I randomly decided to check out my past blog posts and realized it had been 6 months since my last entry. Much of that was due to my hectic but amazing summer which I wouldn't have traded for anything (but more on that later). Today officially marked the day where I am exactly 1/3 finished with my 2nd year of teacher. Although I can say it is much less stressful than the 1st, I've still got a long way to go before I feel remotely satisfied with some of my units. I don't think anyone can ever be truly be content with their teaching because there's always something that could have gone better or been explained more thoroughly and on and on and on...
Even though I get frustrated and tired and cranky some days, here are some pictures from this first third of the year that remind me why I enjoy what I do...
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In "Snack Tectonics" we used Fruit roll-ups (which melted to the plastic in my room :S), graham crackers, and frosting to illustrate how the Earth's oceanic and continental plates move. After the activity, one student felt the need to eat his in this manner. Sigh. He is also one of the ninjas at the bottom. |
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| This is the majority of my Second Chance for Struggling Readers students. Although I went into the year dreading to teach this class, it honestly has become my favorite. It's rewarding to see students get into a particular genre or author and be "hooked". The male student in the white shirt on his knees in the left of the picture read over 2,000 pages last quarter! |
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My Language Arts students were assigned the task of creating a game to illustrate their knowledge of a certain type of noun. One student created a kind of mangled game of Twister with common and proper nouns. I just love the boy's expression in this picture! |
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These 2 boys are definitely some of the "clowns" of the 8th grade but they also know when it's time to buckle down and get serious. For twin day they dressed as ninjas and kept switching seats the entire class and maintaining the same posture and gestures. It was extremely hard to keep a straight face with this sight looking at me! |
