I Promise....I'm Here!
Holy Guacamole! What an end to the year! It seemed like a whirlwind hit around the middle of May and just kept turning until recently. I am exhausted! Between school and all of our new changes (more on that later), dance recitals, graduations, and my own little bitty - I feel like I could sleep for days. No rest for the weary though! Summer school awaits. Whoever said that teachers have 3 months off every year has no idea. Besides summer school, I have big plans for my summer. Lots of fun and a little bit of work.
So let's back up to the end of school. I'm sure ours was eventful just like everyone else's, but whew! It was a sprint. For one thing, we had an endless lineup of field trips, assemblies, and rewards. My personal favorite was going roller skating with the kids. Nothing says nostalgia like putting on some skates and going for a few spins. I even competed in a game of "Rocket Ball" - and I almost won! Until the skates slid out from under me and I landed flat on my rear. What do you do when you wipe out in front of 90 4th graders? Laugh it off, of course (that was a tough one!). What was your favorite end of the year event?
As well, those eagerly anticipated STAAR scores made their arrival. Cue "Jaws" theme music. So, my writing scores were good. Not what I had aspired to, but higher than the average. I've already done some reflection on where I went wrong. One day soon I will post about some of the common pitfalls of teaching writing and one that I gravely committed. So that means there will be some major revamping this summer. Pinterest -get ready!
Finally, we had some personnel bomb shells. I think it is always hard when a campus community is shaken. At Christmas we received a new principal. He worked very hard for us and had big plans for our campus. However, other opportunities opened up for him at the end of the year and he unexpectedly announced his departure. We were without a leader again! It was very daunting to face the end of the year without a vision of what was to come. Fortunately, we have great leadership in our district who acted quickly and moved a well-respected principal to our campus at the very end of the semester. What a relief it was to have an idea of who would be leading us and a vision for what was to come!
So that brought me to the close of our school and explains two thing...
1. Why I didn't start my series on critical writes. It is still in the works, but I prefer to test drive what I promote, so I will postpone until the next year.
2. Why I have some much work to do this summer!
It is time to revamp, renew, and rework! For one, I have a lot of products to tidy up for my TpT store. A few I am working on include an activity on commas, some extended response activities, and TEKS mapping. As well, I am starting a new personal book study on The Writing Thief by Ruth Culham. I am so excited! I have previously looked at Jeff Anderson's Mechanically Inclined which spawned the idea of "Mentor Sentences". All year I used a product from TpT by Jivey that used Anderson's method to use texts to mentor sentences structure and grammar weekly. I LOVED IT! (You can get your copy here). I so excited to see how Culham also uses existing author texts to help me mold my writers. Sharing what I found with you all will be one of my summer goals. Want to read with me? You can order your own copy of The Writing Thief here. As well, I will be counting down some of my favorite writing lessons from this year to share with you. On top of that I will be working on teaching my little one her colors and letter and sigh-potty training! It is going to be a busy summer but I hope you will join me in my learning journey!
Until later-
Amy K.
So let's back up to the end of school. I'm sure ours was eventful just like everyone else's, but whew! It was a sprint. For one thing, we had an endless lineup of field trips, assemblies, and rewards. My personal favorite was going roller skating with the kids. Nothing says nostalgia like putting on some skates and going for a few spins. I even competed in a game of "Rocket Ball" - and I almost won! Until the skates slid out from under me and I landed flat on my rear. What do you do when you wipe out in front of 90 4th graders? Laugh it off, of course (that was a tough one!). What was your favorite end of the year event?
Finally, we had some personnel bomb shells. I think it is always hard when a campus community is shaken. At Christmas we received a new principal. He worked very hard for us and had big plans for our campus. However, other opportunities opened up for him at the end of the year and he unexpectedly announced his departure. We were without a leader again! It was very daunting to face the end of the year without a vision of what was to come. Fortunately, we have great leadership in our district who acted quickly and moved a well-respected principal to our campus at the very end of the semester. What a relief it was to have an idea of who would be leading us and a vision for what was to come!
So that brought me to the close of our school and explains two thing...
1. Why I didn't start my series on critical writes. It is still in the works, but I prefer to test drive what I promote, so I will postpone until the next year.
2. Why I have some much work to do this summer!
It is time to revamp, renew, and rework! For one, I have a lot of products to tidy up for my TpT store. A few I am working on include an activity on commas, some extended response activities, and TEKS mapping. As well, I am starting a new personal book study on The Writing Thief by Ruth Culham. I am so excited! I have previously looked at Jeff Anderson's Mechanically Inclined which spawned the idea of "Mentor Sentences". All year I used a product from TpT by Jivey that used Anderson's method to use texts to mentor sentences structure and grammar weekly. I LOVED IT! (You can get your copy here). I so excited to see how Culham also uses existing author texts to help me mold my writers. Sharing what I found with you all will be one of my summer goals. Want to read with me? You can order your own copy of The Writing Thief here. As well, I will be counting down some of my favorite writing lessons from this year to share with you. On top of that I will be working on teaching my little one her colors and letter and sigh-potty training! It is going to be a busy summer but I hope you will join me in my learning journey!
Until later-
Amy K.
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