Winding Down

The end of the semester is rapidly approaching, and I'm just not sure where it went. We've done so much, and yet I still feel like I have a lot to cover.

This past week was eaten by the County Writing Test and wrapping up loose ends. We started the week reflecting on the second nine week grading period and working more on the parts of speech. My students can tell me what the definitions are but have trouble identifying them in context.

So we used the poem Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll to help see how the parts of speech work in a sentence. They had to look at what the nonsense word was doing in the sentence to figure out what part of speech it would be. I hope it's helped to make sense of the parts of speech so that we can move on to parts of a sentence.

The second class of the week consisted responding to a prompt. The ninth grade writing test is a county wide assessment. Students are given a prompt and a series of related quotes to work from. Overall, I think they did well. Some were better than others, but that is to be expected.

Friday we did a morning rotation that focused on giving and then watched The Ultimate Gift in the afternoon. It was a really good movie and day.

One week to go...

Novels, Romeo & Juliet Speed Round, and Burger King Crowns

Well I didn't blog last week since we only had one actual class day. We spent our time reflecting on our Shakespeare banquet, performance and film, and we wrote a 32 second script for Romeo and Juliet. We didn't get time to make use of our scripts on the day we wrote them, but we did use them this past week.

At the beginning of the week, we turned in our NaNoWriMo novels, reflected on the experience, and designed covers for our books. During Friday's celebration, we displayed our covers in the cafeteria. It was fun watching everyone who came through, including culinary students, checking out the novel covers.

Later in the week, we journaled a little about things we were grateful for and things we'd like to thank a soldier for. We will be writing letters to Marines currently stationed in Iraq. My baby brother is a Lance Corporal in the Marine Corps and will act as a distribution point for our letters and other care package type items.

We also tried to perform our 32 second versions of Romeo and Juliet. It was a lot of fun trying to get the performances down to 32 seconds. The videos from the attempts are on my YouTube page. Most groups started out over a minute. On a couple of occasions we had to cut a few lines to make it all work out. We even performed some of them backwards. The idea is a tribute to The Reduced Shakespeare Company, whose play/film we watched at the banquet.

Friday we spent the morning celebrating our noveling experience! Joyce Hostetter, a local author, came to speak and join in our fun. We all had Burger King Crowns, which the sophomores and juniors were begging me for in the morning. (I wouldn't let them have them until lunch.) We got to hear about ten novel excerpts. Every one was fabulous! It was a great morning! We got finished a little earlier than I had planned, but that gave us time to enjoy a HUGE cake that Dolly's parents made for us and cookies Cady brought in to share.

After the celebration, we took a brisk walk before lunch. After lunch, we went caroling at the Share Center. The kids had made Christmas Cards that they gave to the residents as we went up and down the hall singing. I have to admit that if the though is what counts, we did great. But if the sound is at all important, not so much. We had a couple great singers in my group, but overall, we were rough. Nevertheless, we brought smiles to many a face!

I can't believe that first semester is almost over already!

Romeo & Juliet Banquet

This whole week seemed dedicated to two things, working out issues with novels and getting ready for the banquet.

We spent some time discussing our novels and hang ups we were having. I'm hoping for some strong finishes. Collectively we have written over half a million words in our pursuit of novel writing. It would be amazing to break a million words!

We also performed Romeo & Juliet in the most ADHD manner I've ever seen. It was a hoot. I would have liked less reading, but part of that is my fault. In an attempt to be as fair as possible in the distribution of parts, It took me longer than I would have liked to get the assignments out.

Then of course the end of last week I was out of the classroom. That being said, the videos of the performances are a lot of fun. Check them out!

Happy Thanksgiving! I have a lot to be thankful for this year!

Where in the World was Mr. Miller

First and foremost, I have to say that I hate to miss school. Maybe it's a control issue, maybe it's something else, but I cannot stand to be out for any reason. Unfortunately, there will always be times when it is necessary to be gone from school, whether it's because of illness or other obligations. I suppose that I am grateful that my lack of attendance this week had everything to do with a conference and nothing to do with illness.

Monday we went to the civic center to see a play, "The Red Planet." It was an interesting take on life on Mars in the future. My favorite part was the robot. The actress who played the humanoid robot did a fantastic job.

