Fourth Week of May

Monday
My students continued working on their invention papers today. They are so creative! Some of them came up with incredibly inventive things… inventive inventions? Also, I’m so thankful that my students have internalized the writing process enough to be able to work through it without me reminding them about every single step. Several students asked for transitions lists (which is wonderful because I forgot to mention them!). The next step, then, is for them to have several transitions memorized so that they no longer have to look at a list to remember them. I’ll have to work on that. I sense an assignment coming on...


Tuesday
Today’s staff meeting was a union meeting – 45 minutes of teacher association business. We have a great building rep who usually runs these meetings (and they usually only last 10 minutes). Today, she started the meeting as usual, but within 15 minutes, she and others were asking me to clarify or add information or answer questions. By the end of the meeting, I was standing up and taking all of the questions. I don’t mind, as long as no one else minds. But I have these moments -- and this was definitely one of them -- in which I want to stop and say to someone, “What the heck just happened here?”


Wednesday
You know what this party needs? A PROJECT!
Let’s end the year with a nice, solid performance assessment. How about a speech and a poster? Even better, let’s add a choose-your-own third option as a creative project. We just did a paper about Chinese inventions, so… let’s pick something else for our project. We just finished reading a novel together, but it might be nice if the kids can choose a book they really liked for the project. Let’s make it a book report of sorts. …a book report on steroids, really. This will be great. The kids can work at their own pace with specific project deadlines, and the last week of school will be dedicated to speeches and presentations (which means no extra grading for me). This is perfect! Why didn’t I think of this before?

(I did. I’ve done a performance assessment project at the end of the year for the last 7 years, and it’s fabulous. Last year, I did two of them – Night of the Notables for my language arts kids and another version of the book-report-on-steroids for my advanced literacy kids. Projects ROCK!)


Thursday
I love this part! I introduced the book project yesterday and gave the kids a chance to go over the requirements, the due dates, and all of the parts of the project and ask their questions. Today, they get to sign up for books. Every student has to pick a book to report on, and I love getting to hear the choices. Many of them surprised me by choosing books I didn’t expect. I’m excited to see what they come up with for their projects. It makes me want to do a creative project of my own for one of my books. (But I can't. I have too much grading to do. Ugh!)


Friday
I don’t work on Fridays anymore. Have I mentioned that? I keep getting pulled into meetings on Fridays, so it’s probably more accurate to say I don’t teach on Fridays anymore. It was kind of fun the first time – three weeks ago. But now, it’s just obnoxious. And I can’t say no; the meetings I’m getting pulled into are called by my union president and the director of human resources (my bosses’ boss). Good grief. Anyway, I had a sub again today. My students started compiling their notes so they can write their speeches next week. (That might be a good plan for Friday; I’ll probably need a sub again.)

After all of my meetings, I was able to get together with my dear retired teacher-friend Gretchen again. It was lovely to sit and talk with her about our families, about our hobbies, about our husbands, about our personalities, our faith... She is truly my kindred spirit, and it refreshes my soul to spend time with her.

Then my best friend (Soldier Girl) came over so we could forget about our long weeks by focusing on pizza and inappropriate cartoon shows. This is a fabulous start to the weekend.