DitLife 12/11

Once again, it's a non-school day and it's my day to post. It's Sunday and any other Sunday would find me going to church, then cleaning the house and doing laundry while prepping for my school week ahead. However, this Sunday is slightly different. My cousin got married last night just south of New York City (we live in the farthest tip of Maryland; about an hour south of Washington D.C) and my son had a 9 am coaches meeting near Gaithersburg, Maryland. So this morning, I find myself thankful for free wifi at a Courtyard by Marriott so I can work on my school work while my son is at his meeting.

My son tore his ACL in the home opening football game on September 9th. It was his senior season. This devastating injury ended his playing season, but thanks to the coaches, one particularly, they kept him involved in the team as a student coach. Now, he has earned a spot as the first ever student coach for the Maryland Crab Bowl, the all-star senior showcase football game for the state of Maryland. So while traveling and arriving to the hotel at 1:30 am was a bit exhausting after the most beautiful wedding and fabulous reception, you can see that it was pretty mandatory that we do this for him.

So while he is at his meeting, I am chipping away at my school work. We had an early dismissal on Friday and as usual, I over planned. So I spent a chunk of time re-organizing my long range plans to adjust accordingly. For the first time in years, I have been able to make a long range plan by sitting down and planning out roughly 8 to 10 weeks of activities. I've never been able to do this for a variety of reasons, mostly because I keep moving grade levels or schools/school districts (since my husband is a US Marine) or the curriculum changes. However, I am in my 4th year of doing the same curriculum, so I'm fairly confident in where I am leading the students with the materials I have gathered over the years.

I still am always on the lookout for new ideas and better tasks, but rather than thinking of fitting them in, I look now at what the new can replace in my long range plans. Does it do a better job at getting the students to understand the concepts that I want them to learn? If the answer is yes, then I archive (not scrap, but archive) the previous activity. I tend to keep all of my previous activities, just in case I have a set of students that the older activity might fit better with.

Once I have finished re-organizing my long range plans, I update my website so the students can see the daily agenda and get an idea of what we are doing along with videos of our lessons once we complete them.

Next I move on to investigate a new resource called Goalbook. I spend quite a bit of time checking out this resource. It has classroom ready activities that are rich and rigorous, as well as with modified versions.... I decided that I needed to set a timer so that I don't get sucked into sitting here for hours on this one resource. I set my timer for 45 minutes and allow myself to check out what I can and bookmark it to return for later.

Time to get my son from his meeting and drive home.

Arrive home 2.5 hours later. Quickly shower and help set up for a end of the season football banquet.

It's already 4 pm, and folks are now starting to arrive. The nice thing about being a teacher, is that many of the students at the football and cheer banquet have passed through my classroom door as a middle schooler. Many of them are now in their senior year and it's nice to catch up with them to hear about what they are hoping for once they officially graduate. I am so proud of this group's achievements.

By 7:30 the banquet is over, but since my husband is the president of the Quarterback Club, I stay and help clean up the fire hall. Many hands make light work, and well, I guess you could count the four people that are here as 'many'. It would be nice to see some other volunteers, though....

By 9 pm we're finally home. I'm exhausted. This has been a long weekend! I fire up my computer one more time, because I want to make sure I have my plans for tomorrow straight in my head before heading off to bed. Another 45 minutes later, I know that what I am doing tomorrow will be engaging and fun for the students and I am officially done for the day!!

DitLife Post #Returning from a Break

It's 3:53 am and I am wide awake. I shouldn't be, since I had trouble falling asleep. Let's call this return from the break nerves. Will I remember all that I need to do in the morning to make the return to school a smooth one? I don't know.... but I'm not going to get any more sleep in before school starts because I am too worried about it. So I start making a list of the things I forgot about over the Thanksgiving break. The main thing: SNACK. I must prepare snack for the kiddos that depend on me for it.

The kids come off the bus at 7 am and are offered breakfast. Some eat it, some don't. But we don't eat lunch until 12:45 so, they are mighty hungry by 10 am so we allow the students to have snack in our classrooms. Not all can bring it in, so I keep a stash behind my desk for a few students who need it but can't bring it in. And crap, I forgot to go to the store and pick up some items, so off to my pantry I go..... what can I pull together last minute? Ritz crackers, cheez-its, and fig newtons it is.