We had a short blitz schedule on Monday. I focused on returning assignments and trying to assign acting the Part roles in as fair a way as possible. I really wanted to get them assigned earlier, but I felt it was important for the students to have some say in what they were doing. Most got their first or second choice. I wish they all could have, but it just didn't work out that way.

Tuesday was a day off of school but not much of an off day for me.

Wednesday through Friday, I was in Hickory participating in The New Schools Project Symposium. Wednesday was a peer visit at Challenger, and Thursday and Friday were filled with a series of activities and conversations.

While I was gone, my classes got a chance to finish viewing the '96 version of Romeo and Juliet. They also had some time to work on either their acting the part assignment or their novel. I believe that things went well.

Friday was filled with preparation for our banquet next week. I hate that I missed any of it! I cannot wait to get back to school tomorrow!

Novels Away!

The first week of NaNoWriMo has been a huge success in my opinion. We spent time working on our novels this week as well as delving further into Romeo and Juliet. The beginning of the week we reviewed parts of speech again with a special emphasis on personal pronouns. We also worked on understanding how conflict and problems work to create tension in our novels.

Three of the four classes watched the first 25 minutes or so of the 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet. On Friday we saw all but the last 30 minutes or so of the 1996 version. It always amazes me at the different takes on each version. I've had classes in the past that didn't care for the newer version and other classes that found the older version cheesy. I'm looking forward to hearing what this year's classes think when we have seen both versions.

We also went over our Romeo and Juliet performance project. For the project, they can work alone or in a group of up to four. They will need to rewrite the dialogue or monologue to be included as part of a modern day adaptation of the play. The monologues and dialogues are relatively short, and I suggested that they check out No Fear Shakespeare and sparknotes for help.

They will be performing as part of our entertainment during our banquet on November 21st. We will rehearse earlier that week. I'm really looking forward to what this very creative bunch will come up with.

The latter half of the week we focused on our novels. Students worked on their novels for about half of the class and the rest of the time they worked on new blog or met with me to discuss the grammar and plot worksheets they worked on earlier in the week.

Well, this seems a little less detailed than my normal blogs, but I have a lot on my plate. I need to try and get grades into the computer for progress reports. I've been working on my national boards. Oh and I'm working on my NaNoWriMo novel as well....I'm wearing out my keyboard that's for sure!

I'm off to work on my novel, 21,000 words and counting!

P.S. I don't think I've ever linked this before but here is my youtube account. I've not posted everything I have, but there are quite a few videos from our Olympics earlier this year and from our Grandfather Mountain trip. Enjoy!

Debates, Prologues, and Novels!

This past week was full of fun things. We started Monday with our mock presidential debates. All participants did a fantastic job. The entire morning came across very professional and at the same time very entertaining. The student's did a fantastic job staying true to their invented candidates even when time allowed for unscripted questions to be asked. After lunch that day, we had a special presentation from a Argentinian educator. It was very interesting to learn more about that country.

Tuesday and Wednesday then became our first class of the week. We began with written and oral presentations of the Prologue to Act I of Romeo and Juliet. Overall, all four classes did very well. There were a handful of students who were not prepared and have had to or will have to retest to improve that score. As we finished with our presentations, we set up accounts on The Young Writer's Program side of the NaNoWriMo web site (both sites are overloaded right now due to the high volume of participants).

Although Friday was a little different, Thursday and Friday served as our second day of the week. We took care of some retests, but focused a lot of attention on where to begin our novels and Act I of Romeo and Juliet. I gave out writing handbooks that we will use to get us through our novel writing in November. We looked at several pages in those workbooks, and in our journals we answered some important questions about the characters we had created:

What does my character want?
What is in his/her way?
How can she/he get around that obstacle?
What could go wrong with that plan.

The workbooks are for the students to use as they need them; however, there will be times throughout the month when I go over areas addressed in the books directly. It will be okay if something we do together a student has completed on their own. The remainder of the class was spent reading the first scene of Romeo and Juliet. I tried to break it down for them and with their help so we all knew exactly what was going on. This upcoming week we'll work more on Romeo and Juliet and our novels.

