Ways to Spend Your Time

Spring Break is here. It is half over, but it feels great. How do I fill the time?

• Read kids books. Already done with Moon Over Manifest (2011 Newbery Award Winner), and the Westing Game (also a Newbery Winner). Currently in the midst of Catching Fire (Hunger Games book 2) and purchased Heart of a Samurai, and Mockingjay.


• I run. Lots. Aiming for 90+ miles this week, which is great considering I was sick last week.


• I plan my coming weeks.


• I think big picture about instruction...

Questions I'm working over, but will address in another post...

• In what ways can I mesh the Literary Essays book of the Units of Study for Writing with my current novel study structure? So many good things in there that I do, but in a different way. How can I reinvent what I already do to be more impactful?


• How can I better utilize the end of my day? I'd virtually given up on read aloud because of where it fit. My writing instruction also hasn't been what I had envisioned either. Not coincidentally, both were/are in the last 75 minutes of my day.


• What technology tools can I leverage to do quick checks of reading comprehension? Is it google docs with a quick form? Is it using my district dropbox? I wasn't too thrilled with the latter, but that could have been my setup not the implementation.


• What quick assessments can I use to monitor skills, and better adjust my instruction? This dovetails on yesterday's posts where I want some quicker checks that I can put into a spreadsheet to help track how kids are doing on particular skills in order to ensure timely feedback. I do this... but without the papertrail that I want (or need).

Recharging

Since I've been on Spring Break, I've made a clean break from school stuff (at least student teaching stuff). I'm running quite a bit, 54 miles thus far (another 37 planned for the other 3 days), and feeling great. I've also been doing some odds and ends in hopes of staying mildly busy. But that was until this morning, and the rain/snow mixture Mother Nature surprised us with!

I decided to get back on the horse today. I took TeacherWife into the classroom today to show her around, and to see what I might need to accomplish in the coming days. I was considering moving stuff around, and having another set of hands would certainly make it easier. Sooo... we moved desks around. The biggest change is that the document camera is closer to the projector screen, and I sit on that side (instead of on the opposite side, leaving a bunch of empty space). I shifted the desks too, and everyone has a good view of the screen. Beyond that... I can see everyone's face when teaching (instead of having 3-4 behind me, and looking at the back of everyone's head).

Spring Break, One Week Down!

Spring Break started as of 3:06PM on Friday. The first week didn't go too bad, although I have much to consider this week. What's happening this coming week?

• Marathon training started today, which means a solid 86 miles on tap this week.
• Reading, reading, and more reading! I plan to go through some reading, writing and science texts to see what I can integrate into my practice.
• Some classroom moving... I will post pictures later, but I plan to shift tables, desks and students with a hope of bringing some new life into the classroom (kids are tired of their table groups, and the space is a bit cramped).
• My Praxis exam next Saturday, which in Washington is called the WEST-E.
• Sleep!

I also have to say that I've been cleaning out my google reader only to find an article from the Seattle PI (now a web-only "paper"). In the article, the candidate for mayor says that a takeover of Seattle Schools could happen if improvement doesn't happen within 2 years. He goes on to say that takeovers have had great success in other cities... If we have solid critical thinking skills we can make statistics mean whatever we want, can't we?