OH! and then there's Infinity, the Elf on the Shelf!!! OH MY!! How could I forget that he MUST make his return to the classroom today. Crap. Must get up and go find him. STAT. But.... where is he?? and the questions of the day he will provide for the students???

Found him. Thankfully, with the laminated question of the day cards. He will move around the room and provide a question for the students to solve each day. Students that solve the question correctly will be entered into to a drawing at the end of each week (one student per class period) for a prize. Today, he will make his grand entrance by hanging upside down on my SMART board projector.... This should get the kids attention.

Next on my worry list, is the copies to make. I should make a list of the things I need to make a copy of:

1. Homework (and don't forget about the specialized homework for target group on integers)
2. Quizzes for Thursday
3. Solving proportions foldable
4. Sugar packet task recording sheet
5. Sugar packet task extension sheet (just a few copies)
6. Target group pre-test (adding unlike denominators)
7. Volume foldable.
8. Volume Questions for pocket on Interactive notebook
9. Volume review sheet for Interactive notebook
10. Sub plans for tomorrow
11. Student work for tomorrow. 

Next, worry about being out on Tuesday. Ugh. I hate going to the doctors, and I hate being away from my students. Combine the two... I want to cry. 

5:30, How did it become 5:30 already? I guess I better get dressed. 

5:45, Make a quick protein shake, grab the stuff I packed last night, and head out the door. 

6:09. I'm the first one here, besides Micheal, our awesome morning Building Service Worker. Good thing I know where my classroom keys are, since I know he probably hasn't gotten to my room. 

6:12. I'm unpacked and headed to the copier. Three copies in, and the copier jams. Really? 

6:45. Copies made. Saaweeett... Time to put up Infinity, the Elf, then sort the copies, unpack for the day, start the SMART board, put the chairs back in order (they always get moved when they clean), put the trash cans back where they belong and pull out the class work folders to see who I need to see during homeroom. 

7:05 the kids come off the bus and the day begins. As they come in, they see Infinity and the excitement builds. I can't help but feel giddy inside. Hahaha... you're doing math... you're doing math... is being repeating in my head. 

Homeroom lasts from 7:20 to 7:37 and it's a hustle and bustle time of the day. In addition to the 33 students in my room, 7 more from other class periods come in a see me about make up work and missing assignments. Morning announcements go on and we pause to listen and say the Pledge of Allegiance. One student starts the CNN Student News as soon as the school morning announcements are over, and a teacher comes in to make an announcement about her field trip today. 

7:37 the bell rings and first period begins. We go over the work we didn't get to finish before break and begin the items I had planned for today. Before I know it, the 8:22 bell is dismissing them to specials. 

8:22 - It's my planning period. I enter in attendance, check my email and write absent slips for the 7 kids that are missing from my first period class. I sit down at my desk and get working on the sub plans for tomorrow. Ugh. I dread this. 

9:13 - Planning is over. I managed to get quite a bit done, but the students are returning. It's time to teach more volume. 

10:00 - Classes change, and I switch gears. It's time for my on grade level classes to start. Today we are working on proportions so after our warm-ups we will do a foldable about solving proportions. Then we will solve a three-act task on the amount of sugar in soda and take it a step further to investigate other food and drink items. We work right through the bell between the classes of the double blocks. 

11:37 - One class leaves and another comes in. Repeat. This time, it's a broken class. Not broken... split would be a better word. I have to watch the time with this class a little more carefully, because I want to break when the bell rings at a natural instructional place. 

12:22 - Bell rings. Good thing I was watching the clock, because it's recess. When that bell rings, I've all but lost them. They know it's time to be free and play outside in the bus loops. We don't have a "playground" but we do let them run and socialize for 15 minutes with kickballs, soccer balls, frisbees, footballs, and jump ropes. 

12:41 - Time to line up and go in to lunch. This is hearding cats at it's best. We ask that students line up with their teachers that brought them out to recess, but in reality, we are happy if they are lined up and go into the building in some sort of fashion that resembles a peaceful movement. Its now time for our lunch. Several students want to come work in my classroom, and I open my door for them to do so. This gives students a place to be away from the crowded cafeteria noise as well as a place to work on items that they can't do at home. They let me work on my sub plans, and even help me staple a few things together. 

1:15 - Oh no! The bell is going to ring. I better use the restroom. 

1:18 - Time to get started again. Successfully finish the day with the Sugar Packet Task and was even able to extend the task a bit. 