Friday morning we had an extended assembly where I showed some videos from three of our Friday activities: Grandfather Mountain, The Renaissance Festival, and Shake-N-Bake Museum. After our regular first through third period A day, we went to the cafeteria to kick off our novel writing. We went over tips for success in November. We locked away our internal editors. And I showed the webpage I set up to get everyone excited about starting their novels on Saturday. All of the teachers helped to create survival packs that we gave out before we spent some time planning our novels more.

We took small groups upstairs to make caramel apples while the rest talked about their novels and used the workbooks to get a good start. I have been in touch with Joyce Moyer Hostetter, a local author who will be writing alongside us in November and coming to our December celebration. Joyce is also blogging about her experiences with this insane quest. I encourage you to check out her blog.

Remember during November, every student and myself have something to do everyday! Write, Write, Write! I just broke 6,000 words this morning!

I'm Noticing a Pattern!

For the last three weeks the title of my blogs have all been about how fast the week went by...and I was ready to do it again this week! I guess it's true what they say about time flying when you're having fun!

This past week was a blast! I know for a fact that I freaked out quite a few people on Wednesday and Friday when we launched into Romeo and Juliet! And on Monday and Thursday, we got serious about our word counts. It was an adventurous week to say the least.

I saw groups A and B in on Monday and Wednesday, which is how it usually plays out. However, Tuesday and Thursday weren't quite so straight forward. Tuesday we had a guest speaker come to discuss endangered species, so we had a rotation in the morning. My part of the rotation was beginning the film version of The Odyssey.

The film was originally a television mini-series back in the 90's. The kids really got into it. They would beg to finish a scene before we switched. We watched more of it on Thursday before we headed up to the Fall Festival. Then we finished it on Friday afternoon.

We were in four rooms watching the end on Friday and each room was slightly off from each other. It was really kind of neat for me since it allowed me to stop by the different rooms to add something or draw their attention to something. Then right near the end of the film a "bad guy", one of the suitors, is killed. The cheers came in a round on the hall, and when the film ended, the applauds came in a round as well. It was really cool!

Finishing up The Odyssey was just a small highlight of the week. The first day we met, we talked a bit more about turning off our internal editors and getting ready for NaNoWriMo. We finished peer editing our essays and set our word count goals. We talked about how they will have homework everyday for the entire month of November.

The only way they'll reach their word count goal, or that I'll reach mine, is by setting aside time everyday to write. The lowest word count goal I allowed was 20,000 words. That breaks down to 667 words per day or about one typed page. This month should be fun and challenging. I know some of them are super excited about getting started and the others are coming around to the idea.

The second day we met, I carried a sword and spoke in a terrible British accent. I stood on the table pretty much the entire class, (the cause of much of the freakout). We talked about love and teenagers and then went into The Prologue from Act I of Romeo and Juliet. We took the 14 line sonnet to pieces looking at every detail of it. We added motions to it and talked about ways to memorize it.

They will write and recite the sonnet for two separate grades on Tuesday or Wednesday of this upcoming week. We'll also be getting ready for NaNoWriMo, setting up our accounts, and mapping out our stories and starting to think about our Shakespeare Banquet. It'll be a bit of a busy month, but rewarding in the end.

I'm preparing a bit of a send off for Friday since Saturday will be the first official day of writing for NaNoWriMo!!

Chances are good this week will disappear without much effort like the last several...

Whoosh

This past week shot by like it was launched from a potato gun! And it was just as much fun! I started the week by listening to my student's advice from their journals. I put the breaks on a little and let them and me breathe a little. We spent our time at the beginning of the week wrapping up the Cyclops episode of The Odyssey.

Thursday, we went to The Renaissance Festival. We had a blast. The students had the opportunity to check out all the sites and shows and food. We came back together as a group to watch the final joust of the day. We then had a little more time to check everything out before we got back on the buses. I personally ate a sausage on a stick, chocolate covered strawberries, Italian ice, and a root beer float.

Friday, we had our museum. And I have to say that our students rocked! Their exhibits were awesome and the 3rd graders had a blast. We everything from exploding volcanoes to a labyrinth complete with a minotaur. I have a lot of great video that I need to post soon!

