to move the piano by ourselves.  It’s a monster.  Shortly after I talked to you, my dad was pulling away from our place and a random, black man asked if we needed help with the piano.  My dad said, ‘Thank you so much for offering, sir, but we have already tried fitting the piano into the duplex and it’s not going to work.’  The man responded, ‘I don’t mean to be a bother, but will you show me the space you were trying to fit it in?’  My dad agreed since we had not left yet.  The man said, ‘Here’s what we need to do.  We need to unhinge this front door and the door leading to the duplex, and prop the piano on it’s side.  It’s going to fit.  I move pianos for a living.’  I move pianos for a living?!  Who moves pianos for a living, Giana?!”  I could scarce believe my ears.

The Piano

“Someone wanted you to have that piano,” Steph later told me.  “And if you ever move back to Texas, you’re taking it with you.”  And so I did.  I didn’t realize that just a couple of years later, I would inherit another lovely piano.  But that is another story…