2:05 - Time for students to go home. Bus dismissal. 

2:10 - They're gone. Time to get stuff done. Check in with my PLC (Professional Learning Community), finish up my sub plans, up date my classroom website, load the videos taken from the SMART board for student reference on to the website, get MathCounts things ready, plan interventions for fractions to start on Wednesday, make the copies I discovered that I didn't make this morning, and straighten up my classroom. 

5:00 - leave the school. It's time to go home..... 

5:20- arrive home. It's time to prep dinner, throw in a load of laundry and fold the laundry from yesterday and clean up from the guests from the holiday weekend (we had 12 people in our house this weekend!!!).  Check in with my son on his homework and his make-up work (he had surgery to repair his ACL a week prior to Thanksgiving and missed 5 days of school, today was his first day back).  Then it's off to walk the dog and clean up from dinner. 

8:30 pm - I'm exhausted. I gather the items I need for my doctor's appointment and check my email one last time before turning off my computer. 

9:00 pm - I'm officially done. It's time for bed. Today took a lot out of me. It's hard to return from a break for so many reasons. But to prep for a sub the very next day, I think makes it that much worse.

#DitLife Post 11/11

When I agreed to participate in the DiTLife project and was asked what specific day of the month I would choose, I chose the 11th. The 11th is a special day for my family because of numerous birthdays and anniversaries that occur on the 11th of various months of the year.. However, I perhaps, should have looked at the teaching calendar first.... because this is my 4th post and it's another non- school day.... making my posts 75% on non- teaching days. 

Having said this, however, I'm very excited about this post and 11/11. Veterans Day. My day started, I guess at midnight since I was still awake. On 11/10/1775 the United States Marine Corps was born and to celebrate this occasion my husband and I attended a USMC Birthday Ball, which marks the 241st Birthday of the Corps. It was amazing to see the camaraderie of these fine group of humans just two days after the most decisive election of our time.

I carefully chose the word humans instead of men and women because this election seems to have pointed out every single difference we have with one another and make us angry about it. But when you truly boil us down into our day to day life, we are all in the together as one. Last night, as I got my fanciest clothes on and watched my husband and our friends celebrate the Marine Corps birth, I was filled with pride to be there. We were all humans, celebrating a honorable branch of the United States Armed Forces. 

Even though the Ball ended at 11, our very bestest friends ever (can you tell I work with teenagers?), had ride arrangements for 11:30. We were at the Ball because of them, as they are entering in their last year as an active duty USMC family and this was their last active duty Ball. Their ride was late, and they carpooled with several others who all needed to be dropped off, their kids were tired, so my husband and I took the two kids and their fabulous mom home while their Marine rode in the big van making sure everyone got home safely. 

Dropping them off gave us a chance to change out of our fancy clothes and into something more comfortable for the rest of the ride home. When we entered into our house it was 2:43 am. I have not see that time of day in a looooong time! And this was after I spent the full day teaching, so I have been up for approximately 22 hours!

My husband and I were quickly off to dream land, both very thankful that we had the 11th off. But, no time to sleep in! My husband and son were off for a college visit, so the alarm sounded off at 5:45 sharp. They're off to Rose Hulman Institute of Technology for the weekend. 

I, on the other could sneak in a few more winks, as my day didn't have to really get started (again) until about 8. 

Up, showered and packed - I'm ready for a road trip with a teacher friend and her boyfriend (yup, I'm a third wheel... this was supposed to be a couples getaway, until the college visit came up) to go to Ocean City, Maryland. 

My school bag packed, I grade papers (sorry kids, my handwriting in the car is not super awesome) as that is four and a half hours I can sneak in. I plan to do the same on the way back, but with planning my lessons. 

Traffic was bad (Myth: traffic is only bad going to the beach in the summer....) so it took longer to get to our destination but I was able to grade a ton of papers! Did you know that head rests can make for an excellent place to prop up your grading rubric so you can reference it? 

We arrive safe and sound and now it's time to relax at our host's house while we wait for everyone else to arrive. The conversation turns volunteer with Relay for Life and Bark for Life - two events that raise money for cancer research.  Most of the people I'm with are the heads of their local committees so it's really great to participate in such an invigorating conversation about doing things to help others.  They have been working on committees together for years, and are sharing new experiences since one couple has moved. 

