This year held some regrets for me over what I wish things had been. I had to change paths and reroute so many times, but I am proud of the way I responded to change. There are a lot of great things I did this year with students. They learned. I know what I did mattered to the kids in front of me. I have already done a lot this year. I bet you have, too. Give yourself some credit.
This week, I am back in the physical classroom for in person learning! I have been wrapping my brain around all of this for awhile, and today I'm sharing my lesson plans for the first week back as well as procedure posters and a few other structures. I hope it helps someone out who is jumping into concurrent or hybrid teaching.
I love my Bullet Journal! If you are a Pinterest browser like me, then you've probably seen many gorgeous journal pages. One quick search of #bujo will elicit a ton of images, designs, graphs and charts, calendars, and to do lists. I love my Bullet Journal because it is so many things to me. My bullet journal is my planner, my contact list, my post-its in a book form, my scrapbook, my calendar, and my diary. It can do whatever you need!
We're in the people business. We need to examine our beliefs and constantly make room for ourselves to grow not just in learning new tech tools for distance learning. I want to interact with others in a way that creates a better world.
I wrote a letter to my class the day that school closed for the year. It made me cry a little so I didn’t send it off. Everything was sad enough. I added a piece today because we had a great (3/4 of a) year together and this journey online is a bit unforgettable too. My class this year is fun online; I feel lucky that I get to do this with them. At the same time, my heart aches for their losses as the capstone year of elementary school. It may not compare to the loss of graduation for a senior, but their young hearts are broken nonetheless. Many have waited for these special events since Kindergarten. Their life will move on for sure, but there’s so much loss tied up in this pandemic. This is just a little slice.
This week as I kept typing the links to "classrooms" I have been missing my real classroom. This whole video chat stuff is good. It's better than email. It's better than digital worksheets, but it's not a classroom. A classroom is another home. I miss the space we can say is ours.
I love having kids reflect in journals on paper and take notes in notebooks; however, I've enjoyed using Google Slides as digital reader's notebooks. Read here to get a set of slides you can adapt and use for free.
Surviving Sex Ed: I have to tell you - it’s pretty hard at times to keep a straight face. This was never something I really considered as a student preparing to be in the classroom. Here are some of the things that have happened to me while teaching “sex ed” that I find ironic, hilarious, nausea inducing, and just bizarre. If you’re needing a laugh, I bet something here will make you chuckle.
Often the advice to new teachers is to just survive your first year, learn more your second year, hone your craft your third year, then just get golden. Absorb all that knowledge. Keep learning, growing, expanding your resources. Build your toolbox! You’ll do great! Now, I love sorting through resources. I can flip through a... Continue Reading →
