Work

Sam's job has been going well.  He just finished his third week of teaching and each week gets easier for him.  He is going to between 7-10 facilities each week all over Northeast MA.  Each facility is run differently, has staff who teach differently, and students who are of course all different, which means he has to be very adaptable and prepared for change.  He is enjoying it and I am enjoying watching him develop as a teacher and discussing teaching and curriculum with him.  I also love that he gets home before me most days!  He has expressed interest in a position that has opened at one facility.  There are pros and cons to both jobs, so he'll be fine either way.

As for my job, we have been working on next year.  I signed my contract for next year which will be my 5th year at WCS (my longest time teaching in one place).  The program I began this year is being expanded to a 2nd grade class taught by Rachel and I will be teaching 3rd grade next year.  There was great interest in the 2nd grade program for next year so Rachel is working through deciding which students will be best in the class since she can't take them all.  As for my class next year, I had two students who decided they wanted to be in a traditional class next year and I gained 3 new students, with the possibility of 2-3 more, so I will have about 18-19 students next year, but it will be all one grade which will be nice as far as the schedule goes.  I am excited about next year and am planning on spending the summer studying Classical education, as I would like to incorporate pieces of it into my curriculum next year.

The whole elementary is beginning new writing and science curricula next year which is wonderful.

I am still doing my principal mentorship.  It's hard to fit in the hours and hard to feel motivated at the end of the day, but I'm doing it.  We have been focusing on hiring and setting the master schedule the past few weeks which has been very interesting.

As for this school year, the last day is June 12.  We have a field trip this week to a local business to go along with our economy unit.  We are starting our 3rd week of a classroom economy.  The students earn money, spend money, and earn daily salaries (or unemployment if they don't have a job).  They keep track of their money in a checkbook register. We have tellers and bankers who assist with the record keeping and the giving of money.  They have been loving it.  We will finish it up this week with a store where they can purchase fun activities with their savings.  It's been interesting to see the various students' spending habits.  Some hold onto their money for dear life, others happily spend 15 dollars (which is a lot) every day to read in the reading corner during Reading time.  I'm thinking next year of doing it for the entire year with some modifications.  There are also websites where the whole classroom economy can be run online with student accounts.

This week we are beginning to create business plans.  The students are going to work individually and in groups to come up with goods or services to sell to the other elementary students.  They will have to pay back their parents for any supplies that were purchased.  We will pool our profits together to buy some treat for the class.  It's a great opportunity for them to think about supply and demand and setting a good price.

For our final big class event, we are having a sleepover at the school in June.  The students are excited.  I'm excited for them, but fully realize that I will not be sleeping a wink.

We have the Fun Run coming up, Field Day, a trip to the zoo, and various end of year tests.  It feels like the year is pretty much over.  We also have chicken eggs in our classroom.  We started with 41 in the incubator.  We have been candling them weekly and it looks like we have 26 viable eggs which are supposed to hatch this Tuesday.  Very exciting!  It is amazing to be able to candle them and see the chick moving around inside the egg.  I went in on Saturday and removed the egg turner and put the eggs on the bottom of the incubator so they are able to hatch.

I have been teaching an after school program on Wednesdays for the past six weeks.  We play a variety of board and card games.  I'll be happy when it is ends this week. Turns out working after school isn't great fun.