I sneak off and grade a few papers and catch up on a little bit more school work like entering grades and checking email.  I'm hidden away for about an hour and half before resurfacing.  As I enter grades in the grade book, I start a to-do list of tasks that I need to think about for next week when I formalize my plans. Things I include on this list are like - analyze part 3 of the performance task and make instructional groups to help reteach; need to design and print a recovery option to offer; think about incorporating similar questions in December's homework as recursive review. 

Then it's time to go to dinner.  We head to a quaint little town and do some retail therapy.  They have some really cute shops in a town called Berlin, Maryland. Shop Local. I managed to pick up 4 Christmas presents! After retail therapy we head to a local restaurant for some fresh and creative meals. We ended up at a place called Blacksmith and they had one of the best cheeseburgers I've had in a while and hands down the best fries. 

After dinner we head back to the shops only to discover that most of them are closed. Bark for Life was having a bake sale, and we thought we'd hit that up for dessert. They were just cleaning it up when we got there, and you know what? Teachers are brave people. We walked right up to the man in charge as he was closing his trunk lid after putting his goodies away and asked if we could make a purchase. I've got to say, that's the first time I've ever purchased a bag of snickerdoodles out of the back of a car trunk. In a dark parking lot. From a stranger. But it was all for a good cause. 

We head back to our hostess's house for fellowship and end up watching a few HGTV shows. Most of the shows were about buying a farm, something I can't imagine doing.... cleaning up after animals? EEEWWWW. But, see, there's a difference I have with other humans. I totally get that some people dig that and love that life style. And I can't see ever holding that against them. 

We keep looking at the clock only to realize it is not even 9 pm. 'Falling back' to standard time has really got us thinking it super late. I'm tired, and we're headed for a big day of retail shopping again tomorrow so we decide it's time to call lights out. I head up stairs to bed, only to finish grading the one set of papers I left in the middle of earlier ('cause I knew I would be fretting about them in the middle of the night if I didn't!) and finish up this blog post. 

But before signing off for tonight, I decide to check what day of the week the 11th of December falls on..... Sunday. Another non-teaching day. I am thinking I may turn this into a probability question for my math students to figure out when we do our probability unit in the spring. In my wildest dreams, I never thought I would pick a random numerical day to blog about a day in the life of a teacher and have so many be outside of the teaching days!

~Until next month.....

A Day in the Life 10/11/16

So the day started at 5:30 am, which is 15 minutes before my alarm is scheduled to go off.  This is a welcomed and unusual treat to not only have 15 extra minutes to get my morning stuff done, but also not have to be startled awake by my alarm.  I spent the extra time thinking through my day, getting a jump start on emails, and saying a prayer or two.

5:45 am - first alarm sounds off. It's definitely time to rise and shine. My morning routine is inevitable now. My feet hit the floor and the day starts.

6:05 am - second alarm sounds off. This is the just in case alarm - you know, the just in case you hit 'off' instead of 'snooze' on the first alarm, alarm. But by now I am up, dressed, downstairs and making my morning breakfast shake. I have perfected my morning routine so I can get out the door in 20 minutes, if needed.

6:15 am - I'm out the door and on my way to work.  11 miles and 15 minutes later, I'm there.

6:30 am - walk into my classroom and prepare for the day. My desk is peaceful.

7:05 am - the first bell rings and the kids are rushing off the bus. The day is in full swing now!

7:20 am - homeroom time. I'm running an intervention group with the help of some of my previous honor students who are looking for service hours and having another set of students staple a packet of papers together that we will need later this week.  I love that my students love to help me out.

7:37 am - 1st period. Goes smoothly - finishing up our work on changing repeating decimals into fractions.

8:22 am - 2nd period. Planning.  I'm in charge of archiving our homeroom intervention documentation for my team so that's always the first thing I do. Then it's a quick run to the office to check on my mailbox, followed by checking my emails and returning parent contacts. I have a parent teacher conference after school, so I pull together the grade sheet and student work for that as well. I look ahead at what's left on my to do list, and knock a few other small things off, such as cut the exit slips apart & get the documentation ready for my target groups for the on grade level class later today.

9:13 am - 3rd period. My honors kids come back, and work on practicing the skill of changing decimals to fractions. This time I throw some terminating decimals in there just to make sure they are attending to precision (Math Practice #6). With 10 minutes left to the period, we talk about the answers, and challenging questions. Homework is passed out/discussed.

