Coming and Going

Another school year has come and gone. Summer is a time of reflection, learning and renewal. It was a year of teaching that had challenges that were beyond my control and which I think surprisingly I dealt with pretty well. For the first time in my adult life, my job, my livelihood was in jeopardy. Although there are many people that are around giving support, showing concern, offering advice and boosting your confidence- they do not walk in your shoes. I think that the waiting to find out the status of your position, is the hardest part. We had 26 retirements in our school district, which ended up saving my position and those of my fellow teachers given layoff notices. Some of these teachers were not ready to retire yet but due to the political upheaval they thought it best for their financial future to retire now. I am most grateful to them. This next year our school district and others all across the United States will be faced with slashing teacher positions again. I don't kid myself in thinking that my position is safe. It is not, and until the economic downturn and the tide of funding education changes, teaching as a profession is a risky profession to be in.

We became "empty nesters" June 1st. The boys graduated from UW La Crosse with degrees in Computer Science. One son has another year left of graduate school for Software Engineering. The other son, we look forward to visiting in Minneapolis. He started his first post college job at a company called ImageTrend in Lakeville, MN. He is a web application designer/developer. It is quite exciting to think that he has grown into a man, works professionally doing something that he loves with a company that recognizes his talent. Our daughter has moved to La Crosse taking her brother's room and is working at Culver's. She starts as a freshman at UW La Crosse this fall. It is quite quiet in our house. Life does not revolve around our kids and their activities anymore. I am letting go and doing pretty well with it all I would say.

Some other news that I will pass on, I have an incredible trip that I am looking forward to taking with my mom and daughter. My mom's generosity has given us the chance to be adventure travelling in Costa Rica for 10 days in July. I have not been out of the States since 1985 and this is the first time for our daughter. It will be 3 generations together. We will have this trip to always remember with each other.

Upon my return I have a two day iPad class that I am signed up for. I will be teaching with iPads this upcoming school year. I would love more resources for kindergarten-2nd grade students that will integrate with our curriculum. Please post a comment/resource if you would be so kind.

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We go on...

I did not write a blog post last week as I was not feeling particularly interested in sharing. I was given a preliminary layoff notice. Time will tell what happens next.

So I am not going to recap last week but suffice to say that the three grade levels that I teach did a continuation of integrated lessons involving their grade level curriculum.
This week we have a variety of language arts and math websites assisting the students with the concepts of measurement, counting patterns, sentence structure and grammar, telling time and short vowel words. If interested, visit my website to take a peak at the websites for the week.

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Students came to my computer one at a time in first and second grade during their class period. They dictated to me what they would do if they were president in honor of President's Day on February 21st. This was typed out by me and then printed out as a class page.

Grouping and Grazing is the website that kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade students are using this week and next. This is an active learning website which requires concentration and active participation in order to complete the learning objectives. Kindergarteners this week had to complete five problems (earn 5 barns) on the count by 5's and count by 10's activities. The first and second grade students did those plus the Add activity.

Lessons the week of February 14th - 18th

This week the kindergarten students are using Pixie 2. They will be typing in a speech bubble, "There is only one of me and I love you!" Next they will take a webcam picture of themselves so it looks like they are saying these words. Finally they will use the shape tool to make a border of hearts within the frame.

The first and second grade students are going to be using http://illuminations.nctm.org/ActivityDetail.aspx?ID=26 to be balancing equations. They are working with a partner and each making an equation to equal 10. Once they have balanced the scale ten times the second graders are moving up to the number 25, then 50 and finally 75. The first grade students are starting with the number 5, then moving to 10 then to 15 and finally 20.

February 7-11th lessons

Kindergarten:
The 100th day of school was this past Friday and the students had activities relating to this very important number. We stamped 100 stamps in Pixie 2 and then after counting by 10's and saying the pattern to the teacher we visited 2 websites.

http://oswego.org/ocsd-web/games/Dogbone/gamebone.html
Students had to find the numbers that are on the white rectangle in the hundreds chart. We did not worry about the timer.

http://harcourtschool.com/activity/count/
Students type in the missing numbers to 100.



First and second grade were introduced to the different parts of a friendly letter and then typed a one to their homeroom teacher.