#MTBoSBlaugust - First Year Again

 

Whenever I have a student teacher or encounter a student / first year teacher, one of my words of advice is to blog throughout the year as a journal record of the ups and downs as a record of growth.  This time, those words of advice are aimed at myself as a challenge to blog about this year as I very much feel like a first year teacher again.  

We reported back to work on Thursday and what a jam-packed day it was! 

I arrived at school around 7am and was immediately overwelmed, but kind of in a good way, if that makes sense?  This was the before picture and by about 8:30, I had a semblance of order to it, even though the wall calendar still says March - LOL!  I feel like there is so much out of my control right now that it felt good to jump in to cleaning my classroom because that was something I *could* control.  There was an element of normalcy that I appreciated in this very abnormal world.  I wish I had thought to take an after picture, but maybe next week! :) Then it was on the rest of the day...

After cleaning up my room, the next thing on my agenda was a PD / Technology meeting that morning where I was a total doofus and couldn't figure out why I couldn't hear the other people on the call until I finally realized my computer was on mute.  I was so embarassed.  I haven't used my school computer for 5 months and my home computer works differently, so I didn't even think about checking the system mute.  UGH - won't make that mistake again! 

After figuring out the PD schedule, it was time for a short break to check in on my family.  My sister was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this summer, and her surgery was on Thursday.  All was going well so far, so time to unpack some boxes and continue cleaning my room.  All but 4 textbooks have been accounted for so far, so that's great news!  Our kids had to do a "drive-through" textbook return last Spring, so I was nervous that more would be missing and I was pleasantly surprised!

That afternoon was our All-Staff meeting and we don't have a place on campus that is large enough with social distancing rules for our staff to convene, so it was a virtual meeting via Zoom.  It actually worked out pretty well overall so I kind of hope those continue!  After the meeting, I wrapped up a few more things, then shut off the lights to head home because I had the first MIST meeting to attend! :)

After getting home and eating dinner, it was time for MIST!  MIST stands for "Mathematical Immersion for Secondary Teachers" and is a problem based curriculum / professional learning opportunity aimed at secondary math teachers.  I've been in contact with the MIST folks since February, so I was so excited to actually start! Thursday was a Mathy Meet and Greet to introduce the people behind MIST, the research component, and to start doing math together.  Kate, our facilitator, did a fabulous job of organizing the evening.  Our math for this session was called an Estimathon, which reminded me of a math trivia night.  In our small group breakout sessions, we worked on 11 questions and had come up with a estimated range for our answer, without googling!  For example, one question was about how many episodes had been aired of the Oprah talk show over her career.  It was a blast!

After the 30 minutes was up, we had a short debrief about the activity and I think it would really be cool to gather some of these questions for the last 5 minutes of class or any time we have some downtime.  It was also a great way to practice the breakout room norms that we will be using in the other 9 sessions.  We are meeting every other Thursday night, so if you want to join in the mathy fun, please feel free to read the informational flier, ask me any questions, and sign up to join us!!  

By the end of the day, I was already missing my daily nap time because I'll admit that naptime is one of my favorite parts of summer!  

Then it was Friday... thankfully Friday was a bit calmer than Thursday!  I really didn't have much on my plate other than a department meeting and finish cleaning my room, so that next week I can really drill down into the PD and lesson planning.  I knew that this weekend would be busy, so after getting home last night, I totally vegged and hubs and I continued binge watching Schitt's Creek until I fell asleep on the couch.  

And now it's the weekend. :)  Happy Saturday to you all!