I'm in a blogging dry spell.

It's not that I don't want to sit down and write because I do.  I really, really do.  There just don't seem to be enough hours in the day right now.

I'm still here, just consumed with the chaos of back to school and putting the final touches on wedding planning.

My goal is to spend some time catching up this weekend on preparing for the first week, how the first week actually went, surgery updates, and wedding things.  Theoretically I'll do some goal setting posts, crafting ones, and maybe even join the blogtember challenge.

But frankly, my priorities are:

1. Work.
2. Sleep.
3. Food.
4. Assembling wedding invitations.

It seems everything else just kind of falls to the wayside during the first few weeks of school.

I started feeling behind, then went out of town to enjoy my three day weekend with family, so am in major catch up mode.  It won't be this way forever.

But first I've got to make it through Open House (Thursday) which means today is another long day.

I keep telling myself it's worth it. I've got thirty five kids and honestly, thirty four are awesome. I'm having trouble connecting and motivating the last one. I don't want to call home the second week of school, but I don't want to fight with him all year either.  I reached out to one of his former teachers for ideas to motivate him, so hopefully she has some answers.

But alas, it's time for another day of ten year olds.

#yeareight

 

I've been productive...kind of

It's seven pm and I haven't started the lesson plans or powerpoint that my grade level needs on Monday...

I'm trying to be productive, I'm just exhausted...and a tad overwhelmed.

I got most of my grading done last night while B was at softball, so I just had that to enter today.  (Our gradebooks are online.)  For perhaps the only time, ever, I am all caught up on my grading.  Progress reports go home on Tuesday and I just have one grade for one child to enter.  It's her beginning of the year fluency grade and she wasn't there on Friday to take it.  Between having her read me the passages and me entering her score, we're looking at five minutes, tops.  Totally doable before Tuesday.

I also took down most of our decorations from our engagement shower last weekend and put up our fall ones.  Once I'm done tidying up, I'll post pictures of our home in all it's fall glory.  I love decorating for seasons (thanks mom!) and have been able to pick up most of my things after each season, when it's gloriously half off.  I like nice things, I just don't like paying full price for them.

I placed a Scholastic book order and was able to pick up some new books for my class.  I love how excited they get by new books.

I ran to the bank and picked up a bunch of groceries at Target.  I had a gift card to use in addition to Cartwheel sales, so I was able to get food for the week (plus dog food and some classroom items) for a great price!

I finished reading their beginning of the year essays, made notes in my writing conference notebook, and have almost all my lesson plans done for this week.

I set up another wedding tour of my favorite venue for tomorrow morning when B's mom and our officiant can join us.  I filled some of the bridesmaids in on what I was thinking in terms of food and colors, but no finalized decisions have been made.

I also took two naps because these back to back (to back to back to back) eleven hour days have been tough.  It's not normally this bad at the beginning of the year.  I started the year feeling behind because I couldn't stay as late as I would have liked with a new puppy.  My birthday was the first weekend of the school year and my mom's visit and our engagement shower was the second, so life trumped work.  (As it should).  Technology did not work on Tuesday because the head in room where the servers are stored was 86 degrees.  It's supposed to be at 72 degrees, so all tech was turned off to cool down the room.  It definitely threw my day for a loop and as a result, the munchkins were a little more rowdy than normal.  Open House was Thursday night, so that made for a fourteen (yes, fourteen) hour day.  

Between all that, thirty three students (one withdrew already) and being near two kinder classrooms, it's no wonder I caught the back to school bug.  Despite lots of water, trying to sleep as much as possible, and copious amounts of onguard, it's only a matter of time.

B is happily enjoying Madden while I finish up lesson plans.  I hope to have all my work done tonight so tomorrow I can focus on finishing tidying the house and reading for pleasure (imagine that!).  

Another teacher commented that it's impossible to feel ahead and that after seven years of teaching, I should know better.  While there is always something else that could be done, I don't necessarily agree with the initial comment.  I've got two more tasks to conquer tonight  and I'll feel in a good place for next week.  (Okay, three tasks if I include the pedicure that's desperately needed...it's been 2 months and my polish only started chipping this week.)

