Rainy Sunday

Erin Walters - Irving Park Chicago International Charter School

Happy rainy Sunday, CSers!

We had a short week in school for Easter this past week, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t busy! Time is going so quickly here, and each week seems to get faster as it gets busier.

To start my week, I went to watch the sunrise over Lake Michigan on Sunday. One thing I have found with waking up early during the week is that it becomes hard to sleep late on the weekends as well. This might sound bad, but it’s actually nice if you can manage to be productive, or if you take advantage of things like sunrises!

On Monday, Molly and I decided to treat ourselves after coaching Girls on the Run after school. We went to a place in Belmont, which is a stop on the red line, called Cheesie’s. The main thing that they serve is grilled cheese, but there are so many different options of it that I think you could eat there every week and never get bored with grilled cheese. That would be a lot of grilled cheese, though. Molly and I both got The Mac, which is stuffed with mac and cheese. It was delicious, and definitely made my Monday much better.

In school, my students are starting to prepare for the PARCC test, which is a countrywide standardized test that starts once students are in 3^rd grade. I am already nervous for my students as this begins, as they haven’t done a test like this before, and I can see that sitting and doing a paper test for an hour or more is not going to go well. We did a practice test on Thursday and most of my students lost concentration after fifteen minutes. If you’re the praying type, my students could definitely use it! On top of this, we are learning about fractions which can be challenging.

Then on Thursday I got to go home for the long weekend. My sister bought me a train ticket to surprise my family, and then I got to be home for almost three days. It was good to get out of the city for a while and see them again, as well as to spend Easter together. It was a necessary break to help me reenergize to work through these next few weeks.

I hope the holiday was great for you too!

Until next time,

Erin.

Exploring Chicago

Erin Walters - Irving Park Chicago International Charter School

Hello again, CS friends!

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged as school life has picked up quite a bit, but I am back at it now and have lots to cover from the past few weeks!

Lately I’ve been trying to get out and walk around as much as I can because of the nice weather we’ve had. One of my favorite places to go and explore is the Wicker Park neighborhood, which is only a 15 to 20 minute bus ride from Canterbury Court Apartments! Wicker Park is a pretty funky place, but it has some of the best thrift shops I’ve ever been to. Buffalo Exchange is one of the better-known ones, and it can be pretty overwhelming at first because the racks of clothes are so packed full. However, I always end up finding something really great that is never too expensive. It definitely beats trying to find affordable clothes on Michigan Avenue. Wicker Park also has some fun boutiques to walk around, even if I can’t afford any of what they’re selling.

And, of course, there is also great food in Wicker Park! When I was there a few weekends ago, I had lunch at a place called Antique Taco. It’s one of the coolest looking places inside, and the tacos are amazing. I had pork with bacon and avocado, and reflecting on that meal now is making me hungry! There are also lots of fun coffee shops to check out, such as Wormhole, Filter, and Bru. These are great places to go to get away from the Gold Coast area to lesson plan for a while!

Another fun place to walk around when the sun is shining is Fullerton. This is a stop on the red line, just north of Clark and Division, where Canterbury is located. DePaul University is located there, and the college-town feel had a nice familiarity to it that made me think a lot about Hope College, except in Chicago. The houses on the streets were so beautiful, and my friends and I started to joke about what ones we wanted to live in. I even considered looking up how much it actually did cost to live there!

 

For dinner in Fullerton, we went to a pizza place called Homeslice. The interior of the restaurant made me feel like I was camping, even though I was indoors. The walls made it feel like we were in a log cabin, and the rest of the décor had the same rustic feel. The pizza was also delicious, and they had fun names for them, such as “The Knife and Forkner” and “Party Boi.”

After pizza, we went to a sweet shop called Sweet Mandy B’s. The place was adorable inside, and all of the sugary foods looked way too tempting. I’m pretty sure there was just about every possibly baked good in the shop, and I definitely would be willing to taste-test all of them if given the chance. Going here also made me decide that I would definitely be willing to own a bakery once I retired from teaching.

That’s all for today! Sorry for the long post—I had some time to make up for!

Until next time,

Erin

edTPA

Erin Walters - Irving Park Chicago International Charter School


This past week was crazy with school and edTPA, so I’m sad to say I didn’t get to go out too much for fun adventures. The first part of the assignment is due Tuesday and this past week I got to videotape the lessons I planned for the assignment. The kids loved the camera way too much. If they were in a group that I wasn’t taping with, they would keep asking if I could tape their group anyways. Because I was sharing the camera with Molly, this wasn’t possible. I did have the camera one afternoon, though, and I walked around while they did their math and taped them then. This seemed to be good enough for them, and I had fun being behind, rather than in front, of the camera for a while. 

I also found that my students actually behaved better than they normally would when I taped them. We had gone over expectations to ensure that they knew not to goof around when being taped, but I think the extra excitement of being on film and knowing that they were part of a project I was doing really made them want to listen and behave well while I taught. It was so pleased with this, as I was nervous the opposite would occur and they would want to be extra silly simply because the camera was there.  

Now that taping is over, I feel like I have less stress with edTPA. There is still a lot that I need to do for it, but it’s all on my part now; I do not have to think about how my class will react or if my lessons will go well or have any fear that technology will not work in my favor. All I need to worry about is having the time to answer the prompts. 

To help with this is, as always, lots of fabulous coffee shops! Canterbury is in a great location where a lot of fun shops are nearby, as long as you’re willing to do your research. Molly has found a couple great ones so far that have been perfect for lesson planning, edTPA-ing, and even just getting away from the apartments for a while. This past week we went to Eva’s Café, where I got some awesome hot chocolate in the coolest cow mug ever. We’ve also gone to Cassava a lot, which has good bubble tea and smoothies in addition to coffee. In the past I have gotten strawberry milk tea, but this past weekend I was adventurous and tried an avocado smoothies, which ended up being one of the best and weirdest things I’ve ever tasted.  

That pretty much sums up this week! I’m hoping to adventure a bit more soon as the weather (hopefully) gets better and stays better, and I am less busy with work. Tune in next week to see if that actually happens!

Happy March,

Erin.