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When I came int this class, I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. I needed an English class so this is the one I picked. With me not knowing what class I took, I didn’t really know much about it. In the beginning when we were told we are going to become better readers and writers, I thought that meant I will be able to read the biggest chapter book in a day and write a paper like a pro. Reflecting on the class, I realized that’s not what it meant at all. As I learned many things in class, I learned that I did become a better reader and a better writer, just not in the way I expected. When I look at a paragraph or read an article I read it completely different as I did a couple months ago. I see the article and I pick out many different things that I would’ve never picked up on before. I have a way of putting my mind inside the writer, and I read it completely different. That’s something I’m grateful for because it has helped me read so many articles way better.

I think all in all, I did pretty good in this class. I struggled with the online part but I’m sure I’m not the only one. I just took it one day at a time and tried my hardest. That’s all you can really do though! I stayed engaged through out the whole time. During the in class topics, I would get my homework done, I would come to class prepared and leave the class knowing one knew thing I didn’t know walking in. I feel like I put in enough effort, but enough is never my best. I wish I would’ve put more effort in, but in the end I started to get a little stressed so I honestly just starting giving up the last two weeks. I think I would rate my performance pretty good. I stayed engaged, I got my homework done, I paid attention to what was going on and I think I learned a lot from the class and to me, that’s what matters.

An area I feel confidant about—-https://wordpress.com/view/haileyray.design.blog “So, in the past I haven’t really had much of a schedule with the boys. I just go with the flow and make sure they get their work done. The reason for this, is because I’m getting use to the online schooling with my own schooling. And I’m also trying to figure out how to get the boy’s schooling up and going and figuring out how to use all the different websites for their different subjects. So, with all that being said last night I sat down and got some sort of a schedule down. This is more of a trial to see how they like it and if it helps them at all.”

I feel confident about this more because in the beginning I was not very confident in the way I helped the boys, I didn’t think I would be able to teach the littles and get my homework done and be able to not get so stressed, in the beginning this was difficult but practice takes perfect and now we have amazing weeks!

My proudest moment—-https://wordpress.com/view/haileyray.design.blog “This week was awesome! I think it was very helpful. I really enjoyed working with the schedule I created. I was surprised to see how fast my days went by. Since I was going off of a schedule, I constantly had something to look at to see what’s next. It was a little harder to get the boys into the same schedule and having them know that they need to follow it as well, because like I said, we’ve never had a schedule before. It was very convenient that I had things planned out.”

I feel proud of this because once I got a schedule created and I was confident with what I was doing, the rest of the weeks went smoothly.

So in the beginning of this, I had explained what reading and writing better meant to me. I think this was a very important piece of information because I will forever use this technique when reading articles because it truly has helped me. I also like that we learned about blogging. I have never blogged before and it was interesting learning different things from it. I do have to admit, sometimes I still don’t understand how to use it but what I do know is that it is a very nice way to be able to express my feelings and thoughts. I thought having to blog, it would be more of a chore. I figured I would hate having to find topics to write about and getting it done. But I realized that it was nice to be able to write down all my thoughts and feelings. When I would write about the boys week and how schooling was doing, I would sometimes go back and look at the good weeks I had and I would repeat that week because I had that all wrote down on what had made my week good. I hope to blog from now on. Maybe not every day or even every week, but it is nice to be able to go back and look at a time when you had a good day, or maybe even a stressful one. It’s almost like a way to put your memories down, and cherish them forever. Along with the pictures you can add to go along with it.

