Logical Poetry

 I am very fortunate that my school district invests in training teachers. For the past two school years, we have had optional  professional workshops in the winter and summer. There are multiple days with choices available for different grade levels. Last year, they were all separated by grade band. This year, there's more overlap between the grade levels on different days. So yesterday was 3-6, today was 4-6, and tomorrow is 6-8. I didn't realize that I could have also gone yesterday, but it worked out anyway because yesterday was my own kids' first day of the second semester.  I am so glad they made the switch, because previously there was minimal involvement from people at my middle school, and we are the only middle school in the district. So today I got to work with not just teachers from my school, but from all of the elementary schools. It always helps to have additional perspectives from both sides. It also helps that everyone who was there signed up to be there....

I go back to work in 10 days, so I decided I'd start blogging about my thoughts as I prepare to return.  Last school year, I listened to the podcast Truth for Teachers featuring Modern Classroom Project, and I was immediately enthralled. My district has pushed for blended learning, but I've never felt 100% confident with it. I've tried it on and off with station rotation, mainly, but I always ended up overwhelmed. I really liked how the MCP was set up to be basically just a self-paced classroom, which is where I've kind of been settling at anyways. I always (try to) make videos for lessons, because it makes my life easier and it's so useful for students to be able to go back and review the video.  Before going fully into it with all of my classes, I started with my CS class, which is what I usually do when I want to experiment with something that I could use for both CS & Math.  I did make some mistakes along the way, but I'm glad that I tried it out first q...

  3 good things from 2020... I got to be here for my kids' first day of school. It wasn't a milestone year for any of them, but I've missed the first day for the last few years because my district calendar starts before theirs. My 3rd grader's day starts before mine does so I was able to get him setup & going, and check in on my 8th & 10th graders right after they got started. It really meant so much to me to be able to see them start their school year & talk to them instantly about how their days went. We got a puppy! We got her back in February and she has been absolutely amazing during the pandemic. I am NOT a dog person, I was attacked by a Rottweiler at a very young age and have a lot of anxiety around dogs. But my husband did a lot of research and got us a corgi. She's small dog who doesn't jump on us or drool too much. She's super cute and snuggles with me all the time. I finally got the Planning to Change the World planbook, and have bee...