My "Me Time"

Some of you may have heard or seen the McDonald's commercials about "me time." They are with different people talking about when their "me time" and how they enjoy it with a McDonald's Frappe drink thing. (I've actually have never had one and probably never will because I don't like coffee, rich chocolate, or anything similar but it's pretty funny anyway.) My favorite which just cracks me up every time is this one: "My me time is when my luggage goes to the Bahamas. (Long pause) And I didn't." It got me thinking about whether or not there were any moments like that in my life and my best one is this: "My me time is when the students only have to stay 3 hours. And I have to stay 6. Ha!

The Weekly Wrap: Jan 18-22

Monday: NO SCHOOL! Martin Luther King Jr's Birthday Observed
I actually taught the students who MLK was. I thought it would be harder to explain but they understand "fairness" so we talked about how he made rules fair for everyone and I think they "got it". However, you want to know the part they won't forget? That he was shot and is currently dead. It's a little bit of a fixation actually. We've been talking about coins and who is on them and every time we talk about one of them someone remembers to shout out "And he's dead!" or "He died right?" Right.

Tuesday: I actually had to look up who is on the dime because I didn't know. Franklin Delano Roosevelt in case you were wondering. Everyone was here and we are still having inside recess. Ugh.

Wednesday: I have a student who has completely forgotten about any sense of personal space and reasonable social skills. He went home with 3 Oops Notes and 1 major referral from the last 3 school days. He is hitting people just because and actually used scissors to cut hole in a girls sweater. When asked why he said, "I didn't know it was hers!" Because it would have made a difference if you did?!?! Christmas break is good for me but for some of these kids time at home is not helping. Also the end of the 2nd quarter. All grades are in and everyone is right about where I thought they were. Looks good for halfway through.

Thursday: A good day overall. Not much from school to report but a good chance to ask for your prayers. My Uncle Terry had a stroke this week and is still currently in the ICU. There are a lot of unknowns ahead and this first weekend will tell us a lot. Please keep him, his family and our extended family in your prayers. Also, one of the other Kindergarten teachers has been really sick the last month and missed almost 2 weeks of school. She has bronchitis, pneumonia, and possibly the swine flu. She's on bed rest and hasn't been hospitalized but is still really sick with no sign of any recovery yet. Please pray that she can recover her strength and health enough to return to school.

Friday: TGIF. I had a student name his book bag "Gary" off of the snail on SpongeBob. He was talking to it as we walked down the hall and into the classroom. "Come on Gary. Let's go Gary. Hurry up Gary." At least it wasn't an imaginary friend that he talked to the entire day. After hanging "Gary" up, he resumed all other "normal" K behavior.
We had a referral free party for everyone who didn't get a major referral in the second quarter and free pizza for teachers at lunch. I love lunch.
I was supposed to meet with the principal about my observation and evaluation that he did in November but he had been gone for two days at a conference and everyone and their student/son/daughter/parent/teacher needed to talk to him so it got tabled again. Maybe next week.

Well, that about covers all the major points of the week. Hope yours was a success and you can enjoy the weekend as well!

Smartboards 101

This, my lovely reader friends, is a Smartboard. It hooks up to my computer and basically turns into a giant touchscreen computer. Everything I can do on my computer, I can do by touching the screen. As an added bonus, it has markers to write with and an eraser to erase. The Notebook software is actually the cool part. The software is what allows you to do so many things such as writing, making moveable boxes, and playing games. You can "copy" anything from anywhere and move it into a blank Notebook page and manipulate it anyway you want. It comes with an almost endless amount of templates, games, and looking online gives you an even larger amount of stuff to be overwhelmed by. It's hard to describe but if I am ever around you and have my school computer, ask me for a demonstration because even though I won't be touching my screen to make it work you will be able to get the general idea.

We are using it a couple of times a day and the kids REALLY love it. I think I could use it to teach (think most boring and mundane task or lesson EVER) and they would be enthralled. Only one student has gotten in trouble for touching it when he wasn't supposed to and watching him being banned from being able to use it for the rest of the week seemed to cure any other inquisitive fingers. I bought a big piece of yellow fabric to cover it up when I think it needs to be less noticeable but for the most part that only lasted a few days as well. As stated previously, the location is not ideal but we've found ways to make it work. I use a pointer when I want them to be able to reach up higher and have small stool if we need it. The fabric and threats/consequences have worked their magic and kept small fingers away so I'm fairly pleased with how we're handling it. I also think it helps that we do use it a lot. They know they will get a chance to use it so they are content to wait until that happens. If I was only using sparingly, I think they would try a little harder to figure it out themselves. Thankfully, they are willing to let me take the lead and show them instead.

