Wahoo

First snow day of the year!!! I am both thankful and flummoxed. We've moved to a modified block schedule and I meet with my 8th grade classes every other day. Last Friday, we let school out early to do inclement weather and my B block missed class. Today's snow day lands on a B day. So those kiddos have missed class twice.

Under the old schedule this wouldn't matter so much, but now they've missed the equivalent of almost a week of classes. In addition to that, they are two classes behind my other class. There is no way to really catch them up before mid-term tests.

Needless to say, we are still adjusting to the new schedule and I'm going to relax, catch up on my blog reading and enjoy the rest of my snow day!







Kitties at my house are also relaxing and enjoying the day.

December Currently

I can't believe an entire month has gone by and I've not posted. This school year is just flying. I'm linking again with Farley and her monthly link up.

Listening - West Wing's first season on DVD. I really like this show and I can't count how many times I've watched these dvds.

Loving - until just a minute ago I had a kitty in my lap. He has decided he must be by my side all the time! He is very sweet and loving.

Thinking - during this holiday season and after today's church message that I'm incredibly blessed and have much to be thankful for.

Waiting - I'm ready for winter and SNOW! I think I could live in Alaska. I have been there during summer but would love to make a winter trip to see if I'd like it even more!

Needing - my car has decided to slowly die. It has many miles on it and I wanted many more. But I've started to sink money into repairs every month and it is time to purchase a new one.

Favorite Tradition - I don't really have one. We didn't have consistent Christmas traditions after becoming adults. But that's ok. We had great times together as a family and that's what counts.

Now to start some new blog posts and not have weeks without posting.

Currently

This year is flying by!

I'm linking with Farley for her November Currently!

I am currently watching Iron Man on TV. I can't tell you how many times I've watched it lately. It's great background noise.

I'm loving the extra hour of sleep last night and knowing it will be daylight when I drive to work tomorrow.

I really need to clean my house. But I'm just not in the mood. It really has to happen soon. :)

I've had a nagging sore throat and sinus ick for a week. It has gotten worse this weekend and today my voice has been croaking.

So I really NEED a beach vacation. :)

I love the Pioneer Woman and I made her Hot Corn Chili Dip this weekend. It is going to become new favorite as soon as I get it spicy enough. I was taking it to a friend's party and she requested I make a mild version. It was good, but I'm sure the regular version will be awesome!

Have a great week!

Fall Break is Over

Time seems to have flown this year. We are in week 12 of school and I'm feeling a little behind. My class (8th grade) and I are spending a great amount of time on our interactive notebooks. I realized today that we are several weeks behind the topics and standards I covered last year. We are going more in depth, but I also think we are probably spending a little too much time on some topics.

We have a new residency teacher who joined the class this week. He will be with us for the rest of the year. Because of the scheduling of our teachers, he will shadow three of us. He will spend four blocks of his A/B days with the high school US History and American Government teachers and two blocks with my 8th grade US History classes.

His first fun assignment with me is a new seating chart. I have a class of talkers and it seems no matter how I've arranged them they can strike up a conversation with anyone. Mr. P noticed and I challenged him to try another arrangement. I'm all for rearranging as often as is necessary and we are constantly moving around for cooperative groups. I'm looking forward to seeing how he has them arranged next week.

For the first few weeks, Mr. P will be getting used to my classes and learning names. The residency position is new and is a year long clinical practice with one mentor and one school setting. Because of our small 7-12 grade school, Mr. P gets a little different experience but also a much broader base. I think it would be a little overwhelming at first. But it is a typical situation in most small rural schools. You don't get to teach one subject all day, many of my coworkers in HS have 3-5 preps and the flow of daily classes isn't easy. Those with lab classes seem to never have the same class back to back. So they set up labs for one class, teach, then set the lab for the next class, teach and then either set the lab for a third class or reset the lab for the first lab taught that day. It can be exhausting and sometimes frustrating.

I'm happy to have two major preps for classes and two minor preps. One of my preps is keyboarding and the students have self driven assignments. The second is a contemporary issues class and very research based. Students spend the majority of class time researching an issue and discussing/debating their finds. It is a fun class and not hard to prep and we have a nice variety of subjects/standards to cover.

Looking forward to fall!

October Has Arrived

Wow, eight weeks of school have flown by and I am so ready for fall break.

I have two classes that have me rethinking everything I've learned about classroom management. This is becoming very frustrating. So for now, I'm focusing on this month's October Currently from Farley at Oh' Boy 4th Grade.

I'm currently Listening to the white noise of NCIS and have had a cat in my lap purring. Very de-stressing!

I'm currently Loving the cool fall weather outside. I'm so ready for fall and winter!!!

I'm currently Thinking about going to a wonderful exhibit by Bruce Munro "Lights' a fiber optic exhibit in Nashville, TN. I'm going tomorrow evening and need to get my camera ready - batteries charged.

I'm currently Wanting my last block class to be quiet and focused, seems really hard for them.

I'm currently Needing fall break to arrive SOON!!!!

My current Treat is the free online grade book Engrade! We've been using this as a school for two years and it is wonderful. Parents and students have access. I give quizzes online and it allows my classroom to be fairly paperless. Students can upload work and I can put documents online for them to use. It has a lot of components that I don't use because of limited reliable student access. But it has made grades transparent for students/parents/teachers.

Parent Teacher Conferences

We've passed the mid-nine weeks point of our first quarter. My district holds two evenings of parent teacher conferences. Often the evenings seem to go slowly. Most of my classes in the past have been high school junior/senior level and my parents haven't really needed to conference.

This year, I had lots of interested parents attend. I think it is because my HS classes shifted to freshmen and my junior high parents really wanted to get a grasp on our new schedule. I was very excited by the turn out and I really had some good conversations with both parents and students.

Several of my students commented on our new Reading Like a Historian lessons. They enjoyed the conversations and class discussions. I'm really excited about using the common core integrated lessons even more after our conferences.

A few days later, I treated my World History classes to a Roman breakfast. I found some great Tuscan loaves and boule. I added olives and dates to the menu and had planned on cheese. But as I gathered things that morning, the cheese was left behind in the fridge. :(  I asked each student to simply try a small taste of the dates and olives. They didn't have to eat the entire item. Only a few students weren't up to the challenge. I knew that many of them had never tried dates before, I knew because I hadn't either! If I'd eaten dates, it had to be in the Christmas fruitcake.

The breakfast was a success. The more adventurous students loved exploring the new foods and they were full of suggestions as to what ethnic food they wanted next. I had to remind them I was feeding 40 on my grocery budget. They had some great ideas and we will definitely try new foods again!

Exciting School Activity Days

What do you do on those days in the school calendar that seem to override teaching? Here in the south Football Homecoming is a huge celebration. Last week we had Homecoming for the high school students and today our junior high celebrates the day.

This means that my students have very little focus on academics. All the young men can think about is the "big" play they are going make and the young ladies are all leaving school early to get beautiful! It is a very exciting day for my students. Those not directly involved are still excited because their friends are excited. But their focus is missing.

In addition to Homecoming, our library is having a book fair. I'm a huge supporter of the library and I take my students to the fair during class. If I don't work it in to my class, they only have 10 minutes during break.

Because, the majority of my last class is leaving to get ready for Homecoming, I'm using this opportunity to take the others to the fair. I usually plan a very "light" lesson. If I introduce new material, I will have to repeat it for a large number of students. This may also be the day I break out the History Bingo game.

How do you prepare for these days? I'm would love some new ideas.