Trick or.....

uh oh... Windows did another update on my computer I wonder what won't work properly now!


We had some serious rain for us on Friday. We had flash flood warnings. There was rain running down the roads and along side the highways. Just not what you usually see here. It was a drippy drizzly day. I was able to accomplish a lot on Friday. I did some grocery shopping, bought a couple of houseplants, voted, and ran a lot of errands. I also went to our local parade in celebration of our statehood. I went in the rain and helped my little buddy pick up candy. You know the parade is over here when the street sweepers come through.

Saturday the sun came out and it was beautiful. I went and got my cooler out of storage and headed north. Drove about 2 1/2 hours to a nice big-little town surrounded by farmland. It was a beautiful day for a drive. I met an old teaching friend and we talked about our profession and how different it is from where we were before. It is such a change for both of us. It makes you really appreciate where you are now. Then I went to Costco and picked up everything on my list and then some. Costco always has some rather tempting items. That was fun then I headed back south before dark. I was getting home as the sun was setting. The sky was red and pink above the darkness of the hills. I was able to get my groceries put away. I took some Costco purchases to my friends house they'd asked me to pick up. I helped decorate a little for Halloween. They are going to have the spookiest house on the block. I'm not sure little kids are going to want to walk up there! My friend is a creative guy. He's great at finding cheap yard sale items, or thrown away items, and scrap wood and turning them into something else. So it will be fun to see the final product tomorrow night. I am handing out candy at their house while they take the kids trick-or-treating.

Today the wind picked up and blew pretty hard for awhile. It was then followed by another rain storm. We are supposed to have some thunder starting soon. Tomorrow is supposed to be pretty clear. It isn't going to be a very warm day. Which is a bonus. Maybe it will get my classroom trick-or-treaters in to bed a little earlier. (I can hope!) Today I am working on my laundry for the week. I should be making a plan for my school Halloween costume. I'm not into it. Not at all. Don't wanna. My team is all dressing as a similar character. It's one day... I can probably survive. I need to make sure to make my cup of hot tea in the a.m. I'm going to need it to get through all the Halloween excitement tomorrow.  Think kind thoughts for all teachers tomorrow....

....like a box of chocolates

Parent-teacher conferences explain a lot. A lot...! I have enough experiences with this event to know there is going to be one surprise (at least) of a parent who is going to freak out on you. I had one today. They were shocked by their students performance. I was truthful. I wasn't just me telling you your child is struggling but the data. You can blame me if you like, but your child is struggling. If you can jump on board, we can help each other, help your student have success. Sigh. It wasn't pretty. I felt bad because the kiddo was with them. I finally put the focus on him because I could see his discouraged face. I talked to him about what he could do to make growth and that I totally believed he could do it. On the other end of the spectrum I had a huge hug from a mom who was so appreciative of what I was doing for her kid. Most parents were very realistic of where their students were struggling. Parent-Teacher Conferences are like a box of chocolates..."You Never Know What You're Gonna Get."

The FBLA from the local high school came and dropped of my dinner during my last conference of the day. That was great!  I was going to upload a picture but the internet isn't cooperating. Your taste buds won't be drooling in envy tonight.

I am home! I took a long hot shower. I have on my pj's!  Oh! I forgot to share my class won a coloring contest supported by a local Real Estate Office. They won a Pizza Party. We won $125 for our classroom! YAY! So tomorrow I will submit my students vote for Pizza! Tonight I am off to sleep and rest my brain for another busy day! G'Night

Communication

It was a busy but good day. I received my evaluation scores. I had the best evaluation I've ever received. She noted how I was using the whole brain to teach (not just worksheets)! Yay! Anyhow, it made me feel good and feel like I am on the right track. It is such  a positive working environment I hardly know how to respond half the time.