10:04 am - 4th period begins. This is a double blocked class and will roll right into 5th period. We will stick together for a full 94 minutes (two 45 minute blocks, plus the 4 minutes given between the two blocks for the change of classes).  We start with our daily warm-up (3 problems of mixed review)  and then roll right into our topic. We are working on subtracting integers, so our first activity is designed to compare an addition problem with a similar subtraction problem. Through this comparison, students discover they can change the subtraction problems to be addition by adding the opposite of the second value. The 2nd activity is actually take subtraction problems and change them to addition problems before finding the value.  Students worked independently first, then paired up, then the pairs, paired up making quads. Each quad then shared several items with the class during whole group discussion.  Once finished we switched gears completely.  My students have shown a lack of fraction concept understanding. At the 7th grade level, they should be fluently doing all operations with fractions so that when it comes time to have positive and negative fractions, they can build on previous understandings.  However, that's not always the case. So with that, I am going back to basics, and I'm starting with changing mixed numbers and fractions (since mixed numbers can't be multiplied or divided) and vice-versa. Today was a pre-test day so I could collect data on who exactly needed to be in this target group. Those not needing this target group will be working on an extension project during the target group time.  At this point, my desk, is somewhat of a mess.

11:41 am -6th period begins. I do the same thing with this group of student students as I did with the double block of students above, but at 12:27 we go outside for recess.

12:27 pm - 7th period it's recess. Nothing like a nice fall day, the sun is shining, its awesome.  The kids (all 160 of them) are playing in the bus parking lot. Some are throwing the football, some are playing soccer, some are shooting hoops, while others are standing around just enjoying talking to one another.

12:41 pm - I blow the whistle, its time to line them up and go in for lunch. Everyone lines up with their 6th period teacher and like a heard of very loud cattle, we make our way from the bus lot to the cafeteria. I make my way through the office to check my mailbox again, head to the staff lounge to get my lunch out of the fridge, and head to my classroom where I have three students waiting for me.  Even though this is my duty free time, students often come to my room at lunch for extra help. These three want help working on fixing their mistakes on last week's quiz. I have them sign in on an iPad using a QR code I created to keep track students who seek my help at lunch and excuse myself to the restroom while they are signing in.  After all, if I don't go now, I have to wait until the buses leave! I help the students work on their recovery questions (mostly fractions... go figure!!) and sneak in a bite or two of my lunch while helping them.

1:13 pm - 8th period, the same students I had 6th period come back and we continue where we left off when we lined up for recess.

2:05 pm - dismissal - and just like that, they are headed back on their buses. Well, most of them anyway.... a few of them are making their way to my classroom because today is Tuesday. Tuesday is MathCounts day, so some students from 6th, 7th and 8th grade have chosen to stay after school and practice math in hopes of making our school competition team. Unfortunately, for me though... I'm double booked. I've got a parent teacher conference that I must attend, so my colleague makes her way over to my classroom and runs MathCounts until I can return.

2:07 pm - Parent teacher conference. It is really nice to have a partnership and be able to share success with parents as well as reach out for helpful strategies that may help gain even more success.

2:45 pm - I am able to return to MathCounts! Man these kids are fired up about math. I just love it. We work on solving a few more problems before heading out for parent pickup at 3:15. I can no longer find the surface of my desk...

3:33 pm - "Um, Mrs. Scheetz... How late can I stay? My dad forgot today was Tuesday.... he thought it was Monday" MathCounts student. "No worries, I've done that too. How long does dad need you to stay?" I replied. "Another 15 minutes or so" the student replied. "Well, sounds like you and I can go back to my room and start our homework". I said. And off we went - the student worked on his math homework, and I worked on finding my desk.

3:50 pm - "My dad is here!" The student exclaimed. "Well, let's go meet him" I replied as I got up. Met up with dad, and laughed a little with him, as joked how it has happened to me too.  I returned to my room and worked. I got the materials ready for tomorrow, made my to-do list for tomorrow, cleared my desk of the items and filed them away where they needed to be and made sure that my today's to-do list was complete.

5:00 pm - I walk out my classroom door.  It's been a long day, and I've stayed later than I wanted to, but I'm making the decision not to bring home anything to work on tonight. I have to grade a few recovery papers in the morning, and look over the work from MathCounts. But... I've put in a solid 10.5 hour day. So, I figured - eh, those can wait until tomorrow.  And my peaceful desk awaits for my return.

