Another week...bites the dust :)

Well last week I did not get the opportunity to attend the training after all. Another teacher was already down south for a Dr. appointment so they decided not to pay for me to travel etc. down there. It was a bummer but at the same time a relief.

This week was very busy. We had our first Parent-Teacher conferences of the year. Which is always wayyyy more interesting than I would like. I will just say it is a confusing world kids live in. I had a discussion with a friend. The friend didn't quite understand what I was trying to say about this. Much of our country has decided the nuclear family just isn't that important. I see the price being paid and I am powerless to change it for children. Just hear me that there is a price and it is very, very costly. The world has enough confusion without adults decisions adding to it.

We do not have access to our online assessments because the company that provides these for us is doing updates. We don't know if we will have them all year. So all we can do is use assessments available to us and track that data. The problem is they are not as comprehensive or complete. The district hasn't given us suggestions or alternatives. I keep seeking out assessments in hopes that I am tracking my students to the best of my ability. It is quite frustrating though.

The days have been very warm here and the nights quite cool. Fall has arrived. I wish we would get a little more rain but other than some beautiful fluffy white clouds traveling over us I haven't seen a possibility of rain.

I need to do some cooking this weekend. My stash is depleted. I am just having trouble deciding "what". Inspiration has not struck.

I went to the chiropractor again this weekend. I had a minor adjustment. So it is getting better and better. My muscles are always sore after the adjustment.  I am not walking in major pain at the end of every day now.

Today I went in to school and all that I accomplished was my lesson plan for next week. I will have to go back in this evening and grade papers, clean up the classroom, organize materials, and do a bit more planning. I keep thinking I will get faster at this. So far not much luck being faster.

We received an interesting e-mail from administration this weekend. It was discussing our first professional development training provided by our regional professional development coordinators.  It was a high quality lesson. What was interesting is that the feedback administration got was that it was too "hard" and didn't make sense. What these trainers do is teach us as if we were the students in the classroom. They always teach this way. They teach an "example" lesson use strategies that they would like to see us attempting and then we have a reflection period. I think we didn't quite reflect long enough to cover what was taught because we ran out of time. It was a math lesson with an anchor task. It was at about a 3rd or 4th grade level. If this was too "hard" for our teachers... I am at a loss. I hope that next time the trainer will offer more explanation for these folks. I really do not understand why it was hard for them. The administrator asked that we give feedback to her so she could let the trainer know.  Anyway they had better get used to being taught in the format of being a student to learn strategies. We have to actively participate and think. Perhaps they were unable to do this on a Wednesday afternoon after school. This is why if I had children.... they would not be in public school. Your "highly-qualified" staff.... needs to get more qualifications.

Travel and assessment

You never know what a day will bring or a three minute conversation. I am headed south tomorrow or Friday. I don't have any details yet. Which makes it hard to make a plan. I was asked to attend a statewide conference. Our state passed a law about students reading by grade three. There are a few exemptions such as special needs students and English Language Learners. If they are not reading by grade three they will be retained.  So apparently what is up for discussion is what assessment tool we will be using to track them. I don't know when this law goes into effect. I think it is a couple of years. When a law is passed like this that has such a huge impact on the current system, plans are put into place sooner rather than later. It should be an interesting conference with representatives from each district around our state. The lawmakers also passed a law that every school must have a reading specialist. So that is new to our state as well. It is interesting they put these laws into place when we have such a large teacher shortage in our state.

I will have to pack a bag even though it may only be a one day trip. I hope I have the details by  morning so I have a little bit of an idea what I need to be prepared for. There are only two teachers from our district going that I know of and our administrator. I will try to share more of what I learn upon my return.

Speaking of assessments. The statewide assessment tool we usually use to evaluate and track our student progress has been unavailable to us due to some updates they are working on. So I have really had to think about what tools I have available to me to assess my students. I've spent a lot of time creating data folders to track their progress. There are still components I feel I am missing but I am using the materials available to me without spending more money.It is a little frustrating that administration new this and didn't help us come up with an alternative. It is what it is and so I must work with it. I wanted to track data more often this year anyway. In our district it is very unusual to retain students and getting them tested for any kind of learning issue is very difficult. If I track them throughout the year I have a better chance of making that happen. So I have learned from observation how I can possibly overcome this. One of the biggest hurdles is parents. They don't want their students retained. I understand there can be a social impact from retention. Now with our new law it is possible that one in three students will be retained in third grade. That is pretty significant. I feel that the lower grades  MUST do a better job on tracking these students so there is some back up for retaining them.