I brought home a stack of things to do tonight. I am organizing folders for Parent-Teacher conferences. I also worked on one of my online classes. I almost forgot to complete the assignment for that class. Sigh. It's a sign of a busy week. I really need to focus on that this weekend and get it done. We are near the end of the class! YAY!  It will be good to have it completed!  I also worked on a parent hand out  for Parent-teacher conferences. Little did I know how much number sense and reading skills I was gaining from those board games we played growing up. Get out those board games and play with your kiddos! Don't change the rules to make them go faster (Mom :)!). Just using dice is building number sense. It's good family time too!  I have that handout prepared I just have to print it.

I use an app called Bloomz to keep parents posted on classroom activities, what is happening at school, and can even message parents privately. I use it constantly. What is nice is that if a parent asks a question, I know that more parents probably have the same question. I can then post to the whole group of parents and save myself over twenty phone calls.  I keep a Calendar at the top and update it. It's the first thing the parents see so they know for the next two days we are out early. They can refer back to it instead of calling the secretaries and asking. Although, I am sure some of them do! I can post scheduling for parent-teacher conferences, and even schedule volunteers. It's very helpful!
I post videos, student work, student pictures and more. I communicate with parents I never see because of this app. That is very good.

So parent-teacher conferences begin tomorrow. This is always stressful. You worry about some you didn't need to, and don't worry about others you should've. I won't have a voice by tomorrow night. Send some positive vibes my way!

Quarter's End

The end of fall quarter, the end of the 1st quarter, the end of the grading period. However you would like to phrase it, it is the end. This first part of the school year has flown by. I have been working like crazy to get all my grades into the new software. I don't know if it is working correctly and I don't even care at this point. I have them DONE! Done, DOne, DONE!

It's only Monday and it felt like four days in one. We had a mini-field trip to the fire station right next door. Amidst a chaotic tour I yelled "freeze" to my class, and the froze in place. The fire chief looked at me and said "You think that'd work on my staff?" I smiled. We continued on then there was another point where the students needed to stop and listen. I said "3,2,1, 0" and on zero they were all silent. The fire chief looked at me again and said "Seriously, you think THAT'd work on my staff." That time I just chuckled. They received stickers and a water bottle filled with wonderful things like crayons. We went back to class and although I repeatedly said "All water bottles in your backpacks!" There were a couple of free spirited folk who pretended like they didn't hear that directive. They were straightened out and I think their treasure made it home. Who knows what happened on the bus.

The book fair is on this week. We had to interrupt our class time to go on a tour of the book fair. There were some decent books, some stupendously crappy books, and a couple of gold nuggets of quality books. I hate to look at the books sold at these book fairs. If I could direct parents into what NOT to get I think it would surprise them. The decline of America can be found at your local schools book fair.  They had teachers come around before the book fair and make a "wish list" for our classroom. Sometimes parents will buy a book for the class.  We finished up that tour without any major mishaps and went back to class.

This afternoon we did our first rotation with other 2nd grade classes in celebration of our statehood. Having other teachers students makes you realize a few things. You are not alone in the struggle to get that one kid to follow simple directions. Every second grade class has nose-pickers. The other teachers have a little insight into your daily struggle with one or two noodles!  We all have a few students with so much energy it oozes out of their fingertips.Then you send them back to their teacher with a sigh of relief.

I forgot to work on my online class this weekend. So as I prepare for Parent-Teacher conferences I have to squeeze that in. I can do it!  G'nite

What do you know?

I have a little guy in my classroom that has a lot of needs. One of his troubles is staying on task and focusing. However, he is quite intelligent picks up on things quickly and often surprises me. We were working on spelling and we were going through the spelling rules. I was trying to trigger some memories of what they rules were. There was a lot of guess work going on. This little guy had interrupted multiple times with unrelated thoughts. I was getting a little frustrated. I finally had the class focused and analyzing the possible rule. There was still a lot of guessing when all of the sudden he says  "It's Job 3, English words don't end in v or u!"   I had no idea that he'd been paying attention to the rules we've learned. Woot! He got a high five and a lot of positive reinforcement from the class. You never know when something will stick!

