Occasionally, a meeting can be productive.

I did not teach today.  I rushed through some sub plans, made a poor attempt at tidying my moving mess, and spent the day with my team and the third grade teachers discussing our writing and reading programs and planning for next year. Fabulous Karen has rocked out our long range plans- so we've got our general overview for the whole year, and we've got a good nine specific weeks of language arts lessons down in the calendar.  We planned through what we'd like a guided reading notebook for the kids to look like, spent some quality time chatting about things that weren't even teacher related, had a good laugh or two, ate lunch AWAY from school (Yeeeeeeehaw!) and got all of our literacy folders squared away and ready to move up with the kiddos to third grade. Learned a little about a new handwriting program we'll be starting next fall that has a lot of fine motor skill games incorporated into it.  Excited about that, since I had been thinking I'd like to add that into my room. All in all- PLEASED as punch.  And also, I got a team assignment duty for next year, I am going to be in charge of the PYP planners. I'm excited but nervous about that, and therefore glad I'm having training in August so I'll actually know what I'm doing.

I also attended my son's graduation from fifth grade.  I was concerned that he would not do well at the ceremony (lots of sensory issues with the Autism), but he did fabulous.  We did not stay for the whole thing- he got his certificate of completion, had his picture taken with the teachers and assistants he's had for these last three years, and then we went to have dinner.  He left with a smile on his face.  I could not ask for anything more.  It is amazing how fast they grow. I can remember when I could hold him up on my shoulder while he slept, and now he's almost as tall as I am (which isn't short, by the way). Bittersweet.

I spent the remainder of my evening sorting out those catch-all drawers from the classroom.  Did I mention that I sort of cheated and dumped all of the contents into two boxes and brought them home the other day?  So tonight I sat on the floor and sorted and bagged, and wrestled Babyzilla away from the bags of alphabet magnets.   At the moment I put them back into the boxes, all in ziploc baggies, in specific sections of school supplies, crafts, science, math, and language arts.  It's really too bad social studies doesn't naturally come with manipulatives.  I should do something about that... Happily, it turned out that I actually have some very nice things that were hidden away in those catch all drawers- and now that my mind is on this organized track, I can actually think of how I could have USED THEM instead of having them stuffed in a drawer.  But, next year, next year, next year is super teacher year!  I think I need to put that to music.