This week has been busy! I haven’t gotten to my blog all week because honestly I just haven’t had time to! I know it’s my assignment but man o man… I’ve been busy with other things. Well, for starters it has been so nice out. I don’t know if anyone knows but if you have crazy childeren in the house, the best thing to do is to be able to get them outside and PLAY! I have taken them on many adventures this week. One of the favorite things we’ve done is start getting our supplies for mothers day. So I saw this on facebook, and I actually think it would be a neat project for just anyone to do. What you do is you take a board, then you find a stick (about a foot long), then you find flatish rocks to put on the top as a flower pedal, then you can find smaller ones for stem pedals, and add anything else you may want to add. For example there is three boys, so we are going to put all three flowers going up but the bottoms of the stems close together, then I’m going to put sand and little pebbles on the bottom for the “ground”. I thought I could share this with you guys. I have been doing very good with keeping the boys focussed on they’re school work. I have instilled it into their heads that it is better to get it done in the morning, rather then waiting all day and have them doing it later in the day, after maybe forgetting about it. With them getting their school work done in the morning it also leaves a good time frame for me to be able to focus on mine (most of the times) because I can send them outside to play or go for a walk. I have been having a pretty good week, we had two showings on their house so we had to work on cleaning the house and getting it ready. We also have another one tomorow. When we have showings on the house it is kind of hard to work around it because there about an hour. Sometimes we just so happen to have a zoom meeting or be in the middle of school work when we have to go, so when we take a break and leave, sometimes it is hard to get the boys back on task when we get home. Hopefully we have luck with selling the house from the showings this week.

So bare with me because I haven’t really figured out a way to make my pictures work. For some reason there clear on my end but as soon as I post them on here they turn out blurry. So no Monday I had to drive to Kasson from Zumbrota to pick up my cap and gown for graduation. It worked out pretty good because the only time the people from Joston’s were there to hand them out was from 12-1, with that being said it started to rain around noon. I always try to find things I have to get done if it rains during the week, that way the boys aren’t stuck inside all day. So when we got to Kasson it was still raining so I decided to take the boys to my moms house since we had time to waste, and I got a new puppy so the boys were able to play with her! I’m going a little crazy during this quarantine thing (and so are the boys, maybe that’s why I’m going crazy) and I want to start running. I’ve wanted to start working out for a while but I’m never motivated to do so. Now that it’s getting nice out and the boys and I will be going for walks I thought why not go for runs. The boys can ride bike as I run beside them. This is a great way to get everyone’s exercise out! I also found a knew way to keep the boys motivated to do their homework. They all have I pads and oh my- do they love them! The hardest part of getting them to focus is having to take there ipads away. It really bugs me how attached they are to them, but I just have to keep working with them on it. So before I would let them have ipads in between school work or if they finished early or whatever the issue may be. Now I found it effective that if I take them away until everything is done, they have more ego to get their work done faster! They also focus on their zoom meetings as the teachers are working with them a lot more because they’re not worried about their ipad and they know they can’t have them at the moment! I know this quarantine thing is really holding a lot of us back, I hope everyone is doing okay!

This week went pretty good. I had a good week with the boys doing school work and getting my school work done. The boys had knew zoom meeting times because they chose to have more meetings with the teachers. With the more meetings, it makes things kind of difficult to remember. It’s hard because there are three different kids to keep track of and its hard to make sure I have the right teachers, the right meetings, and the right times. Although it can be challenging at times, I’m so thankful I chose to do the weekly calendar because it really does help me and keep my days straight. It helps with not only my project for English, but like I said, it helps with my day to days. Aside from the week with the boys, the rest of the days not doing school work was a little stressful. Maybe not stressful but it was defiantly a lot of work. Like I mentioned before, they’re in the middle of selling their home. They posted it for sale on Monday, and on Tuesday they already had someone that was wanting to come look at it. When the parents got a call we had one hour to get the house looking nice, don’t get me wrong it’s a nice house but you can tell it’s still lived in with three little boys- ha ha. the inspector came on Wednesday, so that was another thing we had to prepare for, we mainly just had to make sure the little things were finished. Now today, Friday, we got the news that they backed out on the deal. Which is a bummer for us because of all the work we went through to get the last little things finished up. So, with the news of them backing out, something good came of it. When one door closes another door opens! Just tonight after I got home, they got a call saying they want to come look at it tomorrow because they are very very interested. So I guess all of our last minute cleaning and hard work paid off! During all of this craziness, I was also having a hard time keeping the boys out of our hair. Even though I’m their babysitter (or PCA if you want to be technical) I’m still in charge of them when their parents are not working. Leah, the mom has been taking some PTO to get things ready, and she also wants my help as I’m watching the boys. I have found some fun crafts to do while I’m helping Leah. One of their favorites so far is taking paint and putting it in a zip block baggie, you have to make sure it’s sealed really good, and then they can use their finger and make letters or designs in the paint!

