Holy Moly!

Sorry to anyone who ever reads my blog! I said in April that I would update more, and totally didn't! So sorry!

The end of the school year was crazy busy. My partner teacher had a baby, so I had to learn how to be more independent. :-) Luckily, I had her for almost 9 whole months, so 2nd grade survived under my leadership! The last month and a half certainly came with its challenges, which after all was said and done, made me a much stronger and more confident teacher-- but it was by no means easy! I'm not sure that I have ever been more humbled in my life, or more desperate for guidance and assistance-- nor have I been more thankful for administrative staff and co-workers!

Now, I have 2 weeks left until Staff Development resumes, and less than 3 weeks until an entirely new group of students steps across the threshold of my room.  This will already look tremendously different from last year!  This summer I have been working on making my room more aesthetically pleasing, and adding more posters that are specific to what students will consistently encounter, primarily in reading. I have also added a Word Wall to my room, which I'm not entirely sure how to use yet. :-)  But today and tomorrow, I have been and will continue to learn about a writing "curriculum" of sorts, called "Writing with the Traits".  Today was really great; I learned  A LOT and was very inspired to plan for the new year.  That's about the only thing I have left to do besides to write students' names on desks and such.  I am also planning to do a little different schedule-style, if you can call it that. :-)  I plan to have an hour, or hour and a half, or maybe 2 hours... or 3.... set aside for centers.  My classroom will be baseball themed, so this will be called, "In the Batting Cages".  The goal is to have students working in pairs or independently at stations where they will practice necessary and previously-learned skills in spelling, math, reading, writing, language arts, art, listening, and maybe somehow: music. While students are working without my assistance, I plan to have a small group of 2-5 students working with me on skills needing extra attention, whether the student(s) are struggling, excelling or just learning content. So it's kind of a big plan requiring lots of time.

And my sweet, dear, lovely friend, Amanda just got here... so I'm giving her my undivided attention and will finish this later.