A Day in the Life - 9/11/16

It's Sunday, and it's the 11th day of the month. I have chosen to participate in the Day in the Life (DITL) project where teachers from all over share what it's like to be a teacher for a day. I'll be posting consistently on the 11th of each month, even if it's not a school day; such as today. 

So here goes tonight's post, beginning at 11:33 at night. I doubt I'll hit publish before midnight...

5:23 am.

About the normal waking time and animals don't know what day of the week it is like I do. The house is quite. I remember that it's the 11th. September the 11th. My DITL post day, and a very sobering Remembrance Day. How is it that 15 years has past? How is it that the students in my classroom weren't even born when the Terrorist Attacks happen? They are so very vivid in my memory, I am so very thankful that they are not in theirs. This day. Oh. This day.  Glad this day is Sunday, so I don't have to try to keep it all together in front of my students. 

The house is still & quite so I'm going to use this peaceful time to lay here and be still, think & pray. 

8:24 am.

Time to get up for the day. Thankful it's Sunday and that I was able to sneak back in a few extra hours of sleep. 

9:00 am 

Arrived BJs Wholesale club as it opens and so we (hubby and I) along with my awesome concessions stand co-lead for my sons football team can make our purchase to restock after Friday's home opener. It was a well attended game, so our stock was wiped out! 

11:16 am

Finally pulling out of BJs Wholesale club and off to the school to get into the concession stand to put away the two trunk loads of items we stocked up on. Glad its a bit cooler of a day, the heat here has been unbearable especially in unairconditioned places like the concession stand. 

12:45 pm 

Leaving the school to head home. Hubby is driving, so I am going to check my Twitter and the #MTBoS feed. Scored this 3 act task regarding a snafu in traffic around my hometown.  From this tweet and of course this one too. 

1:10 pm

Arrive home, unpack the little bit of food that can't be left at the stand and head upstairs to Mount Laundry-more. Start a load of laundry and check on my son who was injured during a play near half-time during Friday's game. Pause and reflect to be thankful that his injury is minor. 

1:30 pm

Settle down into my work zone in my bedroom and begin to grade papers.  This has the making to be a long day. I like to highlight the mistakes students make first, then go back and give them prompting feedback to help them discover their mistakes. When you have small class sizes, this is great. But when you have class sizes of 33, it can bog you down if you decide to do it all at once. On a Sunday. Starting at 1:30.  But hey, I have my cat, and another pile of laundry to keep me company....

5:00 pm

Hubby comes up to remind me we have dinner plans to celebrate a friend's birthday.  We're supposed to be there at 5:30, so got to get prettied up. 

5:30 pm 

Dinner with friends. It was nice to get out, have conversation and forget about all that is around. 

7:13 pm

Back to reality. Laundry and grading. 

9:00 pm

Realizing as I analyze these kiddos quizzes, they didn't master some concepts from previous grades. So I decide that tomorrow's lesson will include 1/2 of my block to be flex grouping. I'm going to focus on the top level of questions on my quiz which was operations with fractions. Separate the kiddos out based on what level of mastery they displayed and get them doing some center/independent work, work with me, or on Stileapp.com to help them make more connections. 

10:50 pm

Hubby comes to bed - I'm still in my work zone, in our bedroom. He doesn't mind that my light is on... just crawls in and falls asleep. I'm quickly becoming jealous, but I have my Stileapp lessons to put together. I'm so glad that the platform is easy to use!

11:30 pm 

Ok. Done and prepped for tomorrow. Have to-do list started. Sure I will think of more:

1. Scan the kiddos quizzes so I have a copy for future reference. 
2. Contact Parents re: First MathCounts meeting is this Tuesday. 
3. Print one copy of each Fraction worksheet that I used for the Stileapp lessons so I have a hard copy, just in case. 
4. Average the leveled grades from the quizzes and enter them into the grading system. 

And that's my DITL. It's now 12:03. Hubby is snoring. And it's lights out for me too. 

Good night folks!

A Day in the Life --> Before School even begins

Summer is winding down and our county officially reports in one week from today. Our Teacher Association has negotiated one teacher work day to prep our rooms and get them ready for the entire school year. Unless you are some sort of super hero, I don't think this can be done. So with the permission of my newly appointed principal (she's been on the job for a little less than 4 weeks herself), I decided I would go in an attempt to get some things straight. 

