If you are reading this as a first year teacher, or a pre-service teacher, I hate to break it to you but weekends just won't be the same...ever. Most weekends I do actually get to sleep in (granted my daughter will be 4 at the end of the month so that is all relative) but not today. Today is a morning of coaching responsibility which will require getting approx. 18 sleepy students, 1 awesome co-coach, and a school bus to a Math League meet that is about an hour away.
We do have a lot of fun on these trips, I just really, really want to be in bed (it's currently 6:30am as I type this). I'll update once we get our results. We have a young team and they are doing a great job learning the program. We've managed to hold our own and I'm really quite proud of them. If you are interested in seeing more about Math League, we using the IMLEM model and are quite pleased with it. Check it out here: http://www.imlem.org/
In addition to that, as most teachers are doing at this point in the year, I'm starting to plan out what my curriculum is going to be looking like in the spring. I'm not the teacher who does the same thing every year. Honestly I can't think of one year that was exactly the same as any other. And I love that!
So far I've already made an addition to my writing curriculum with our daily journals. The students love them. They were able to bring in their own journals and we've been doing some free writing. A few ideas I'm going to modify from Pinterest:
I was given the opportunity on Monday to present Reading Apprenticeship to our interns along with some fantastic colleagues of mine. Good stuff happening there. I think my intern will be using Reading Apprenticeship as his Inquiry Project for the spring and I am looking forward to sharing some ideas that he will be using.
I am looking forward to planning some reading stations to go along with that! My team is also planning to celebrate MLK day (we have school that day), Chinese New Year (January 31st), and Valentine's Day (we do Affirmations to build positive community). I can't wait to share some pictures of those days soon.
Finally, for those of you who might be like me, completely eager to do something for yourself but lacking the time. I wanted to share a pin that I found really interesting. I love going to the gym but getting up early is challenging, especially if you've been up late grading or sending emails. This seems doable and I want to give it a shot. I'll be honest, I haven't tried it, I'm not endorsing it, I just thought it looked like something that most of us could do. Happy Saturday everyone, and if you are reading this much later in the day...good for you!