This week is setting up to be another epic adventure that I cannot wait to see unfold!

Have You Seen Last Week?

Another week zoomed by and with it the end of the nine week grading period. That sort of snuck up on me. Nevertheless, it's been a great first nine weeks and another great week.

We started the week by going over our Parts of Speech Quiz. The scores were pretty bad across the board. I thought that perhaps some of the errors were simple mistakes. I had planned to review and then retest, but when we talked about it, it seemed that simple mistakes were only part of it. A lot of them admitted to still being confused about the basics, so we're going to do some extra review before we retest.

After we went over our quiz, we got back to work on The Odyssey. We're still working with our reciprocal teaching circles. It's been going well from my vantage point. The students are discussing and helping each other make sense of the poem. Some of them aren't so crazy about the poem, but that's mostly because they have to work so hard to make sense of it all.

Later in the week we continued working on The Odyssey. We nearly finished the cyclops episode. I assigned the rest of their five jobs for homework. We'll be splitting the remainder of the poem up between the groups. Each group will read their section/sections and present the information back to the rest of the class.

We started our Parts of Speech review by playing MadLibs. It was a lot of fun and educational. We got to review what the parts of speech were and have fun using them. My plan is to move from playing MadLibs to creating our own. This way the students will have to know what part of speech they remove. We'll go full circle.

Friday we went to Grandfather Mountain. It was a lot of fun even if we could hardly see anything. The mist or fog was thick. We couldn't even see off the bridge or the rocks on the far side. It was like being on an island. Before we went to the bridge, we did get a chance to see the animals and the museum. All in all, it was a good day and another good week!

Where did it go?

This week just sort of slipped right by without me even noticing. We've set sail with Odysseus, took a grammar quiz, worked more on peer editing our change papers(A and B only), and learned about Hugh Morton.

Groups A & B got to spend a little time editing their papers in their peer editing groups. We focused on body paragraphs this time. We'll do a little more work on them in our peer groups before I set a resubmit date.

Groups C & D had a shortened class on Tuesday, so we postponed the editing. We had a chance to see a special performance from storyteller Donna Washington. It was well worth the crunch on our schedule! She put on a show especially for us and the Middle College. It was a lot of fun and very entertaining.

We launched into The Odyssey in reciprocal teaching circles. So far they seem to be working rather well. I'm hoping to put a pretty good dent into the poem this week. Not sure how well that will work. Pacing is still an issue. We have RenFest looming on the horizon!

We took our first grammar quiz. It was just on identifying the 9 parts of speech. Some did well; however, most didn't. We're going to go over it this week and retest soon. It's an issue I seem to face every year. My students can always tell the definitions of the parts of speech, but they tend to have trouble applying those definitions. It's a work in progress!

We've also started to think about our novel ideas for NaNoWriMo. Some seem freaked out, but generally the rumbling has been more of excitement. I'm really looking forward to it! November is going to be a good time getting our novels knocked out! Before we start, we'll talk more about word count goals and what this insane challenge is all about!

Friday we focused on Grandfather Mountain. I've never actually been to Grandfather Mountain, so I've been looking forward to the trip this Friday. And after the research I did for my part of Grandfather prep, I'm even more excited. The kids should be well informed that's for sure!

I spent some time reading personal odyssey blogs this weekend, and it was epic! I laughed so many times while reading them. I can't tell you how many times I got transformed into a TROLL!

Well, I hope this week goes well!

Testing, Testing, is this thing on?

I almost wrote this in the middle of the week just because of how well Monday and Tuesday went. We were back in stations, and the more we do it, the more I like it. We had three stations set up. One was on the computer writing assigned blog number two. The second was a parts of speech assignment, and the third station involved two groups playing an Odyssey introduction version of Hollywood Squares.

It takes some balance to make the stations work. I need to be sure of a few things if they are going to be successful. I have to make sure they have enough to do during their time but not too much. Perhaps most importantly, I have to make sure the directions are clear and easy to follow. This week it just worked. The groups working on their blogs and their parts of speech assignments got right to it and made the most of their time. The other two groups got to compete Hollywood Squares style. Playing the game let us cover the necessary background information for The Odyssey in a fun and interactive way.

