Classroom Tour

Two weeks into the new school year, and I can honestly say that, so far, things are great!

The staff at my new school has been wonderful to work with--friendly, warm, helpful, organized, and totally dedicated to the kiddos.  The students have been pretty good, too.  It's always difficult to come in as the new music teacher, especially when they've been used to someone else, but it's been a smooth transition. 

I'm also loving my classroom.  This is the first time in my teaching career when I've had an entire classroom inside the actual school building.  Up until now, I've always either been in a portable classroom outside of the main building, or have only had half of a classroom because the other half was utilized by other specialists.  I've even traveled from room-to-room on a cart when that half of a room had to be turned into a computer lab!

So, without further ado, here's a quick-tour of my classroom:

This is the wall of my classroom where I keep all of my Orff instruments, unpitched percussion, and the piano.

A close-up view of the piano corner.  You can see that my lovely cabinet has seen its better days :)

One of my side walls.  This is where I keep all my coffee necessities, tissues, a few knick-knacks, and photos of my family.  After living the "portable life", I about died when I found out I had a sink and running water in my classroom!  Another great perk is that there's a water fountain on the sink--no more do the kiddos have to leave the room to get a drink!  Yay!

I like to call this my "media corner".  It holds student textbooks, pencils, small whiteboards, whiteboard markers, crayons, CD's, videos, iPod sound dock, etc.  I'll eventually have more trays and a variety of paper on these shelves as well.

My interactive whiteboard and projector, marker boards, and taller drums.  I've since changed the section of marker board on the left into a "learning target" board that holds the focus topics for each grade level.  I'll have to take another picture and re-post :)

My desk area.  It's too scattered and messy for my liking, but I just haven't found my groove for how I want to set up this area of the room yet.  Note the two plastic bins in the lower left corner of the picture--those are my Emergency Guest Teacher Kits.  I always keep them beside my desk and place my Guest Teacher Binder on my desk every evening before I head for home, just in case.

Something you didn't see in any of these pictures was chairs or benches.  I don't use them.  I like the majority of my room to be nice, big open space.  This works perfectly for movement/dance activities and for setting up instruments.  We usually start class by sitting down together on the floor, and after that we're either moving around, playing instruments, or standing up and singing :) 

Well, there you have it--my new digs!

Moving Out, Moving In, Moving On

Oh, what a Spring/Summer it has been!

There have been major changes within our district as a whole, and within our music department.  To date, we have had 3 retirements and 4 resignations.  Knowing that would mean changes for all of us remaining, I basically stress-ate my way through the last few months.  (More on that a little later). On top of it all, we sold our house and moved into a brand new one.

So, that leaves me here, in the middle of July, no where near where I thought I'd be when it came to preparing for the upcoming school year.  Why?  Because I've been moved schools again.  I will now be in just one building full time (yay!) and will actually have a classroom that's not a portable (yay again!). It also means that I had to leave my incredible students and co-workers at my two previous schools.  I was especially not prepared to leave P, which really has felt like a second home to me for the last 6 years.  Even more difficult is leaving the PE teacher, with whom I shared both schools.  He has been an incredible friend and mentor to me, and now I feel as though my Obi Wan has been taken away from me before my training is complete.  But, I have to keep going forward.

I've spent about 3 full days so far just cleaning, sorting through everything in my new classroom, and trying to get everything moved in and arranged.  I've still got some decorating to do and some more logistics to figure out, and then I can get down to the business of unit and lesson planning.

I was also elected Vice President of our local education association this Spring, so my term officially began in June.  I've had a few meetings so far pertaining to the association itself, have attended the 3 school board meetings that have taken place this summer thus far, and have participated in a couple of other events  related to the association.  To this point, it's been a great experience and I'm proud to serve.

Amid all of my professional life changing, we've been working on settling into our new house.  It's great, and was definitely the right choice for our family, but I still miss our little house that we started in.  Our daughter has had to adjust as well; I thought it would maybe be easier for her, considering she's so young, but you can tell she misses her "old house" too.

And then there's the matter of my self-acknowledged stress eating.  You.  All.  I basically ate my emotions from late March through half of June.  Not good; I don't recommend it.  So, I need to get myself back into fighting shape, so to speak.  I've started Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred, and let me tell you--she ain't playing.  It's been hard, but I can tell it's working.  I can already feel my stamina and endurance building, my energy level is definitely up, and my jeans are already fitting better.  I'm looking forward to keeping with it.  I'm also toying with the idea of doing a cleanse, to sort of help reset things.  Any recommendations?

