AWOL

Just so you know, my computer is in the shop getting a check up. I will be back to posting as soon as I get it back. Joell

Professional Development Woes

Hello,

I spent 4 days this week in professional development.  This class was previously my favorite professional development ever.  Now it's being run by different people and it was a total waste of time.  I guess I got my credits and can renew my license next year, but still, I'd have enjoyed getting something out of it.

Yesterday was my first attempt at taking an entire day off work.  Yeah, I still wound up spending 4 hours working on my vocabulary word wall project.  I just can't seem to quit.  Hehehe.

Today I have been feeling ill, so it could be that it will be the day no work happens.  Due to the long professional development and lack of access to my classroom this week, I really don't have  much in the way of pictures to share.

I'm thinking about making the vocabulary cards I'm making available on Teachers Pay Teachers when I'm finished, but I'm not sure if anyone would be interested.  Since I'm getting paid for part of the time I'm using, I think they'd have to be free.  I haven't looked into being a "seller" there, so if anyone wants to help me through that, I would love it.

I just read about a blogger meet up in Las Vegas.  I really want to go, but it's on the evening after I have a professional development day.  One of these days, I'll make it to something like that.  I hope you are all having a nice summer.

Joell

Is it Really Summer Vacation?

You know, I can sort of feel it.  The huge amount of pressure and responsibility of taking care of and teaching children has been lifted from my shoulders.  Still, I've spent at least 7-10 hours almost every day this week working on school stuff.

I will still be teaching first grade next year, but it will be in a different room.  I'm trying my best to look at the positives:  closer to the copier/printer, lots more shelf space, closer to all my first grade team teachers.  But the negatives come up too:  no window, smaller room, in a noisier area of the building.

I have decided to use this as an opportunity to organize myself.  Despite my attempts to start out that way, I didn't get everything packed up before the end of school.  So, on Monday I got lots of help.  Now, I appreciated the help, but it certainly made the move far from organized.  Stuff got all mixed up and my new room looked like this.

And that's the NEAT part.  I  had stuff scattered over the top of every horizontal surface, helter-skelter.  I worked hard all week trying to organize.  I took the day off of the classroom on Thursday for common core training.  Went back on Friday and realized there was no way I'd have it organized AND everything off the floor for cleaning.  So I focused on getting all the stuff off the floor, but it's still not organized.

Next week I have 4 days of common core training, which I hope will be very good.  I'm hoping the custodian will get my floors all cleaned while I'm there so I can go back the following week and work some more on organizing myself.  Plus, then I can set out desks and figure out the layout of the room since this one is a completely different shape from my former room.

Besides the classroom move/organization stuff, I've been working on my massive vocabulary word wall project.  I don't think I'll get much of a break this summer, but hopefully next school year will go well because of all of the extra work I'm putting in now.

I'm also working on making some of my old plain stuff a little nicer looking.  I'm hoping to share some of that when it's done.

I'm going to try to blog at least once a week over the summer.  And hopefully find time to learn more about what I'm doing with this blog.  Thanks for reading!

Joell

The Last Day

Hello,

Today was the official last day of school.  One of my first grade team members retired today.  We've worked together for nearly 20 years and I will greatly miss her.

I have really loved my class this year, so it was with more sorrow than glee that I saw them go.  Trust me, I've felt the glee some years.

One of the silly items of the day is the tee shirt one of my students wore to school.  I think you'll see why I had to get pictures.

(Ms. Wilkins was Chuck Norris' 1st Grade Teacher!)

(That's where he got his moves)

And here's my response:

(You are the next Norris!  Love, Ms. Wilkins)

I'm pretty exhausted since I've had difficulty sleeping this week.  I have about half my stuff moved to my new room, and the other half still in the old.  Stuff is scattered all over the place.  So, I'll be working next week.  I'm hoping I'll be able to really organize my things in a way that will work well in my new setting.

I'm not exactly sure what happens with teacher blogs over the summer.  I guess I'll check in now and then with my summer activities or ideas for next year.  One of my summer goals is to get better at blogging.  

Bring on the summer!

Joell