By the end of Monday, I feared it might be a fluke, but after Tuesday, It proved not to be. I was just really excited that everything worked so well. I love it when a plan comes together!

On Wednesday and Thursday, we worked on peer editing our change essays for a while. We then switched gears and presented parts of speech presentations. At the beginning of the week, students were in groups and had to create a song or skit that introduced all 9 parts of speech and told what they do.

The presentations were really a mixed bag. Two classes (same day) really did a good job with it. Those classes created engaging songs and memorable skits that I hope will help them remember what the parts of speech are and what they do. The other two classes overall lacked focus. There were select groups in each class that got it, but in the last two classes, it was rough at times. Seriously one day I was wishing that I had recorded them and the other day I was glad I had forgotten my video camera.

Nevertheless, it was a good week. We wrapped things up by watching all of the podcasts. I have them all posted on my podomatic site. After watching the podcasts, we started the long process of testing. But thanks to text messaging, things went smoothly.

Well, I cannot wait to set sail with Odysseus this week!!!

TOGA! TOGA! TOGA!

What a week! I felt like I was pulling teeth like an old school dentist. In my case, the teeth were finished poetry podcasts. I'm hoping that this experience has demonstrated the need to use time wisely. Finishing podcasts can be stressful, but it's very rewarding to see the final products.

It all started with me being out while scripts were being written. I left explicit instructions both before I left and with the substitute that each group needed to write their script and leave a copy for me. I also explained that if it wasn't finished someone in the group should take it with them to finish before Monday and Tuesday.

Monday and Tuesday rolled around and scripts were incomplete. Many of the groups that hadn't finished in class simply forgot about finishing. This meant that when they were supposed to be recording and finding images, they were finishing their scripts. I then explained that they would need to find images during connections or at home if they were going to finish on time.

Wednesday and Thursday came and many groups were imageless. I demonstrated how to do the basics to get their podcasts ready, and then helped them get moving. I had explained that there simply wouldn't be enough time to find images and edit the podcast together.

Nevertheless, we pushed through and produced our podcasts. While the tone of this post may not convey it, this was a great week! The podcasts could have been better, but overall they're pretty good. I have a few groups who might want to fix it before they're presented, but they will do.

And along came Friday! Friday was so much fun. All of the freshmen teachers plus one junior teacher dressed in togas to go to discovery place. The kids were a riot. They couldn't believe we were really going to wear our togas into Discovery Place.

We kicked off our Shake-N-Bake unit with gusto! After seeing the Pompeii exhibit, I cannot wait to get lost in The Odyssey! I think a lot of what we saw will really help give a backdrop to the reading.

Let the journey begin!

Frustration & Fun Week Four is Done!

I HATE MISSING SCHOOL! That being said, this past week I was out Wednesday and Thursday. I had to work on fixing my bus license. I'll still have to miss another day to do the road work now that I've redone my classwork. It's all very aggravating, but when it's done I won't have to worry about it again for a while...I hope!

We went over the whys and the hows of our poetry podcast assignment early in the week, and while I was out the groups wrote their scripts. From what I've seen, I'm pretty excited. I had one group that had to record early, and the audio came out sounding pretty good. I can't wait to see the finished podcasts.

They've had a chance to explore a poem and wrote up a script about the poem and poet. Their next step will be to find images that support their words. We'll record their scripts and sync the audio with the images. When we're finished, I'll post everything on my podomatic site. The first few podcasts you'll find there are actually from short story animations, but if you scroll down, you'll find some poetry podcasts.

We had open house on Thursday, which was nice. I had to rush back from my training to try and be ready, but even that didn't take away from the night. It was fun to meet the parents of so many of my students. I hated that we ran out of time before I had a chance to speak with everyone.

Then Friday we had water presentations. The groups I saw did a nice job with it, and I heard that they all did. I was impressed with their first public, we had guests, speaking assignment. With practice they'll get even better!

We relaxed a bit in the afternoon and watched A Civil Action. The film fit perfectly into the pollution and river studies they had done. I even got more out of the movie than the last time I'd seen it thanks to their presentations.

