Two Weeks Down

I am really going to try to attempt at least one blog post weekly, mainly for our families and friends to be able to stay caught up with us!

We have now been in school for two weeks, and it is already feeling like I never left! I finally know all my students' names, so it is easier now to call on students or have class discussions. My students seem very sweet and capable, so I think it will be a good year.I have already hit the ground running with curriculum and have introduced Socratic circles this past week. I have never done them this early before, but I am experimenting with it to see if the students will be even better at discussion in May if I start now.

National Board is on the back burner until Thanksgiving, as I don't have a tremendous amount left to write. I hope to send off some of my completed entries to some people to read this fall, so I can get some feedback from other NBPTS teachers. I am collecting writing samples over the course of this semester in order to eventually use these student work samples to analyze for my last entry, and I am experimenting with parent surveys and other ways to increase parental contact as another component that I must document. I have until March to get it written, so my main focus now is just collecting materials and getting into my regular school year duties.

I feel like the first two weeks of school have been MUCH busier than normal due to my time commitments with the Rhea Lana consignment sale which just happened to fall during the first week of school! I tagged my items before school started, but it took me one entire evening to load up and drop off all my items I was selling. Then, I spent a half day last Saturday shopping at the pre-sale. In addition, football practice is ongoing, so that is a huge adjustment to our evenings and family life. I also participated in my school's parent open house on Thursday night and was at school from 8 a.m. until 7:30 p.m that day without a break! It was great to meet the parents, and I had an excellent turn out, but it is exhausting physically. Stuart also left early this morning for a conference out-of-state for a week! I hope I can rest this weekend and try to recuperate!

I really want to see the movie The Help since I read the book and loved it. I have heard the movie is good, but I have no spare time on weeknights to see a movie, and Stuart is gone this weekend, so I have no childcare. Maybe I can squeeze it in during the Labor Day weekend!

Stuart bought a MacBook laptop computer this week and drove all the way to Tulsa to get it (nearest Apple store) because he wanted to take a tutorial on how to use it for some specific features. Now, we have two laptops, and our desk top is still dead. It hasn't worked in over a year, but we have yet to dispose of it, so I dust it, and it acts as a decoration in the office!

The kids want to go to the pool this weekend, since it will close soon, but it looks like it might rain today. All the kids are liking their new teachers, and the school year has been smooth so far. One development is that Owen's middle school now has a bus that drops of faculty's children at my junior high on its afternoon route. So, Owen has been able to come to my classroom about three days every week and sit in the back of my classroom for 30 minutes while I finish up teaching my last class. He really enjoys watching the 7th graders, and it has been working well so far. He has been good not to interrupt or talk to me, as I told him that he can't talk to me until school is dismissed since I'm still working. He brings a book to read, gets on my computer, or listens to the activities we are doing. It is saving us a lot of money in after school care, so I am very thankful that this busing option just started!