So this is bad quality of pictures but its really the only way I could figure out how to get my schedule onto here. This is just a day to day schedule that has everything we need to do, and since it’s split up into close hourly groups, it makes the day go by faster because we always have something to do next. This is also the same schedule that we have been doing because we have found out that this is the one that works the best.

This week is pretty crazy and it’s only Monday! Today the boys didn’t have school because of Easter. The boys are actually in the process of moving, so I’ve been helping the family clean, pack, and get the house ready for moving. The house got posted this morning and not even an hour later someone was wanting to look at it! Well, Leah (the mother) isn’t wanting to go through a realtor because she knows she will be able to sell the house on her own, but the people that wanted to come look at it have a realtor. So, I don’t know if many of you guys know how the house market works, but even though Leah isn’t going through a realtor, it would still be 3% of the house cost if she were to sell it to a couple with a realtor, just because they need to make their money as well. So anyways, around 4 pm the couple wanting to look at the house calls and says they will pay the extra so the 3% doesn’t come out of the house cost. With that being said we had to pack up EVERYTHING in the house to make it show able. Now let me remind you they are in the middle of packing so there is stuff everywhere! After loading up an entire Enclosed snowmobile trailer (in an hour, yeah we were pretty proud) we finally got it looking nice enough to have them look at it! Even though today was a little off schedule, we figured out how to make it fun! With it being Easter over the weekend, the boys all got birdhouses to make. They are the wooden ones and they come in the little kit. They were so excited for me to come back today so I could help them build it! We got all three built, but I did accidentally put all the tops on backwards so they open the opposite way… I didn’t know I couldn’t do 8+ birdhouse project. Oops, ha ha. The boys told me it was okay and they still liked them. Little did they know as they were outside building a snowman I took them all apart and put the tops on the right way so they open nicely. They were super happy I fixed them. It’s very nice to have days off of school, that way we can focus on having fun and learning real life situations (like building the birdhouses and why the top was on the other way). I hope this week goes by good and it isn’t stressful with the house trying to sell! I will be posting the weekly schedule tomorrow because to be completely honest, with them not having school today I didn’t even bother to go on their online school work. I thought it could be a day for playing and having fun while we don’t have to worry about school! I will get that schedule posted tomorrow. Have a wonderful week!

This week was awesome! I think it was very helpful. I really enjoyed working with the schedule I created. I was surprised to see how fast my days went by. Since I was going off of a schedule, I constantly had something to look at to see what’s next. It was a little harder to get the boys into the same schedule and having them know that they need to follow it as well, because like I said, we’ve never had a schedule before. It was very convenient that I had things planned out. Sometimes I do see myself slacking with doing unusual things, I always just take them outside to play, or for a walk. But with having a plan and schedule to go off of, this gave me the opportunity to be able to plan for fun things. I think the boys enjoyed having the science class every day because they either got to learn something knew or make some sort of experiment. They loved making the oblique because it was extremely messy. We tried a different recipe so it didn’t really turn out at first, but we fixed it!

They also really enjoy going for walks!

Since the park is closed and we can’t really go anywhere I have to make the walks fun because they get bored of just walking sometimes. When we went for walks this week we did a number of things! We had a scavenger hunt, did different kind of races, practiced skipping rocks, took the dog, and some other fun things! Although, we got to do a lot of fun things, we still had to do some school work. With the schedule layout, it helps me get my work in because I can do mine while they are doing certain things. I”m finally getting the hang on the boy’s schedule for school and all the zoom meetings, when things are do, and how to get stuff done! It has been a little bit of a struggle getting a schedule that works, but I think that this is going to work and make things a little calmer and we will be able to work together as a team!