We finished my rushed week by rushing back to the cafeteria for a special guest appearance. Tina Turner came to perform "Rolling on the River" (Proud Mary) complete with two Ikes and back up dancers! It was hilarious! I'll have to post the video when I get a chance, but alas it is late and sleep beckons! Here's to another great week!

Week Three

Wow!  This past week was a crunch week and now this week is setting itself up to be rather frustrating (I have to be out later in the week for bus driver training).  But that being said, life is still good!

Holidays really wreak havoc on an A/B type of schedule.  It cuts a day out which sets one group behind if you don't go at it from another direction.  I'm having a hard enough time keeping four groups together.  I've never been able to do that in the past.

Luckily we blitzed one day (saw all four classes).  So at the end of the week I had seen all groups pretty much equally.  We worked in small groups and rotated through stations.  It worked pretty well, but I need to be careful about time.  

In one station they worked on their blogs on Imbee.  During another station, they started working on their PBwikis.  Each group updated something either on their team page or on one of the pages in their team folder.  I've also added a slide show from Friday's activities to the wiki.

The other two stations involved comparing rivers to poetry and Haiku.  The kids seemed to like the combination of moving through the stations and the additions I added to each.  For example in the Poetry is a River, they had to read a passage, listen to a poem on mp3 players, and then write.  The Haiku station involved thinking about what must have happened to inspire haiku.

Thursday we went to Wilson Creek.   The kids got to get into the creek and do some water testing, hear about the history, and do some reflective writing.  For some of them the writing was excruciating.  I can't wait to get back to the memories they wrote about!

Friday we worked our way through poetry knots.  I've posted the slide show I made on the wiki, on my website, and I'm putting it here!  This week they get to put what they learned into action!  Here's hoping for the best!

Week Two

Seems like it's been more than two weeks, and yet it's really been only a few days. It's a weird balance to think about. Traditional time moves by, but because of our A/B type schedule, every week is really only two days of class. It's like a weird time warp!

Weird time warp or not, we seem to be making progress. We've finished reading Who Moved My Cheese and set up our Imbee accounts. About me projects will be coming in this week, and we'll be getting into poetry some.

The end of Who Moved My Cheese opened the door to some interesting ideas about what holds us back. We also explored what kinds of old cheese we've been holding on to even though we know better. We've started to think about ways we can embrace change and be better people.

Our Imbee accounts have opened doors of self expression! The first blog was about the first week of school or "cheese." Most of the students have finished that first blog, and a lot of them have gone beyond that to write several. We still need to discuss what exactly a blog is, but they're getting it. I've managed to read quite a few and leave comments.

One of the things I like about using Imbee is that it makes the blogs take on a greater importance. They become semi-public (only people on your friends list can read them). Having a bigger audience encourages students to take it more seriously. And It looks like some of the other freshmen teachers are going to set up accounts too! This will give even more of an audience to their voices!

Friday was the icing on an awesome cake of a week. Getting to spend the day with the kids out on the river was incredible, tiring but incredible. We went tubing down the New River. Due to the water and knowing that I was going to get wet, I didn't get any pictures or video, but Mr. and Mrs. Smith did!

The water was a little cold, but we had great weather overall. I finally got up the nerve to jump off the bank backwards. Which was a little more nerve wracking considering how many of the kids jumped from the bank and well didn't land so well.

I could have made it all the way down the river barely wet if it wasn't for a few things. I got out of my tube once to stop for a minute and move through the tubes. That couldn't be helped. The other thing came with different faces but all ended with wicked splash battles. Totally Not My Fault!

Looking forward to next week!

Week One

With the first week under my belt, I'm feeling pretty good. There is still some acclimatization to occur no doubt, but overall the ball has been set in motion. I always feel better when the class is underway. I always compare the start of school to pushing a boulder over the precipice of a large hill. It takes a tremendous amount of effort and planning to get it moving in the direction you want it to go, but once you've got it going, you can almost let it roll.

There are times when the boulder gets stuck on a root or wedged between trees and you have to adjust and work to get it back on track again, but there's nothing like that moment when the boulder is rolling like you had hoped!

