Back on the Horse

This afternoon I walked into a local Starbucks in search of a little pick-me-up. I encountered a former co-worker (I was a barista while I was in my t-cert program), and we exchanged hellos, how are yous, and whatnots. He asked what I was doing today, to which I replied, "I spent the morning in my classroom, about 3 1/2 hours or so." He replied, with his face one of puzzlement, "What, are you teaching summer school or something?"

While I have certainly enjoyed a relaxing summer, I've started the process of getting back on the horse. I had a few simple tasks today:

• Take old, tattered, expired books off the shelves to make way for newer books.
• Check to see if school laptop worked better at school than home (startup issues)
• Move some charts and maps from the wall in my search for a better way to utilize wall space
• Look for assessment guide, in particular leveled passages to assess fluency & comprehension.

What I ended up doing, taking up more time than the above items, was documenting some of the books I've been reading this summer. This past year my school district used some of our technology stipend on learning Microsoft's OneNote. In a nutshell, OneNote is a digital binder. We use it for documenting our staff development, and team meetings. I've also used it to document my work with students in reading, using different tabs for each rotation of kids that I would see and placing pages in each tab with the date for my reading conferences. Kids would read while I was script on my laptop, typing notes about fluency or comprehension including areas of growth/struggle.

I decided to employ this for the books I've been reading. Ever read a book, dog ear a page, then wonder what the heck you did that for (when you look back days, weeks, months later?)? Well I haven't totally determined my organizational structure yet, but I have a few pages on different books. I included a brief 2-3 paragraph summary. After that I included page numbers with quotes and questions, things that I might use when I use these books again. While I might not use the questions that I've noted, at least I have a head start the next time I go back to use these books.

I was in my classroom today? Yes I was, and it was good to be back on the horse.