So, in the past I haven’t really had much of a schedule with the boys. I just go with the flow and make sure they get their work done. The reason for this, is because I’m getting use to the online schooling with my own schooling. And I’m also trying to figure out how to get the boy’s schooling up and going and figuring out how to use all the different websites for their different subjects. So, with all that being said last night I sat down and got some sort of a schedule down. This is more of a trial to see how they like it and if it helps them at all.

9:30-9:55 am— Math:

Monday Counting Backwards— Activity= lining up rocks and putting 20 in a row, take one away each time they count etc…

Tuesday

9:55-10:55 am— Teacher meeting on zoom

11:25-12— Epic/Reading: They can either do Epic which is an online reading website or read books on their own or with me.

12-12:45— Lunch/Free time: I will prep meals, feed, and clean up/pick up the house a bit.

12:45-1:55— Park/outside time (Physical Education)

2- 2:30 pm— Meeting with teacher on zoom (wrap up how the day went)

2:30-3:30 pm— Art/music/science: Each day we have a different animal we color for art. There is a step by step process on how to draw each animal.

Music:

Good Morning! For my blogging I will be doing some different things. With all these knew changes happening to us all around, it’s been changing our daily lives. It has also changed my life a lot! I was doing all my classes at the campus, which for most of us that was the case. Now we are all doing online. With my job, I also had to learn more about the online school world. I was three boys all in elementary school. With my final project I will be blogging about the lesson plans we will be putting into place. So I take all the boys calendar for what is do that week and I will put together the times we will be doing each subject along with activities. The boys are aged 7,8, and 11. They all need help with there homework and I’m no mother, so this was something very big that came to me all at once. I knew I needed help so I looked up many different blogs on how to home school, or different activities to help cope with children as they get bored through out the day. I’ve watched these three boys since I was about 10, so I know exactly how they act. I knew that if I didn’t have a plan set in stone then they would go crazy. So the first thing I blogged was how to keep them active. The first thing I knew is if I keep them busy and not cooped up in the house they will focus, listen, and be able to communicate in a better way because they will be able to get all their energy out. So the first thing I have them do in the morning is stretches and yoga with me. I tell them this helps clear their brains and they get all their “wiggles out”. I

Hello, my name is Hailey Jade Ray. I live in a small town called Mantorville, but I grew up in an even smaller town called West Concord, both in Minnesota. I have 2 older sisters both from a different dad, and a younger brother and sister from the same dad. Growing up I went though a lot. My dad has always had a heavy drinking problem. He was always in my life, but never really invested the way I wanted my father to be. He is an amazing dad, I know he loves me and I know he cares, but the alcohol gets the best of him. Growing up I hated to see my dad drink, I’ve always felt like I have two different dads. One sober and one drunk. It was the worst thing to see, and seeing that I knew I didn’t want my younger siblings to see that. Luke, my brother is only 4 years younger then me so he saw a lot of what I saw. Tumbling down the stairs, two different personalities, yelling, crying, laughing, whatever his drunk mood was, me and my brother basically went through it together. My sister Aspen, is 10 years younger then me. When she started to grow up, I became very protective. I didn’t want her to see that side of him, because I didn’t want her to get hurt the way it hurt me. I didn’t want her to see the bad side of dad and have to look back at that when she’s older. As time went on, my dad lost custody of Aspen. Although my dad loves us kids so much and he truly cares and does anything for us, he just doesn’t have the right life to raise a little girl. Even though my dad does not have custody, we all still get to see Aspen and just because my dad messed up, doesn’t mean we lost Aspen also. We still see her and so does he. She comes to all family holidays, birthdays, and reunions. The reason why continuing my education is important is because I know that I want to be someone big some day. I want to be able to make my kids happy and my parents proud. I want to prove to the rest of my family that even though I have gone through a lot and needing to grow up a little to fast, that I will not let anything get in my way. Not only will I do it for myself, I will do it for Aspen. I aspire to be her role model and be the big sister that she looks up to. In order to show her that us ‘Rays’ can get through anything, I have to practice what I preach! And by doing that, I will follow my dream of continuing my education.