This week we focused on some procedural things but mostly on our "Cheese." I assigned our first "quiz" which is the About Me Project. I've heard from other teachers that a lot of the kids have gotten a good start on it already. I really can't wait to see what they come up with to show me who they are.

The "Cheese" we talked about comes from the book Who Moved My Cheese by Dr. Spencer Johnson. The book is about four characters stuck in a maze and they are in search of cheese. The Cheese with the capital C represents the things that make us happy and feel successful. It's a very popular book in the business sector and deals primarily with change and how we respond to that change.

We were able to talk about our personal Cheese and the local Cheese as well as national Cheeses. I was really excited about the fact that we've had a chance to talk and discuss some pretty big ideas. All four classes are doing a great job with it so far.

I hope to finish up our work with that book later this week, but before we do, we'll be getting online to set up our accounts and start our first blog on Imbee.com. My previous students really enjoyed using Imbee to blog and communicate with each other.

Friday was our Olympic games. We had Water Olympics in the morning and Metric Olympics and Cricket in the afternoon. I'm in the process of putting together a compilation video of our day.

I'm looking forward to another fun week at school, the Crawdads game on Monday, and maybe a trip to ASU on Thursday to hear Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle, speak. Looking like a good week from here!

PB Wiki

PBwiki has started their back to school challenge and just by using pbwiki for your class you can win a free upgrade. I recommend checking it out!

First Two Days!

Wow! What an awesome way to start. We had a great two days of getting to know each other and creating a good atmosphere for the work we have to do this year. It was great getting to meet all of my students.

Thursday, I showed my insane introduction video, in double time! Some of my classes weren't sure if they should laugh or not, which was fun. We talked about where they see themselves in the future and what their legacy would be. We talked about what super powers we wished we had and what was important to us.

Friday, we had conversations with a partner and used what we learned to introduce each other to the class. We found out what flavor of ice cream we would be and what our theme song should be. We didn't quite get finished, so we'll pick up there on Monday for Groups B and A and on Tuesday for Groups C and D.

After lunch, we hiked to Redwood Park. We had a shoe race and helped each other over the lava pit. After we finished, we hiked back and headed out for the weekend. It all seemed to happen in a blur! But left me with the best feeling.

After two days, one of the kids said I was like an adult version of ADD! I got a kick out of that. Another told me I was in the running for the best teacher ever. Within a sentence she changed her mind and decided that because I was funnier then the current "Best Teacher Ever" I just might have won.

My wife says I'm a happier person. I think I've become friendlier. I'm truly excited about teaching. And it's only been two days with students! It's like going somewhere new and realizing that you were home!

And So It Begins...

Day one and we're off and running! How exciting! We moved boxes and file cabinets and put desks and tables together. We actually spent the day in the new building! The rooms are amazing. They are so big and have so much built in storage in them. They truly are incredible.

There are some changes that will be weird. Right now I don't think we'll be able to put anything on the walls! My classroom is usually covered with posters and student work. And since we share our classrooms with the college, our rooms aren't really our rooms. We have our teacher desks in the workroom, which could prove to be really good. It'll just be weird for a while.

Like anything, it will take some getting used to. It's just amazing to see how not only our staff but also so many other people worked so hard to get things ready. I know next week will be long and taxing, but it will be so worth it! Little by little the pieces fall into place and things come together.

I get to work with an amazing group of colleagues, and for that, I am eternally grateful! You should have seen us tear through the science labs and put together tables in no time. Today I actually saw exactly what John Heywood meant when he said, "Many Hands Make Light Work." Whenever something needed done, everyone just jumped in and took care of it.

I can't wait for next week when I'll actually be moving in my classroom stuff! Time to Rock -N- Roll!

Okay so the google video uploader did nothing for the original video. Well, it did something. It lowered the quality for sure, which is disturbing! But you can still get the general idea of the landscaping I've been doing around the house.

And now for the pond....

Okay so I took a break from playing with my new toy, and went back to working on the yard. Over the last few days, I've put in two new sidewalks with paving stones, relandscaped around the front of the house, and set up the pond.

Now it's starting to come together, but it's not quite done yet. Tomorrow I hope to finish the pond off and hook up the fountain. I still need to clean up the stones around the side sidewalk, put in the overflow for the pond, and put a few finishing touches on the pond. I need to get some pictures.

