Twas the morning before...

So here it is.
Tomorrow.
Less than 24 hours now.
Am I ready?

Well, shoot NO! kittens.  I MISSED open house day.  The one day where I get my mind into the game and meet the kids and blaaaaaaahhhh. Why did I miss it?

I'm expecting.

 

Yep, yep.  I am awaiting the arrival of a fresh little 5mm scamp.  I think I shall name it Peony.  Or Pee-ter.  Or, dang, anything- if it would come out already.  This has been going on since Wednesday.

 

And how am I coping?

 

 

 

 

Aside from the Morphine drip they gave me while I was in the hospital- they sent me home with Percocet.  I've been napping with unicorns, my lovelies.  And they also gave me a strainer.  Like I'm a prospector or something.

 

Miner's report : No Gold in these here hills...

 

 

I have zero idea what I am going to do if I still have this in the morning.  I do know that I'm not taking any more medicine after eight tonight though- because I AM GOING TO WORK. Thank God my room is ready.  I'd be in a full out panic if that wasn't done.  And, since taking my skeleton pictures, I was able to receive two more bookshelves that were the height I needed, and keep the two that were too tall and put them to use in my library.  So the whole room is actually ready to roll- with the exception of their first day pencils being out.  But I will DEAL with that.

 

I got rid of my file cabinet, I turned my desk around, I got rid of some more things.  I've got my headers made for my curtains and charts.  I decided to go with naming us as what we are- so I'm going to avoid saying "Kids!" or the like as much as possible, because "We Are Readers", "We are Authors", "We Are Mathematicians", "We are Historians", "We are Scientists", "We are Inquirers"- and the like. We'll see how I do.  I'm hopeful.

 

 

During moments of clarity, I have been doing some work.  I've got my reader bags ready.  Basically.  I am not thrilled with the books in them- but without the book room to borrow from, I had to make do.  I'll get it straightened out by the end of the week. 

 

I also got my curriculum map onto the computer.  I'm pretty happy with it actually.

 





 

 

 

I changed my color scheme by quarter.  This one was from a design seeds slide with peacock feathers.  And I made it on Power Point.  I have to say, I'm making almost all of my documents on power point now- Word has just become sort of cumbersome for me.  First thing I did was list all of the standards I have to cover in the quarter according to my state and county.  I also made PDFs of the essential skills that go with those standards and linked them to the content titles.  I've only got the linking done for the first quarter, so far, but it was a pretty simple cut and paste job, so I'll get the other quarters done when I'm feeling a bit better.

 

Then I separated out my weeks and tried to hit the main points each week.  I still haven't come up with a plan yet for just weekly and daily plans yet- but I'm working on it. I know that in those plans I'll need to spell out exactly what is happening in reading and writing, and spread that math out across the week.

 

I got excited how I could add the links to PDFs in my map, so now I'm thinking about how easy that could be for my other plans as well.  And then just flash my lesson plan up on my promethean board and tap where I need to go when I need to. An I know there are other programs out there that do that- but I'm not rolling in the dough at the moment.

 

And I know our standards and pacing are probably not the same, but if you'd like a PDF of my map to look at for an example- just click here.  On the first pages, the titles How we Organize Ourselves, and How the World Works, etc. - those are the titles of my IBPYP planners.  I infuse math, reading, and writing, within those planners as well, but that's where I'm showcasing my science and history standards.

 

And during moments where I'm fuzzy and completely unsure of what planet I'm still on- rest assured kittens that I am still planning.  I have solved the mysteries of the universe these past days- just can't remember a single detail.

 

I looked back over my summer strategy and happy to report that I cleared out

All of In the know:

Two out of Three of Category One - reading

One out of Three of Category Two - mess with

Two out of Three of Category Three - investigate

All of Category Four - TPT

All of  Category Five - team collaboration

One and a half of Category Six - Pie in the sky
 

So I did well!  Summer was successful.  Now on to the school year!