This next week is going to be busy. We have a fire prevention talk at the fire station. It's right next door to our school. So mini field trip! We are celebrating our statehood with a lot of different activities. Side note we have Friday off of school to celebrate our statehood. It is also parent-teacher conference week. We have half days with students then two afternoons spent in conferences with our parents. I have NO idea how this is going to go. We have a brand new report card format. I expect explaining that will be a pain in the arse. The PTA is making us lunch on Wednesday so that will be nice. The FBLA at the high school does a fundraiser every year at parent-teacher conference time. They have bright futures if this is a sign of their business acumen. They do a tri-tip dinner! There is a family dinner for purchase or an individual dinner. They deliver to teachers! Amazing! Parents can also eat the dinner at the high school or pick it up to go. It's a busy week for all so that is a brilliant idea.  I will be very ready for the three day weekend following that.

Then it is Halloween. Halloween on a Monday! It's going to be hectic with sugar highs and lows. Yeah...

Evening

Something was wrong with my satellite receiver so I missed the latest presidential debate. Bummer. What I did instead was work on some things for school. I completed a couple of laminating projects that I hadn't had time to get to, and printed some things off.  Speaking of printing Windows 10 which I hate, has done many glorious things that makes computing a pain. Apparently our privacy has gone completely out the window and they pretty much record every keystroke. So at least once a day I type in "I hate Windows 10." They did some stupid automatic update that made nothing work correctly. It took a lot of browsing over "Geekster" Blogs to find an answer. I found a lot of complaints and disgust over Windows 10. I also found the answer to the issues. I finally was able to do what I needed to do. Windows 10 is a horrible terrible product. Apple products are not the answer either. I'm waiting for an alternative. Anyhow, after all that technological difficulty I completed a lot of school work.

It has been interesting being an observer at work. I don't know how they are getting it all done. There are so many changes this year I admire the graciousness with which the administration is handling it. There is a huge change in staff and more staff members than they've had before as well as a larger student population than they've every had before. Piled on top of a lot of new staff to train we have new mandates from the state. These mandates are coming  to us based on new state laws regarding reading in the education system. The state is figuring it out, passing it on to administration and specially trained staff. They try to articulate to us what is going on and what it means for us. They've had to adjust and readjust the schedule and adapt quickly to changes. It has to be extremely stressful. It has been amazing to see how much administration  takes on for us. We have testing that is completely new, and some that is new to the school. They have to put a lot of plans in place to meet the guidelines of the law.

Halloween. It's serious business here. I can't believe how much of our school day is devoted to Halloween. It's nuts! I handed off the party to a parent volunteer. She planned the activities, is buying the supplies, and organized parents to bring food, drinks, etc. I am thankful that is out of my hair!

My little buddy is hanging out with me tonight. He's watching one of his favorite shows. He raided my fridge, my bag of lollipops, and snacks. I think he's full for now. He's played with toys while I did a load of laundry! He showed me how to cough in my elbow. I can tell his preschool teachers have been busy! Tonight he walks by me and says "Sha... I love you Sha." I'm not sure if that was the root-beer talking or what! He also said "Sha me fart a little fart!" So you know there is a lot to brag about!

Well he wants to shred some papers... so I am off! G'nite

Good and Busy

Good but busy day. I had one of my many formal observations today. I really like my new administration. They are just so supportive and encouraging. Anyhow, it went pretty well my students were fairly well behaved and did what was asked of them. They also were discussing their thoughts and deepening their understanding. I can't ask for much more than that.

My highlight of the day was after we finished spelling one of my students said "I am starting to like spelling now that I can read my own handwriting." Oh my. I have been working hard to help this student in handwriting. This is a perfect example of why we teach handwriting and why we should continue to teach handwriting. It did make me chuckle though. We've had a few conversations about handwriting and what will happen if I can read it or others can't read it.

Tonight I had to drop off more coloring contest papers to pick up free pumpkins for my students. They could go with their parents to do this but most don't. So I offered to drop them off on my way home from work.