The whole retention process was not EVER explained to me in this district. Still hasn't been. I learned from observing people going through the process last year. It wasn't pretty because some of them did not have any data to back up their claim. Now you'd think that would be fairly self explanatory. However if you were never told what data to use and especially in Kindergarten the online test is pretty much a practice round. You can't use it for evaluation purposes. It is more of a practice round. There is also a mysterious file with retention paperwork in it that needs to be filled out. Has this information EVER been shared. Um nope. Not to my knowledge. I discovered it only because I am a good listener. I heard one teacher asking for it. She was the only teacher I have spoken to that knew this paperwork existed. Clearly we have some communication issues at our school. So this is why I am spending a lot of time collecting and tracking data.

So tomorrow or Friday I head south. We've had a lovely day of refreshing rain after a very long dry spell. I am not looking forward to heading back into summer down south. I love our crisp fall air. I am going to melt.

Weekend

Another week complete. It was a busy one. Meetings... of course. I helped babysit the neighbors kiddos today while their mom was  away at a conference and dad working. I managed to squeeze in an afternoon nap on Friday. I worked on lesson plans Friday Evening and prepared materials for use this coming week. I went on Saturday and worked on a bit of organizing my classroom and putting things away and some laminating I needed done as well.  Today I went in and did more laminating and graded papers.  It was a few hours here and there but it was a lot. Hopefully I will feel well prepared for the week ahead.

I celebrated my birthday tonight with my three year old birthday present. We had pizza including gluten free for me and watermelon, honeydew, and salad. It was all delicious. I skipped on the ice cream and cake and had more fruit. They gave me some watermelon to take home so that will go well with my lunch tomorrow. I had plans to do some cooking this weekend but between tackling laundry and getting ready for next week it just didn't happen. Bummer! Maybe I will have some time another day.

I was sent a letter for Jury Duty the week after this. It is my fourth time this year to be served. I will have to see if  I am actually required to serve.  That is a lot of Jury Duty notices in one year.  I decided to take a week hiatus from Facebook. It is entertaining and a huge distraction. I can't tell you how many times I have clicked on it out of habit and then realized I temporarily deactivated my account. That tells me I click on it too much.

It has been super dry here. Today some clouds roll in and there was  a drop or two but nothing significant. We are supposed to have some rain the middle of the week and I am looking forward to a little moisture.   It has been such a dry summer.  Well, I'd better rest my head so I am somewhat ready to rise in the morning! G'nite

New Curriculum

This is our second year implementing our new reading curriculum. We had our second half of the training on this curriculum over the summer. We are beginning to see positive results from our efforts. The students who started in the curriculum last year are showing significant improvement. There are a couple that fall outside of that rule but they have larger learning issues going on. It is exciting to see the growth. What is even more interesting is the reaction of people that are new to our school. We fought so hard to get a reading curriculum. It is such a relief to have a quality program. There are a lot of options that are horrible on the market. The new teachers are fighting this, they aren't open to it, and are pretty unwilling in general.   I can only hope they keep putting forth effort so that they can see the growth potential. It always takes more time to implement something new. Then you find your groove and it works.

I woke up in the middle of the night last night. I realized I had to change my lesson plans. Do you think I could sleep with that weighing on my mind. NOPE!  So I got up and just did it! That way I could spend the rest of the night in peace.  I hope nothing is bothering my mind tonight.

I came home tonight made some dinner and chilled for a bit. I had some materials to prepare for a new student and for lessons tomorrow. I think I have completed my to-do list for tonight.

Lesson Planning

Lesson planning: it takes time. A lot of time. There have been times I have winged it. There is a price to pay for that. I promised myself I would spend more time really reading through our teaching guide and planning lessons.  Tonight as I was working on Lesson planning I realized  that about 3 hours had passed while I was working on lesson plans.  I hope it will allow me to feel more prepared for the week ahead.  It was one of my huge tasks this weekend to work on lesson planning. I may have to tweak here and there but overall I feel it is pretty complete. Now I have to gather and organize all the materials to execute the plan. That takes more time.  I started using an online Plan book this year. I think since it is the first year we have had a complete curriculum it really makes lesson planning much much easier.  I read it sometimes and think " I am really doing that all in one day?" It is no wonder whey I am tired and my students are tired by the end of the week. It is a lot of new learning.