Knowing that I didn't HAVE to go in, I set my alarm for 8 am and hit snooze 3 times.  Each time, I reminded myself that this was a luxury that would be disappearing before I knew it. 

I mustered the strength to get up and get going, arriving at school by 9:15.  I introduced myself to my new principal and our new secretary and made my way down to my classroom. The floors sparkled and shined, and I paused for a moment to quietly thank the hard work that went into making my room so fresh. Then I took a deep breath and began. 

At the end of each school year, everything has to be packed up and placed on shelves. I tried at the end of last year to pack up in a neat and orderly way so that unpacking this year would make sense. For the most part it worked. Ah. Success. 

But wait, what's in this box? Huh? Oh crap... that wasn't supposed to be boxed up there.... ugh... ok. Hmmm.. Where does this go? I don't know. Here. On this empty student desk. I'll figure it out later. 

At about 11 am, a colleague came in. Knowing that we had collaborated over the summer and sent a bunch of items to get printed by our county's print shop, he came by to help organize the 10, yes 10, paper boxes of copies we had waiting for us for this year. While this will be a tremendous time saver over the school year, right now...I'm not feeling it. Remember that stuff I didn't know where to put, when I was unpacking so I just put it on an empty desk? Well, I did that several more times, and now he and I are unpacking these paper boxes and my room is starting to look like it has exploded. 

I think I want to go home. It is my summer break. I really should go home. And watch Ellen. She'll make me laugh and forget about this.... 

But, I'm in too deep. And my colleague is here to help. And I really should take help when I can get it. Ok. Big girl britches on. LET'S DO THIS. 

2 o'clock. Wow. That's a lot of paper sorted. But look what we have accomplished! We have materials for 4 teachers sorted and delivered to their rooms. Our entire PLC has 180 days of bell ringers, a years worth of recursive homework, and foldables for all of our interactive notebooks. Who's feeling cool now? This gal. 

2:15 - Said goodbye to colleague and looked around the room.  Even though the paper boxes are gone, it still looks destroyed. I should just go home. I can still catch Ellen. I think she comes on at 3pm? Wait, why haven't I watch her this summer? Ugh. That was a mistake. I really love her show. Reruns. That's why. I'll do one more thing for my classroom and then go. But what... OOHH! My desk.

Holy crap it's 4:15! Two hours? To put my desk together? What's wrong with me? But- I love my desk.  There's a place for everything. I know where papers are going to go when they come in, I have my system in place. Oh, please let this work. I need this to work. It's going to work. I have faith. I'm good at this. I've got this.  I need to go home. But... 

Look at that top wall shelf. Maybe I should just get those few things off the top shelf and sit them down on the student desks so that the next time I decide to come in to my classroom, I won't have to climb up there to get them. Ok. It will be easy. 5 minutes at most. Wait, what's in this one? Why did I open it and look in? Now I need to go through this and purge. I haven't needed some of this stuff in years. 

A full trash bag of stuff. That feels good. Ok. It's time to go. Holy cow. My room is STILL a mess. It's 5:15. I've been here for 8 hours!! 8 continuous, non-stop hours. Vacation hours. And my room is still a mess. There's so much more to do. How am I going to get it all done? How do people in power think that we can do this in one scheduled work day?  Ah, who knows.  

Here's what I do know. I got a TON done today and I'm going to focus on that. This vacation day brought me success and a feeling of relief and a sense of excitement for the new year. I sorted 10 paper boxes full of pre-printed materials for 4 teachers that will allow us to smooth sail through the year. I set my desk up so it looks gorgeous and has meaning. I cleared clutter and purged items that I won't be needing because I haven't touched it in years. And while, yes, there are still boxes on student desks waiting for me to make a decision about their fate in my classroom, I got a lot accomplished today.  

And that was my day, a day in the life of a teacher 1 week away from officially reporting back to work. 

Reflection: 

1.)Teachers make a lot of decisions throughout the day.  Sometimes we make so many it feels overwhelming.  When you think about today, what is a decision/teacher move you made that you are proud of?  What is one you are worried wasn’t ideal?

Since I was working in my classroom voluntarily, the decision that I made that I was most proud of was just going in today and getting a jump start. I would much rather spend a few hours over several days then be super stressed during meetings and mandatory professional development experiences fretting over all that needs to get done in my classroom. This way, I can be fully present in the other experiences as my county intends me to be. The one decision that I am worried that wasn't ideal was probability spending too much time there! I should have set a timer and left when it went off rather than talking myself into "just one more task."


