Getting Back At It

I'm very excited for this week.  The first week of school went great, and I'm pumped to get into the real part of school - the learning!  Or, for me, the teaching!  At the recommendation of a friend, I read The Daily 5, which is about literacy and building literacy skills in students.  I loved it, and am implementing it in my seminar and ELA recovery classes.  It's a lot different from what I've done in the past... which is really NO literacy instruction.  Silly me, I thought that's what they learned in elementary school!  Well, obviously, some of them don't quite get it all, and it never hurts for even the good readers and writers to practice!

This week also begins a 6 week health challenge I've enlisted in.  I've gotten pretty off the track in the last few months, and I need to get back at it!  I think it will help make me accountable for my choices in eating and exercising!

New Year

Tomorrow is my 6th "First Day" as a teacher.  By now,  I thought I'd have it all figured out, that I would know what I was doing every day, all the time, and it would all be so easy.

I've found the opposite to be true.  The more I learn about teaching, the more I realize there is to learn.  It's a never-ending process, and when I think I've found the end, it means it's time to go.  I recently read something about how the death of education is when the teacher stops creating, and I truly believe that.  There are times when I'm creating up to the minute of the lesson, and then it changes again before the next hour - try, try again, until it's the right fit!

That being said, I'm not 100% sure what my day will look like tomorrow.  I have no idea how many kids are in my classes.  I am not fully prepared.  However, I do know that I will start with procedures, which is something I've never done before.  This will be my main focus for the first couple of weeks, in hopes that the rest of my year will go well.  I also know that I'm excited to start fresh, in another attempt to do it right.