So, that leaves me here, with a bunch of new focuses.  (Foci?  Whatever.)
1. New school/new roles & responsibilities
2. New house
3. New exercise/health plan
4. New auntie.  That's right--my very first nephew is set to arrive any day now & I can't wait!!!

Wow, if you read through all of this, thanks--you're awesome.  This is what happens when you drop off the face of the blogosphere for months at a time, I guess.  Take care, everyone, and hope you're having a great summer!

What's that you say? A blog?

Holy smokes!  How to sum up the last few months....umm...CRAZY would be a good start.

*Our school district is in the process of building two new elementary schools and one new high school.  We are also reconfiguring our schools (elementary will now be K-5; middle school 6-8; and high school 9-12) and the boundary lines for schools were redrawn for the first time in many, many years.  Consequently, each and every school is going to look and feel different next fall, with many students needing to leave and go to a new school.  Staff will also look very different as well, not only because of the new schools and reconfiguration, but also because of the large number of retirements throughout our district.  As of today, I'm still not sure if I'll be staying in my two schools, adding a third, or moving to new buildings entirely.

*Snow, snow, and more snow.  We actually had a snow day on April 15!  Our district has not called off school due to weather since 2008, so this was serious.  23.5 inches of snow later, and now we're looking at a make-up day because all of our "built in" days had passed us by since it was so late in the year.  Has this not just been the longest winter ever?  I never thought I was one to fall victim to Seasonal Affective Disorder, but this year--most definitely.  I'm totally welcoming the sunshine and Vitamin D!

*We're moving!  We sold our current house and bought a new one at the end of March.  Talk about fast--we listed the house on a Wednesday evening and by Thursday at noon we had competing offers.  We close on both properties and move at the end of May.  Right now our home is a chaotic maze of piles, boxes, garbage bags, packing tape, and Sharpies.  We can't move anything into the new house until after 4pm on the same day we have to be out of our current house.  Heaven help me get through this without losing my mind!

*I'm going to be an auntie!  My youngest sister and her husband are expecting their first baby later in the summer.  The sweet little boy who's on his way will make my hubby and me a first-time uncle & aunt.  Can't wait!

*Lesson plans/unit designs.  So many ideas and things I want to do this summer!  Hopefully between the move, settling in, and snuggling that new little nephew of mine, I can get some new packets and lessons put together.

Take care everyone and let's all just hold on for the ride that is the end of the school year!

In Praise of the Scotch TL901 Laminator

Oh, how I love my laminator!  Love, love, love it! 

I'm constantly needing to laminate things for work, and this little baby does the trick.  It's much more durable than the laminating machine at work (don't you just hate it when your laminating starts to peel of f and then the kiddos pick at it and make it worse and then you end up re-doing everything anyway?...but I digress...) and I can easily set it up at home and laminate and cut while watching a movie or favorite TV show.  It heats in only a few minutes and is pretty much foolproof to use.  You just select the size laminating pouch that you need (up to 8 1/2" X 11"), slide your document or items in, place it in the feeder sealed-side first, and voila!  Perfection!

I picked mine up at Target and purchase the laminating pouches (available in multiple sizes!) there as well.  Happy Laminating!

 

 

New Year's Resolutions 2013

Starting off the year 2013, I decided to categorize my New Year's Resolutions, and figured I'd post my professional resolutions here. 

1.  Make a lane change.  In my district, your lane and step on the pay scale are dependent on your graduate education and on your years of teaching experience.  Our vertical columns (or lanes) are BA, BA+15, BA+30, BA+45, MA, MA+15, MA+30, MA+45, and PhD.  Built into the lanes are pay steps, which are based on years of experience teaching.  My goal for 2013 is to make a move into my next lane--just 3 more grad credits to go!  Totally do-able this semester--too bad lane changes can only take effect in September and in January.  Ha! Oh, well, I can wait until fall :)

2.  Examine my unit and lesson designs and work through them/redesign them to go even deeper within the curriculum.  There are still certain areas where I feel like I'm only glossing over the topic, rather than digging deep and making sure my kiddos have a good grasp of the concept(s).  This seems to be a constant for me.--I always have to remind myself to slow down and make sure they're really learning the material.  I've gotten a lot better about formative assessments and letting them drive my instruction, but I always have to fight that little nagging feeling to "hurry up" and get through everything within the year.  

So, what are your professional resolutions for 2013?