Now that I'm nearing the end, I can't help but look at lighting. Now that it all looks so good, I sort of want to add some solar lighting. But I suppose that will have to wait.

Besides the few finishing touches I have to work on tomorrow, I still need to put the new deck belt on the mower and cut the grass...all of the grass! I might have failed to mention that while today was wickedly productive it had its low points.

For starters my wife and daughter left to go see family in Pennsylvania. It's not like this is my first few days alone. It has happened before, but it still gets lonely without Maggie, my daughter, running around behind me and "helping," or without Stacy to bounce ideas off of as I work.

Two other low points for the day included the reason I need to replace the belt on the mower and ants. I tried to mow some of the grass today; unfortunately, the belt for the cutting deck caught fire and snapped or melted. Regardless of whether it snapped or melted, I need to replace it. Never a fun job.

The final insult of the day came when I was getting a load of old bricks from behind our dilapidated barn to fill in around the pond. I started loading bricks and soon felt a familiar sting on my arms and legs. Yep, fire ants! Not too bad, but I have little bites on my arms and legs. Luckily I saw them before they really started to swarm, and I had gloves on.

Well, this post had nothing to do with school or my new toy, but I'm trying to get into the habit of writing more regularly. Here's hoping!

And we're off....

First of all I must admit that I have little faith in my future as a blogger. I've never been able to keep a journal on any regular basis. And while I love to write, it the easiest activity I have ever found to make excuses not to do. I am at heart a writer. Unfortunately, I don't always put that passion first.

My brain works in mysterious ways and leads me on adventures that seldom end anywhere near where I was heading. For example, I began this caper playing with my new Flip Mino. That led me online to look for royalty free music to use with movies. I did find a site that looks promising. I tried to tag the site with del.icio.us, a social bookmarking site. But I had forgotten my login and had to play that game for a minute. You know the whole what is your this and that game. What is your favorite color? Blue no green...AHHHHH! (Sorry Monte Python detours are bound to happen from time to time.) That led me back to my Gmail account which somehow led me to this blog.

Now if we back up like two days or so, we find that there is some formula here. A couple days ago I was working on a grant application to secure funding for a project I plan to undertake with my students this year. The last part of the grant application involves a line item type list of how the funds would be spent.

One of the items on that list are Flip Minos. The project...amateur film making. That's right! This year my classes are going to create short films a minimum of 30 mins in length that highlight a social or environmental issue that is important to them.

While looking for the perfect camera for this adventure, I found the Flip series of cameras, and well I bought one. It arrived in the mail today, and I started playing with it. It really is quite a nice little camera. Very inexpensive and take amazingly good video.

So I sat down and started playing with the camera after taking random video. Next thing I know, I'm writing my first blog. What I failed to mention is that somewhere between the grant application and my Flip Mino arriving in the mail, I had thought about starting a blog. Had the building been ready, today would have been my first day at Caldwell Early College High School. And even though my start date has been postponed by a week, I can't stop thinking about this upcoming school year.

I'm really excited and at the same time a little uncertain. While this will be my 5th year teaching, it will be like a first year in some ways. My schedule and day to day will not be what it has been. It's a whole new adventure. One I am very much looking forward to starting!

I will be teaching English I (freshmen), and I will have the pleasure of teaching the entire freshmen class. They will be divided into four sections. Unlike the past four years where I taught three sections a semester, I will have these four classes all year but see them on an alternating schedule.

This has caused me to rethink the way I deliver instruction in some cases. I will also be working with a team of teachers who also teach the freshmen class. This has offered opportunities to integrate across the curriculum. We'll be teaching units that compliment and correspond with each other. This too has caused me to rethink my delivery as I typically taught freshmen English by genre not theme. I think I'm going to like the movement to theme. I'm also going to like being challenged again to rethink the way I teach.

At any rate, I plan to use a wiki to help my students keep the world informed as to our progress this year, and I am going to try to post blogs to update from my point of view. All of which will be linked from my school website.

This was a really random rant! And knowing me, they all will be. Well, it's time to move on...here we go!