week two accomplished!
last weekend i was away in monterey (seeing the great white shark) so i never fully finished the post like i intended. but sometimes it's like that. now, some of you may be thinking "she'll never really post--she didn't use to post regularly when she had her blog before. i'll believe it when i see it." that's a very reasonable thought and in fact i would say that i have my doubts on whether i'll actually keep this up. however, i would also argue that the difference will be that i feel like i have something interesting and specific to talk about.
it's been such a busy summer, between being away at summer institute and then more program stuff and curriculum training and new teacher training and a staff retreat once i got back. i've had to intentionally sit and rest a little bit, but there hasn't been much time. but somehow, in the moment when i'm teaching my kids, i have the energy that i need. my credential program has not yet proven to be too much work--and i just found out that i passed the test that i needed to pass to test out of the majority of the credentialing work. it basically gets me out of a lot of reading, writing papers, and attending hours and hours of class. my credentialing program is 2 hours of class per week, a pretty minimal amount of reading, four project-based assessments, and 16 observations during the year. it was very satisfying to pass that test! i took it about a month ago, and just received my score.
so something you probably know about me is that i LOVE to read--i am totally obsessed with books. of course, it makes perfect sense that i'm an english teacher, since part of english is reading books. and i am just a big supporter of reading in general. starting over the summer, i began building my classroom library, with a beginning goal of just having lots of books of all different sorts for my students to read. at my school there is a 20 minute block built in after lunch called SSR, or sustained silent reading. (i am not totally sure why the word "sustained" has been added since i was younger, but anyways.) so i have my little angelic 5th period class for an extra 20 minutes of reading. part of SSR is that teachers read, so i get to read 20 minutes in the middle of the day, too. it's great. anyways, i already knew that my school had SSR when i was away this summer and preparing for school, so i knew that i wanted to have books and magazines for my students to read both for SSR and also for any of my other students. i decided that i wanted to be the kind of teacher where kids can check out books, and take them home--i want them to know that if they want a book to read at school or at home, they can always come to my classroom to borrow one.
so, all of that being said, something really cool happened on friday: two different kids from different classes came up to me and asked if they could borrow a book to take home and read. of course i enthusiastically agreed and inside i was jumping up and down excitedly. already, only two weeks into the school year, and kids are starting to want to take my books home. whoo hoo!! that was definitely a highlight of the day on friday.
on another note....my darling boyfriend is being an incredible support to me. he makes me dinner and listens to me talk about my kids and has been infinitely patient with my moods and exhaustion and ups and downs all summer, and especially the past two weeks since school began. he has always been these things for me, but somehow he has been notably even more amazing the last few weeks. so props to him.
school was kind of disjointed this week, as i had a consultant work with me on thursday (she is working with all teachers this year, for some reason the 8th grade english teachers were the first ones that she was scheduled with), so we co-taught one period and i was released by a sub for two other periods to plan and then debrief. on friday i also lost two classes to assemblies. plus i had to sit through the same assembly twice. this coming week is diagnostic assessments galore and balancing classes. i am resigned to the first 3-4 weeks of school being a little hectic--that's what people have pretty much told me. i've started some content, it's mainly review, and my students really like listening to the stories read out loud. i have a lot of them on CD which is really nice and kind of let me off the hook for the classes that did meet on friday. i was pretty exhausted.
i've realized that i need to take a break between the time i'm at school and the time that i do my work at home--otherwise i totally burn out. i have been swimming twice in the past three days and that is therapeutic and very much needed. today is saturday and i'm pretty much taking it easy, mainly doing things like washing my car, writing my blog, working on the house and then i am seeing friends this afternoon and evening. also bike riding. tommorow is hardcore work day. (that would be sunday.)
well, this is just a random smattering about my life but hopefully it is entertaining. leave me a comment if you like.
it's been such a busy summer, between being away at summer institute and then more program stuff and curriculum training and new teacher training and a staff retreat once i got back. i've had to intentionally sit and rest a little bit, but there hasn't been much time. but somehow, in the moment when i'm teaching my kids, i have the energy that i need. my credential program has not yet proven to be too much work--and i just found out that i passed the test that i needed to pass to test out of the majority of the credentialing work. it basically gets me out of a lot of reading, writing papers, and attending hours and hours of class. my credentialing program is 2 hours of class per week, a pretty minimal amount of reading, four project-based assessments, and 16 observations during the year. it was very satisfying to pass that test! i took it about a month ago, and just received my score.
so something you probably know about me is that i LOVE to read--i am totally obsessed with books. of course, it makes perfect sense that i'm an english teacher, since part of english is reading books. and i am just a big supporter of reading in general. starting over the summer, i began building my classroom library, with a beginning goal of just having lots of books of all different sorts for my students to read. at my school there is a 20 minute block built in after lunch called SSR, or sustained silent reading. (i am not totally sure why the word "sustained" has been added since i was younger, but anyways.) so i have my little angelic 5th period class for an extra 20 minutes of reading. part of SSR is that teachers read, so i get to read 20 minutes in the middle of the day, too. it's great. anyways, i already knew that my school had SSR when i was away this summer and preparing for school, so i knew that i wanted to have books and magazines for my students to read both for SSR and also for any of my other students. i decided that i wanted to be the kind of teacher where kids can check out books, and take them home--i want them to know that if they want a book to read at school or at home, they can always come to my classroom to borrow one.
so, all of that being said, something really cool happened on friday: two different kids from different classes came up to me and asked if they could borrow a book to take home and read. of course i enthusiastically agreed and inside i was jumping up and down excitedly. already, only two weeks into the school year, and kids are starting to want to take my books home. whoo hoo!! that was definitely a highlight of the day on friday.
on another note....my darling boyfriend is being an incredible support to me. he makes me dinner and listens to me talk about my kids and has been infinitely patient with my moods and exhaustion and ups and downs all summer, and especially the past two weeks since school began. he has always been these things for me, but somehow he has been notably even more amazing the last few weeks. so props to him.
school was kind of disjointed this week, as i had a consultant work with me on thursday (she is working with all teachers this year, for some reason the 8th grade english teachers were the first ones that she was scheduled with), so we co-taught one period and i was released by a sub for two other periods to plan and then debrief. on friday i also lost two classes to assemblies. plus i had to sit through the same assembly twice. this coming week is diagnostic assessments galore and balancing classes. i am resigned to the first 3-4 weeks of school being a little hectic--that's what people have pretty much told me. i've started some content, it's mainly review, and my students really like listening to the stories read out loud. i have a lot of them on CD which is really nice and kind of let me off the hook for the classes that did meet on friday. i was pretty exhausted.
i've realized that i need to take a break between the time i'm at school and the time that i do my work at home--otherwise i totally burn out. i have been swimming twice in the past three days and that is therapeutic and very much needed. today is saturday and i'm pretty much taking it easy, mainly doing things like washing my car, writing my blog, working on the house and then i am seeing friends this afternoon and evening. also bike riding. tommorow is hardcore work day. (that would be sunday.)
well, this is just a random smattering about my life but hopefully it is entertaining. leave me a comment if you like.
posted by Allyson B. at
12:23 PM
2 Comments:
Wow! I feel like such a dork for not asking about work when I saw you last night! I guess I didn't think the school year had started and you'd already have a class...this is pretty huge.
Can I donate to your classroom library? I think I have some good fifth-grade-accessible books to offer.
allyson!
i'm going to love reading as your class and culture and teaching grow this year :)
i'd love to see you some weekend too - maybe we can do a hiking doubledate?
love!
:)jamie
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home