distractions

Howdy, howdy. Today was the first official day of the 4th quarter. This means that this is the last quarter of the year. As I passed a teacher in the hall today, I asked him how he was doing and his reply was: I'm great. There are only 42 days left of school. Sweet. Just sweet.

Even though I was at school today, I technically wasn't there, really. I had a sub. I was down in the auditorium all day helping with what is called Spring Portraits, but it really means just a waste of time taking pictures of students who don't want their pictures taken. I arrived fairly early to finalize my preparations for the sub, who I arranged last Thursday. The principal came to see me at about 7:30 along with a man from the photographer company. The principal told me that my sub had cancelled...her daughter fell down the stairs or something. Blech. Not what I wanted to hear. They rushed to find a new sub and luckily, one of the library aids has a son who is on Spring Break and is looking to sub while he's home. He came in to save the day and was super. The whole picture taking process went fine, with the exception of having all the photographers and helpers being in grumpy moods (kinda). The schedule that I made went smoothly, and I even think some of the kids might buy their pictures. I found out later that they use these pictures as a type of fundraiser--a portion of the money received from these pictures goes to the school and a portion of that money goes to my journalism/yearbook account. Yay.

Tomorrow for 1st-3rd period I will have another sub. Every so often the district's technology department comes in to teach tech classes to teachers. They provide the sub and we just go and learn. I will be learning about iPods and Powerpoint and how to use them in the classroom. It should be a swell time. I printed off a wicked 3-page verb packet for the little dears to work on...by way of review for an upcoming lesson on verb tense.

Last Friday was a work day for us since it was the last day of 3rd Quarter. Students did not come and I had a chance to get grades posted and a little caught up on filing and cleaning. I love those work days. For half the day, we had professional development and half the day was ours to work. For this professional development, we had to team up with another teacher of a different content area and come up with an interdisciplinary unit/lesson. I worked with one of the 8th grade History teachers and we came up with a few lessons on the Civil War. One of the many things I'm supposed to teach my students is connotation--this is, like, the emotional meaning behind the word (would you rather be average or mediocre?) We found this cool idea on Civil War slang words. So, the lesson that I'm gonna teach while she teaches about the Civil War is about connotation, using the slang words. Then, after the students have learned about the Civil War and prominent figures of the war, I will have them write letters to one figure using some of the slang words. On paper it looks like a great idea, but we'll just have to see about what it looks like as we're teaching it.

Just this week to go until I'm on Spring Break. Oh, wait. Actually, I should call it Spring 3-Days off. Yeah. I get Thursday, Friday, and Monday off. I suppose I shouldn't complain; that's better than nothing. After Spring Break, the only day off is Memorial Day. That will surely make the quarter and rest of the year drag out.

This week is Spirit Week. Today was sports day. Tomorrow is backward/inside out or Nerd day (ha!) Wednesday is Decade Day (go hippies!). Thursday is crazy hat/hair day, and Friday is pajama day. Translated, Spirit Week is another excuse to get the students all hyped up so they can't focus on school. It's fun, though, to see the participation. I'm planning on dressing up all week. I'll try to post some pictures of the eventful week later on.

Well, we're expecting snow this Wednesday. Joy. I suppose I'll go now and put my sandals, capri's and t-shirts away. Happy Monday!