Sunrises and Sunsets

With the winter solstice behind us, I'm back to driving with the sunrise and sunset. I took a few pictures because it really is quite beautiful. I still haven't managed to get Smartboard pictures yet, but I'm working on it. I'll have to write myself a note.

Sunrise: Still beautiful but usually more restricted to the eastern sky.


Sunset: My personal preference. They tend to light up the entire sky with pink, orange, purple, and red.


The rest of the week has gone by rather slowly. We all seem to have forgotten what it is like to be at school for 5 days. They have been pretty long days without outside recess. We do movement CDs, relays, and exercises in the gym to get a little bit of the wiggles out but there's only so much we can do. They get VERY squirrelly by 1:30. I'm trying to keep everyone engaged by using the Smartboard, lots of energy on my part, and the threat of taking away snack. It works for a about 5 minutes. I think I need a few more ideas and gimmicks. Luckily, next week is only 4 days due to Martin Luther King Jr's birthday.

The end of the quarter is Wednesday so I'm also busy testing and assessing for 2nd quarter grades. It isn't hard but very time consuming. I'm fairly pleased with how well everyone is doing so far. I only have one student I am worried about and it's because she just started the week before Christmas break. She is where everyone else was in September which unfortunately is 4 months behind. I think she has the ability to catch up, but it will take some extra work.

In life news, BETHANY IS ENGAGED! YEAH, YEAH, YEAH!!!!!! It happened last night and dates haven't been finalized yet but my last update was May 2011. She is coming back on Sunday for the semester and there will be much catching up to be done. Yeah for love and what is guaranteed to be a beautiful Southern Illinois wedding!

Snow Day #2

I was all ready to go back to school. I'd had my day, and it was great, but I wasn't sure I had enough to keep me busy for another day. I really thought we wouldn't get the second day because with all the construction that is going to happen this summer in our switch to geothermal they need as much time in the school as possible. There were rumors on Monday and Tuesday that it didn't matter what the weather looked like because we were going to go so that we could get out on June 1st and they could get the construction done. However, concern for everyone's safety seemed to prevail and two days it was. I was so ready that I was even in bed at 10:15 when I got the phone call from School Reach. This left me with the choices of going to sleep and waking up at 6 or 7 or keeping myself awake for another hour so that I could sleep in a little. I managed to keep up and got up at 8:15. I went to Walmart, took a walk, shoveled off the deck, finished planning next week, and blogged. Yeah, yeah. The exciting life of me.

SNOW DAY!

6:00-My phone alarm goes off
6:05-I don't hear my school on the radio
6:10-I don't see my school on the local weather TV station
6:12-I debate how long to stay in bed before succumbing to the reality that there will be school and allowing enough time to make it safely
6:15-I get my computer out and boot it up
6:17-I see my school on the local TV station website
6:18-I do a little happy dance
6:20-I turn off my computer and the lights to try to go back to sleep
6:22-I get a text message from Brandi that we were out
6:25-I get an unofficial phone tree call that we are out
6:27-I get the Official-Official school-ready automated phone call from the superintendent saying that there is NO SCHOOL today
6:28-I make my phone tree phone call
6:30-I turn my light off again and attempt to go back to sleep but with all the excitement find it fairly impossible. Grrrr.
8:15-I get up after dozing on and off to start my day of productiveness including cleaning, laundry, lesson plans, and snow shoveling. Yeah!

I LOVE SNOW!!!

Back to It

After a wonderful, relaxing, family filled two weeks, it was back to school today. I had a pretty big list of school things that I was going to do in my "free time" over break, but absolutely none of it got done. I did manage to plan enough to make it through this week, and the list just grows ever longer. Maybe this summer . . .

I know that I promised to write about my Smartboard issues, but I've decided to just get over it, move on, and be excited that I have one. Because, I do! I got the final cable that I needed to get everything working and after school, I stayed a few minutes to get it up and running. It works beautifully as long as I have it aligned right. Hehe. My plan is to gradually and VERY explicitly teach the students how to use it and slowly work it into my plans and daily routines. We're starting with attendance and lunch count and moving to games and fun stuff a little later down the road. Now, I need to plan more lessons. Oh yeah. My camera doesn't have sound but I might try to take a short video of what exactly it is and how it's used sometime in the future. I'll also get a few pictures up after I take some.

Otherwise, the kids were pretty good today with mostly lots of chatter and talk that they had a hard time containing. One student in particular seemed to lose any and all of the self-control we had acquired in the first 4 months, but hopefully, it won't take 4 more months to get back to where he was. I did think that some of them looked taller and a little bit more mature, but we'll see if that holds true. It was a pretty good day overall. I'll chalk it up to a success.