These have turned into monthly updates I guess.

So, it's obvious that I haven't updated this in a while. I'm almost finished my first quarter of teaching first grade, crazy! The week's are getting a little easier as time goes on, but I'm still really behind. I can't get the required number of unit tests finished in time for the end of the quarter because I can't teach and assess my students the way the rest of my grade level thinks is the best way. So it feels like I'm always trying to cover the bases by teaching their way and then re-teaching in the way that I think is the most effective. By that time I'm behind and the grade level unit test is in no way aligned to what I taught my students (the way that I think is the right way). I greatly respect my colleagues but reconciling our styles is always a challenge. My students are in VERY different places as far as their academic levels and it's really hard to teach to all of those different levels at once. They are all SO different behaviorally also. I have absolute angels and I have kids who are umm... challenging. But they are all really interesting little people and they all definitely have special things about them. I'm really excited to be able to make great memories with them, like going on our first field trip next month, yay! :)

On the not so exciting end, I take classes from 4:30-9:45 on Mondays at Georgia State. And I actually have a lot of work to go do now for those classes. BIG waste of time!! I would be all for continuing my learning if I could go in there and learn things that are relevant to my class and going to benefit my students. (ie: classroom management, differentiation, planning etc.) But instead, we talk about our feelings for 5.5 hours and spend all day Sunday trying to figure out what the heck is due for that week. I could think of many more productive ways to use my time. Like, blogging obviously. Just kidding, going now to do my classwork, then do my work work, then maybe I'll have time for some house work. Fun, huh? Well here goes another week...