Mr. Stonehill Opening Dance Video!!!!

Here's the video of the opening dance number from Mr. Stonehill 2009!

I owe a HUGE thank you to my friend Nick from high school, who spent a couple hours helping me figure out how to get this video on the blog to all of you! It took many attempts at changing the type, size, and location of this video, but at long last - here it is! Hope you all enjoy it as much as I did!

Final Days of Student Teaching

It is hard to believe that I have spent much of the past four years preparing for my student teaching practicum - and now it has come and gone! I am now prepared to have my own classroom! It is both an exciting and scary thought that soon I will be starting a brand new application process - that of applying for teaching jobs!

Student teaching was a great experience. I learned so much from my cooperating practitioner, and as I assess myself as a teacher, I can see the progress I have made since September. My classroom management techniques have grown, I have learned many ideas for how to set up my own classroom, and I have prepared numerous lessons. I feel so much more confident about starting my own classroom now after student teaching than I did before. I have heard many current teachers say that student teaching is what prepares you best for your own classroom - and although I still do not yet have my own classroom, I would have to agree!

The last week of the semester was more low-key for me since my cooperating practitioner once again took over a majority of the teaching. But in addition to some teaching, I stayed busy observing other teachers and also making two new bulletin boards to leave my students with. Here are my final projects:

The most exciting part of my final week, however, is when my kids surprised me with a small party and going away gift. A mom volunteered to bake a cake for us to have during our small party, and together the class presented me with a gift. During art class, all of the kids decorated a big L.L. Bean bag monogramed with Ms. Charest with their hand prints. Then they filled the bag with gifts they donated to me to begin my own classroom library with. It was the best gift I have ever gotten! I will definitely use it during my first few years of teaching!

Now I am excited to have a long winter break for Christmas! It was a challenging, busy, exciting, nerve-wracking, and exhausting semester, so I am certainly excited to relax with family and friends, re-organize, and re-charge for my final semester at Stonehill! (I'm still not used to saying that by the way :/ ) I'll be blogging again soon about my holiday!

Mr. Stonehill 2009

At the end of each fall semester is the ever-popular and long-awaited Mr. Stonehill "beauty pageant." It is one of the most popular events that the senior class traditionally hosts each year - and it is a TON of fun! Boys from all class years participate in the competition - which includes the swimwear, talent, and formal wear/Q&A categories. The weekend of Mr. Stonehill was very exciting for me besides the fact that it was that time of year again for Mr. Stonehill! My group of friends that has grown closer and closer over the past 4 years was reunited again! We all have been doing some exciting and important things - like studying abroad, internships, student teaching, and senior thesises - but this weekend, my friend Kathleen who was in D.C. for the semester, came to Stonehill to visit. Plus, none of us would miss Mr. Stonehill for the world, so we all got together before going to the show! Here's a picture of the girls reunited!

The first category is swimwear. Here are a couple highlights from this year's swimwear competition:

Tim Cushing, Student Government Association Executive Board Treasurer by day, body builder by night!

Real-life lifeguard, Travis Kumph, also dressed as one during Mr. Stonehill '09!

This year my friends and I were very impressed with all of the 14 guys' talents! They worked so hard to prepare their acts, and they all did really well! There was singing, dancing, magic, and more! We also had many "celebrities" participate in the talent portion of the show. We had Clenny Kravitz (Clenton McArthur), Beyonce (aka Conor Nordengren) doing "her" Single Ladies dance, and even a special guest appearance from hubby Jay-Z (Randall Stalworth). But the winner of the talent portion of the competition was Randy Jose for his dance tribute to Michael Jackson. It was fabulous!

"Clenny Kravitz"

Beyonce and Jay-Z

Some of the guys singing background while contestant Nate Illsley performed "One Week" by the Barenaked Ladies.

The final category the guys compete in is formal wear and a question and answer session. Here are a couple pictures of the guys with their escorts on stage to answer their question.

Jay Ardizonni with his little sister as his escort.

Senior Pat Higgins with girlfriend Erin Rozwat.

In addition to each category that the guys compete in, they also spend countless hours perfecting their dance moves for the opening and closing numbers, this year choreographed by senior Jill Eid, and also videotaping sketches for the opening and other intermissions during the show. This year's theme was Vegas, and they did a re-make of The Hangover as the opening video. It was pretty funny, they had everything from the beginning of the movie covered - even the baby and tiger! Right after the opening video, the guys entered with strobe lights and music and went right into the opening dance number. I loved the opening dance! Stonehill students love to dance, and I must say, we have some of the best dancers around! I took a video of the opening dance that I have been trying to upload all week - without success! I will continue to try to get the video uploaded, so check back to see what great dancers our guys are!

From Thanksgiving to Christmas

It was so nice to be home at the end of last week for Thanksgiving break. Thanksgiving fell in the middle of my 15 consecutive days of take-over, so it came as a much needed long weekend to write my lessons for this week, and also to catch up on some R&R! In fact, the first thing I did when I got home on Wednesday afternoon after our half day of school, was to take a 3 hour long nap!

School was fun on Wednesday though, because we had a morning of Thanksgiving arts and crafts. We had lots of family volunteers come in to assist with the activities, while I ran the cornucopia water-color activity! We had 10 crafts in all that students in my class and the second grade class next door rotated through. Here are pictures of my favorite crafts:

Isn't the pineapple turkey cute?! My favorite thing about Thanksgiving break was being able to spend time with friends and family. I saw New Moon with my cousins, went out with a couple high school friends, had lunch with my gramma, and of course had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner at my other grandma's home. Here are a couple pictures of me and my family on Thanksgiving:

Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, Stonehill is already gearing up for Christmas! Last night we had the annual tree lighting event on the quad. Two of Stonehill's a capella groups performed Christmas carols and the lights on the trees on the quad were lit up for the first time! :) My friends and I tried to get some pictures, but it's never easy to get good night photos! Here's what we ended up with! But you can notice our cups of hot apple cider and hot chocolate that we got in the Chapel after the tree lighting - YUM!

Over the next week and a half (the last week of classes before finals), there will be many events, all part of Finals Countdown, planned and run by students with the guidance of the Student Activities office. I am pleased to announce that part of Finals Countdown will be arguably the most popular annual Stonehill event - Mr. Stonehill! I wouldn't miss the male "beauty" pageant for the world, so I'll try to get some good pictures to share next week!