Well, hello, 5 followers! :-) I am so bad at updating this blog! If you want to see one I update, check out misskoontz.weebly.com. I update the spelling words every week, and often add pictures. :-)
This school year has been TREMENDOUSLY easier!!!!! It's amazing what a difference one year under my belt has made! I teach with much more fluency and sense-- and teach even better on the fly. (That's just how I do things, really.) I have awesome students, and work with awesome parents. My students present a much bigger challenge than last year's, and some parents give last year's parents a run for their money on... uhh... "iron sharpens iron" if you will. But, I'm much better at handling it-- most of the time. Interventions are harder to do this year, because my kids who need it go to the Reading Specialist during computer time, which is when I would like to pull a group to the center table to work with me... and then they go to Math Intervention during centers/writing-- which is the other time it's possible for me to work one-on-one. We hired another TA to assist with everything... we're just spread so thin with budget cuts this year! Ya know, when you realize you only have one piece of turkey left for a sandwich, so you embellish with lots of spinach that's about to go bad, with cheese from a month ago, and a tomato that is questionable? Like that. Except, maybe that's just me who knows what that's like. ;-)
We also lost one of the most dear and valuable people in the founding and building of our schools a couple weeks ago. She was our Dean of Students my first year, and went to be with Jesus nearly 3 weeks ago. She fought long and hard against lung cancer-- 4 or 5 months in hospice. She was one of the strongest, most passionate women I've ever met. Last year, she pulled me into her office to try to break me. This was just after my dad had announced he was divorcing my mom, and I was emotionally numb and cut off.... and Mrs. Perkins noticed. Believe it or not, faculty and students didn't see the over-the-top extrovert you all know until Mrs. Perkins made me cry... I am so thankful for that conversation and her willingness to break me so I would become the teacher they hired. My heart is filled with joy when I imagine her free of cancer, shouting praises to Jesus (because she's undeniably shouting, jumping and waving her arms in the air because she loves Him so much)-- and my eyes well with tears as I realize she's not with us anymore, that she left such a beautiful family and legacy behind.
Oh, goodness. That's enough emotion for now! In lighter news, I have become the clumsiest person in the building. This year, I have ripped off a fingernail lifting up a desk, without making sure another desk wasn't on top of it.... *eyeroll here*... I slammed my arm in my classroom door two weeks ago, and couldn't hold a dry-erase marker for a week... (nonetheless a pencil!).... and this week: I stapled all the way through my index finger. I was trying to fix a jammed stapler in the workroom, and sure enough, I fixed it! In the process, a staple entered through the pad of my finger, and stopped at the back side of my nail. Yep... it hurt about as bad as it sounds! I'm forever grateful for Donna Murphy, a Pre-K teacher who got up from her lunch and pulled on it long enough to get it out.... and then gave me two Excedrin extra strength.
2nd grade epiphanies: One student thought he was 9 until I told him he was born in 2003. And another student, just 2 days ago, realized I'm not married. Which, by the way, is the kid whose football games I attend by myself on Saturdays.... who brought me roses for my birthday.... and writes my name as "Miss Koontz".
That's all for an update right now.