It was a beautiful drive to and from work today. The clouds high in the sky and sheets of rain seen off in the distance. When I got home I had to have a little discipline and sit down and work on my online class. I need to work on it when I am not soooo tired. We accomplished a lot today. Including writing thank you notes to the geologist who explained fossils to my class, what to look for to find them, and then joined us on the field trip and hammered a lot of rocks apart. I hope he gets a big kick out of the notes because I chuckled at a few of them.

Well off to shower and put on my pj's. I took out the trash tonight...maybe I can get lunch made for tomorrow. If I stay awake.........

Warm Fuzzies

It rained most of the day yesterday and all through the night. My lungs sighed in relief. Their is a carport covered with a tin roof. The rain on the roof is very soothing. I loved hearing it through the night. This morning when I drove to work and on the way home the mountains glistened with freshly fallen snow. It was beautiful. All that rain was snow a couple thousand feet higher. All the trees have turned red and yellow. Winter is on the way.

Sometimes when I set up a writing lesson I model for the students a writing piece. So I was writing it as they read along. Then we edit it together. I deliberately make a lot of the same error so that hopefully with practice students can identify those errors in their own writing. We spent some time editing it then we had a discussion about what we did and how it made the writing better. One of my students raised his hand when we were done and said "You make me feel like I am a writer!" I said, "I am glad because you are a writer, you are all writers." Writing for kids is hard for many reasons, but one is that it is personal. It's your thoughts and ideas on paper. My students need to understand I value their thoughts and ideas before we ever sit down and edit one of their own pieces of writing. So having my student state that gave me the warm fuzzies! Doing this really improved a lot of their work in writing.

As we edited my piece it reminded me of why I love a good story. A good story evokes emotion from us. My story which was a very simple story pulled out of the recesses of my subconscious brought back memories of an old friend. There is so much I wish I could share with her if she was here. It also brought back memories of "talking books" with my childhood friend. We still share a love of reading and it doesn't get better than being able to share and discuss a really good tale with a friend. I'll have to give her a call and check if she's read anything great lately.

Speaking of a good story. On my way to and from school I usually listen to a audio book. I like something light but lively. If I'm on a long trip I prefer something action packed. It passes the time and feels more constructive than just sitting in the car. Recently my brother introduced me to an app that makes it easy to download podcasts. Sometimes I will listen to those and expand my intellectual horizons with them, or with some simply be entertained. What is great about podcasts is there is  sometimes a brief commercial at the very beginning or very end but that is it. It reminds me of "old" radio. Radio before there was a twenty  minute commercial break between every  1-2 songs.  Lately though it seems like every podcast is related to politics. I am sticking with fiction for now.

It was a quiet rainy weekend, I hope it is a quiet week. G'nite

Character Education

We have a program in our district that we are required to teach. It is a "Character Education" type of program. I have a lot of problems with it, but here we are teaching it. It's reality. I try to take the most important of these and discuss respect, teamwork, and personal responsibility. I don't like it though. This isn't my place to be teaching these lessons. On a local social media site a parent went off on a tirade about the homework that was assigned from this program. The parent was basically saying it isn't the schools place to be telling me to teach my kid this stuff. I overheard a group of teachers discussing it and they said "Well if the parents would do their job, we wouldn't have to be teaching them these lessons."   They have a point. However, It is the parents job. We do have kids coming to school without any moral compass. It might be the only place they hear you can't behave like this in society. My question is When did parents hand over the keys to their child's character education? It's happened many parents gave it up, handed it over, and didn't question it. It's a scary thing...but it has happened.

