I had a meeting today after school with the representative from the company that does our yearbooks. I was majorly stressed about what to do since I don't have a whole lot of experience. This meeting today did two things for me; one, lifted a huge amount of stress from my shoulders by clearing up what needs to be done. Secondly, it made me very excited to be part of the yearbook project and enthused to see my 16 student strong staff tomorrow in third period. Another good thing about the meeting--the rep promised to bring me 2 new digital cameras to use. My kids will be thrilled.

I assigned my 8th grade students to write me a letter explaining why they are the "single most wonderful person" Mrs. Hubert should know. They've been working on it for two days. I'm using this letter as an assessment tool to see how they write and to see how well they spell. Maybe it's just because it's the beginning of the year but the way their spelling is, I have a lot of work cut out for me. Here are some examples of the silly spelling I've seen as I've helped students edit their letters:
bcuz=because
ufcorse=of course
choozed=choose
Herbert=Hubert
4=for
nambe=name
nefew=nephew

I don't consider myself the best speller (even as a teacher) because I'm a product of "spell check," but I'm hoping that by the end their year with me, my students will at least have one or two more words that they can spell right.

One last thing--Today I got an e-mail from a fellow teacher giving us a countdown until the last day of school. 176. 176 more days of my dream come true. (in other words, I love my job)