Celebrate Good Times, Come On! 9/30

Each Saturday  Ruth Ayres invites us to share and celebrate events, big or small, from our week. Looking for celebrations has certainly improved my outlook on my week.  For that, I am certainly grateful to Ruth and to all of you who choose to celebrate with me.

A month.  A new beginning.  A celebration.

As August approached, I become apprehensive about my decision to move to a new school, a new grade level.  But after our first month, I have no regrets and much to celebrate.

Readers - I watched 100 books go out of my classroom library.  It was a very scary, but exciting day.  Sharing books with four times as many students was one of the many reasons I made the change to 6th grade.  Making connections with my readers has been exhilarating.  They are amazed that I not only remember what they are reading, but that I can have a conversation about the book with them.

Writers - Writing isn't where I would like it to be, but I am making progress.  Every three weeks we take a formative assessment, then reteach and retest.  This obviously takes a lot of time away from instruction, and in the past, writing has taken a back seat.  After proposing a three day reading and two day writing cycle during the week, we now will take the assessment every four weeks.  (I have a 48 minute period to teach both reading and writing.) I am hoping small changes will reap great rewards.

Bloggers - I have our class blog set up and ready to go.  Guidelines are typed and ready to be passed out.  Students are ready to blog, and we are going live this week!

Have a great week, and may you find many things to celebrate along the way!

Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

Each Saturday  Ruth Ayres invites us to share and celebrate events, big or small, from our week. Looking for celebrations has certainly improved my outlook on my week.  For that, I am certainly grateful to Ruth and to all of you who choose to celebrate with me.

Thursday was our first day of school.  It was my first day as a 6th grade teacher.  It was my first day at a new school.  I don't know who was more nervous, me or my students.

With new beginnings, sometimes comes doubt, fear, and hesitation.  I have felt all three this week.  I am still learning how to combine a 90 reading block and an additional writing block into a 48 minute period.  I want to teach the way I have always taught, and I am just not sure how that looks just yet.  How do I incorporate my ideas and philosophy into a new setting?  How do I not step on toes, yet stay true to what I believe?  How do I celebrate reading and writing with 6th graders?

It will be a year of trial and tribulation, but I am ready to find the answers and celebrate the journey.

Have a great week and I hope you find many things to celebrate!

Not a Typical Summer

Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for creating a place to share our Slice of Life. Read more slices or add you own here.

The end of this week marks the half-way point of my summer vacation.  I was looking forward to the typical summer.  You know, reading, writing, blogging, going to the pool...

But not this summer!

The end of the school year found me at a point where I needed to make an important decision.  I was offered a 6th grade ELA position at our middle school.  I just finished my 6th year in 4th grade, and teaching was like wearing my favorite pair of sweats.  It was comfortable.  I knew what I was doing.  I had been offered the position last year, but turned it down because it was the week before school started, and I had everything ready!  I thought being offered it again was a sign, one that I could not ignore.  I said yes!

This was not an easy decision to make, because it is hard to walk away from a place where I have been going for the last 17 years as a parent volunteer, a substitute teacher, a classroom aide, and a teacher.  

Many things went into the decision, but it always came back to the fact that I get to teach the two things I love most, which is reading and writing, to almost four times as many kids - a dream job!

My one little word for this year was REACH and when it found me, I had no idea that it would lead me to this.  I am very excited, but I will miss the friendships that I have with many of my colleagues.  They were the hard part of the decision.  Many of them were why I became a teacher in the first place, and many of them kept me going each day, even when some of those days were difficult. There are many memories contained in those two buildings, and packing up my room has been very emotional. Walking out last week for the last time was definitely an emotional level of a Hallmark commercial!  It was tough.

My home-away-from-home for the last six years.

I am moving from a school which is 100 years old to a school which is going on five years old.  I began unpacking my room yesterday, and it was overwhelming, but exciting.  I kept saying "one box at a time...just one box at a time."  It is hard for me to envision because right now, my room looks like this.

But the next few weeks, I will be settling in and creating a new classroom.  No, it has not been a typical summer, but I am OK with that.  I know new stories are waiting for me, and I can't wait to share them with you!