On Friday to prepare for a parent night this coming week we made a little display. We had the kids write what they would like to be when they grow up. I've done many similar activities over the years asking kids this question. It helps you to get to know them. It ignites their imagination. I've never had the reaction I had from a student this year.  I looked over at him staring at the paper and he is crying. He appears frustrated, angry, and sad all at the same time. I know it isn't because of the difficulty of the assignment. He's a bright and a quick thinker. I called him to come over and talk to me. I asked every question I could think of to ask to figure out why he was upset. At first I thought it was because a friend hurt his feelings. Then I realized he only was upset when I asked him to do this assignment. I asked him to bring the paper over and brainstorm. The more ideas I suggested the more the tears fell. Finally I said lets do this we picked a very generic response to what he would be. I said you're seven years old writing this down doesn't mean you can't change your mind. He was having none of it but finally went with the generic response. I am still trying to figure out why this would make a child so upset. After thinking of all the questions I asked him I realized it might be simple. It might be how his parents are talking to him about his future. I'm going to be thinking this one over for a long time.

Landscape

I have been reflecting on the landscape and how it changes. The landscape changes over time  with wind, water, hot, and cold. It changes through natural disasters and earth processes. The landscape is in a perpetual state of change. We can fight the effects of the change but change to the landscape is inevitable. Sometimes the change is a painful process. Sometimes the landscape changes so suddenly we can barely comprehend the change. The landscape can change in an instant.  If our life is a landscape we can see the change as we grow, learn, and change. The wrinkles form, the gray hairs come, the eyesight deteriorates. The landscape changes.  Something that was there like a lone pine  high on a hill falls or is blown down. The view changes your compass appears not to point true north any longer.  Change can come due to a great loss. It can be painful. If we knew what stood on that hill before our eyes will travel there still looking for it, even though we know it no longer stands. We want to make a phone call, listen to a voice, hear a song that can no longer be sung. However, there is something greater than this and something beyond this. We can bear the changing landscape if we know there is more. That the "more" is more than we can imagine.

Monday Tools

Monday Monday. My students did very well for being tired on a Monday. Sometimes a little tired is better than oozing energy :).  I picked up my buddy after school today. His mom is in a training tonight. We went and purchased our compulsory slurpie. I went through the drive-thru and ordered a Icee. From the back seat I heard a whispered "slurpie." I think he was nervous that it wouldn't be all that he hoped it would be. We came back and he discovered my tool chest. I had left it open after searching for a screwdriver.  "Can I play with your tools Sha?" I said "yes." So far he's attempted to take apart a Happy Meal Toy he left a couple weeks ago when his mom brought him dinner. Then he's been organizing them in the "right" place.

I accomplished most of my to do list this weekend. However I have a larger to do list that I am slowly cutting away at. I have class tomorrow after work. I am looking forward to it. Today I discovered one of my neighbors is a former co-worker who came up here to be a Professional Development
coordinator. So that is cool! She is a really nice lady!

Well I am going to attempt to form coherent thoughts and work on my online class! G'nite to y'all

Too Much Screen Time

I just diagnosed myself with too much screen time. I went into school for about 4 hours this morning and did some preparation for next week and the weeks to come. I inputted some grades into the grade book program. I brought more papers home to grade. I printed documents I need for the next month and more. I also did a lot of copying. I have not been staying ahead on the copying I need for the math program we use. Then I'd go in to make a copy and the copier would be down, there'd be a long line of teachers waiting, or the territorial moms would be there. So I have the entire next unit copied and ready to go!  Then I spent a little time lesson planning.

I came home had some lunch, visited a friend, then started working on my online class. There was many documents to read online. You couldn't print them off. I realized I wasn't digesting what I was reading anymore. I watched a couple of the videos required, and typed up a written response. I kept trying to start the next section but I just could not focus. TOO MUCH SCREEN TIME! I printed everything I could and will try again in the morning.

I just did a load of dishes and started a load of laundry. I know that is very exciting! During the week once in a while I get a load of laundry in but that isn't too common. My goal for tomorrow is to finish the next sections in my two online classes, mop the floors, finish lesson plans, prep some math centers, go to the grocery store, and maybe get some grading done! Woot I know how to party on the weekend!

My friend said to me "Why are you taking two online classes?" "Nevermind, I just remembered who I was talking to." "You're going to be like 90 years old and taking classes."  
It's very possible....

In other news I received my Voter's Registration Card this year. My uncle advised me to vote wisely... Is that even possible this year?