However, I've got a nice cup of tea, supportive pets (meaning they are all sleeping and not "helping"), and a lovely finance who is willing to pick up my slack during difficult weeks.

Bring on the rest of September!

Marathon Days

With the third week of school steadily approaching in a few hours, I finally feel like I've had a moment to breathe.

The first week of school is always jammed packed with teaching procedures, establishing classroom culture, setting up notebooks, and integrating fun activities.  I think I did a pretty good job of that this year, but man was I tired!

Luckily we had a three day weekend (Labor Day) followed by a staff development day.  

However, I think my grade level (myself included) tried to plan a week's worth of instruction into three days.  It didn't go very well.

We overplanned, which was far better than the alternative.  We had a conversation about clarifying our expectations and I think this week will go better.  There were two 12 hour days, one of them due to my date with the copy machine and the other due to open house.  By Friday afternoon, a rather unpleasant migraine hit and I was beat.

My students must have been feeling it too.

I had a low turn out to open house, but I appreciate those families that did come.  One wanted to have a conference, which we held after school on Friday.  Because the open house was shortly after school ended, our administration bought us dinner so we wouldn't be hangry.  (Side note, hangry = hunger plus anger. I suffer from this affliction frequently) The fact that dinner was Olive Garden was a delightful bonus!  We had three rotations and a fake announcement about a staff meeting was made at the end to get the parents to clear out so we could go home on time.  It's so nice to be at a school where I feel administration has my back.  I got home and was most definitely asleep by 7:30 that Thursday night.

Friday, 4 of my students were absent. Two more went home in the afternoon from being sick and a third left for early dismissal.  GATE kids were gone and there was an announcement about turning off the technology because the server was getting too hot.

So, with a third of my class being gone, I made a judgment call not to teach the writing plans.  Yes, it puts me behind. But it didn't make sense to me to teach new material without my students.  I am more than happy to teach if a few are gone (obviously, we do this daily) but when I have ten students out of the room for various reasons...that'd be a lot of reteaching.

So instead, we built up our reading stamina with an extended silent reading time.  I got through all my conferences for Reading Rangers and my students all set up their data folders.  

With the remaining time, I started reading aloud The Lightning Thief. I had my class split up into 4 categories and keep track of character details while I read.  They did a pretty good job of listening for information about Grover, Mr. Brunner, Percy, and Mrs. Dodds.  I haven't explicitly taught this standard, nor did I have them make a graphic organizer.  I just wanted to see how they'd do and I was pleasantly surprised.

My weekend was spent looking over their pre math tests, which confirmed what I saw in classroom observations.  I had a rather long math training Saturday morning, but lunch with my mentee made it better.  I texted frantically with another teacher as we tag-teamed the math lesson plans for the week, which was a lot of prep work.  I'm pleased with the end result because I think it's broken down enough the students will grasp the material.  Add in some laundry, some football, and some napping and that was my weekend!

Week three brings a counseling lesson, the start of Aimsweb, hopefully getting at least my teacher iPad (for Aimsweb), modeling fluency and buddy coaching with Reading A-Z passages, place value, our Native American reading/writing unit, and possibly a schedule change for rainy weather.

Sigh.  I've had some marathon days.  I'm ready for things to calm down and me to be more on a schedule.  I've been getting to work early and staying late. I'd prefer to do only one of those!

Bring it on week 3!

Fun Freebie!

While we are in the midst of the TpT back to school sale,

I did find this cute freebie:

 (Thanks Mrs. Hulsey for making such a fun, practical freebie!)


I already downloaded it and put my special touch (font) on it :)  I'll be printing the polka dot ones on pink butcher paper to pass out to families at open house in a few weeks.  I'm much better at responding to emails then phone calls, so I'm excited to use these and promote positive communication with families.

Open House

Wednesday night was open house.

This meant a fourteen hour day and sadly, it wasn't my only 14 hour day this week.

I prepared these for families:

The saying is a little hard to read but it says thank you for your encourage"mint", commit"mint" and invest"mint" in your child's education.

I got the idea from my awesome neighbor who found a similar idea online.

The families that did come appreciated the gesture :)