2) Every person’s life is full of highs and lows.  Share with us some of what that is like for a teacher.  What are you looking forward to?  What has been a challenge for you lately?

I am looking forward to my new set of students, working with my new principal and my new math supervisor. Along with what I'm looking forward too, those are also currently the biggest challenges! I have worked with the same math supervisor for 8 years and principal for 3 years. This year, I am working with new people in both of those positions!

3) We are reminded constantly of how relational teaching is.  As teachers we work to build relationships with our coworkers and students.  Describe a relational moment you had with someone recently.

Today, my colleague and I spent several hours unpacking several boxes of material we collaborated on over the summer to send to print shop that set up our PLC for a good routine for the school year. I consider our PLC one of the strongest PLCs I have ever worked with, and am very blessed. The four of us have built a relationship with each other where we consider each other family.

4) Teachers are always working on improving, and often have specific goals for things to work on throughout a year.  
What is a goal you have for the year?

 My goal this year is to work do a better job at blending my curriculum so that it is balanced for procedural fluency and performance tasks. Each year, it seems that I tend to be heavy on one side or the other.

5) What else happened this month that you would like to share?

My daughter moved into her first apartment and is working as a full time designer 1 in an architectural firm while finishing her architecture degree and my son is getting ready to start his senior high school year. I am in total denial that I am old enough for these life events to be happening to me, while being careful to balance life and career!.

Number Talk Tuesday - Pattern Focused

My Ah-ha: I should have been doing this since August!!

Since the very beginning of the year, I have kept a routine with my class where I hope to infuse a bit of critical thinking. We have Estimation Monday, Number Talk Tuesday, Wonder Wednesday, Thinking Thursday and Flashback Friday.  With today being Tuesday, I wanted to spice things up a bit, so I turned Number Talk in to Pattern Talk.

Using Pattern #31 from the Visual Patterns blog by Fawn Nguyen and the patterns handouts found on the teacher's page,  I created this Google Document for my students.  I linked the Google Doc to our Moodle (a free MOOC that my county uses) page. Once they open the document, the create their own copy, share it with me and complete it.  These types of assignments are so super easy for me, because I never have to worry about a student losing their copy, they never have to worry about saving it since it's on Google, and I can grade it and provide feedback through the comments instantaneously.

Woah. Side track about Google Docs, sorry!

My class has been looking at various patterns, and creating function tables, equations and rules using Desmos (another digital resource I could get side tracked with), so I used today's Number Talk/Pattern Talk to re-enforce what's been going on in our lessons. I gave absolutely no guidance to the students. Just let them do the thinking and see what they could come up with.  And, I don't want to brag... but I have some pretty fantastic students. Most of them were able to complete this task in the 15 minutes I gave them (which included needing to turn on our dying, slow, computers), and all but one picked up the pattern and ran with it.

I could brag about all of my students... but, I chose just two samples of the work created. Take a look at these: Student A (who inserted a screenshot of the desmos), Student B (who linked desmos).

I am thinking I am ready to throw at pattern like #60 at them...

About this adventure

This won't be something I do everyday. That I am sure of. Why?

Because I teach math to 12 & 13 year olds. And just like any teacher, time is scarce.  And right now, I am just glad to have spelled scarce correctly.

I plan to use this blog to highlight my ah-ha moments (hence the title) of my teaching career (more likely hence forward than what I've done in the past... but all bets are off). Most posts will undoubtedly focus on math. And middle school. And... of course teaching. But there may be a rare moment when I share something other <emphasis on the word rare>.

One of my most favorite colleagues @BridgetDunbar (who is an active twitter contributor and blogs at this link) always encourages me to share my thoughts. I have tried in the past at these endeavors (eh.. third blog is the charm, right?) but I always set my expectations too high for what I have time for.

So, hence, this blog was born. Things you should know about me and this blog.

1. I am human.
2. I teach math and not grammar.
3. There will be grammatical mistakes because of #1 and #2.
4. I love my job.
5. I think middle school is the best.
6. I think math is critical to the world's success.
7. I will only blog when I have an ah-ha moment (well, duh. This should have been obvious!).

And, so, this is what I have to offer.