I will have to go in to school to prepare and gather materials for next week. I will also have to go in to finish grading from the last couple of weeks. The list is long. I am glad I have more time to prepare.  I  have an app called Evernote that I have been continuously adding to a "to-do" list on. I just read it and think all my goals for being ready for next week are achievable. I accomplished more the past couple of days than I realized. Not that it won't take me some time.  It will. Oops as I typed I added two more items to my list. So it goes.

I have almost conquered my laundry pile so that is an accomplishment as well. The winds have arrived. With it that chill to the fall air. The very warm days and chilly nights season has started. The afternoon winds howl over my house they are so strong.

Thinking about the wind I drove by our town cemetery as they were preparing a grave for a graveside service. I was thinking about how we kind of  "pretty up" these ceremonies with AstroTurf and the like. Then I realized that may have started for a more practical reason. The pile of dirt they cover with turf isn't blown around by the wind into the eyes of those gathered there. I was thinking at first perhaps they were just covering the grim reality of where the body was going. So that was my weird thought of the day.

I received a couple of early birthday cards this week. They were of course from companies I pay for services. A better birthday gift would be to deduct the amount the spent on postage to send me a card from my bill. Don't you agree? Then I received a couple from local businesses that have a "club card" for 5$ off on my next purchase of a gazillion dollars or more. Ahem.  I should hit the hay!
G'nite

My buddy

Well my little neighbor buddy comes to visit quite often. If dinner isn't quite up to par at his house he will visit after dinner for a banana muffin and a orange. Well the other night he came over and headed to my freezer to get a muffin. I had to tell him that I was all out. His look toward me fully indicated his complete disgust. I mean this is as bad as grandma's cookie jar being empty. He said "make more" and left my house.  So last night I fulfilled this obligation and made a couple of batches of muffins. He came over as I was pulling the last bunch out of the oven. Eating commenced. Five muffins later I talked him into an orange. This morning he came over for one more.  All was back to normal.  I often freeze bananas that are super ripe to make banana muffins out of later. It works. They are a little slimy to peel but I am able to save them for when I have time to bake.

I also managed to get quite a bit of cleaning done a long with another trip to the recycling center. I ran down to school today to get my teachers manuals to work on planning.  I brought them home so I can keep doing laundry and plan as well. I will have to spend some time at school later but for now I am just enjoying being at home.

My little buddy is hanging out with me for a bit while his mom makes a grocery store run.  It is great to have neighbors that can help and this relationship goes both ways. I am very lucky in my neighbors.

Week 2

Week 2 is complete. Whew. Even though we had training on Monday it felt like a full week. I think it was almost like the first week of school again because the students had more days to get off schedule. Since this coming Monday is a holiday as well.... well wish me luck!

I actually have a pretty great class this year. I am not saying I don't have noodleheads because I definitely have noodleheads. They just are more manageable with a smaller class size. I also think there are a couple of people that were moved in that are more capable of dealing with issues that arise. That makes my job a little easier.

When I come home on Thursday after a four day school week. I am two things; tired and hungry. I managed to eat some dinner, get my front postage stamp sized lawn mowed, a load of laundry in, a load of dishes in, and a trip to the recycling center. I even did some picking up.  So I feel good about that. It wasn't a lot but it was enough after a long day.

Tomorrow I see the chiropractor again. I look forward to that. It is relief for me. It gets a little better every week. I have this one week spot that just needs to heal. I was told I have a very healthy spine. I guess a few people might think "all too true." :)  

My administrator asked me again to be a mentor teacher. I don't know if I will be able to say no. We shall see. I am nervous about how this is being done because some people may be given a mentor that don't feel that they need one. It could create a tense working environment. So I shall see. I really don't want to take that on. I will have to wait and see what happens. I am not even sure I have enough experience to be a mentor teacher. I am still learning every single day.

I was trying to think of what else is new. My weekend "to-do" list is extensive. I will spend some time in the morning prioritizing that list.    It is past my bedtime soooo g'nite