Preparing for someone else to be the Math Super Hero

So, At school, there comes a time in the pregnancy that you have to prepare everything for someone else to be you for the space of six weeks. Now, I would really like just to give her a list of topics to teach and when and then turn the sub loose. I don't really care how things go in my classroom, because I have much better things to do with my time...like have a baby hero and rearrange my life around his.

However, my long term sub has started asking tons of questions, like "How often do you update grades, when do you do that? What do you do if there's not a lot of questions? What do you do on your prep period? What do you want me to do?" I didn't really have a good idea of what to tell her...I just do it all. So She asked for a to do list, so she can be the Math Super Hero. I pondered her request and started making one.

Daily:
Put up new starter
Collect homework from every class
Put up calender
Change baby's name of the day
Get gradebook ready for Teacher's aide
Put daily assignment into Skyward with accompanying Due Date for Parents
Get kids to do work
Teach all periods
Copy day's starter onto starter paper
Pull out worksheet copies if necessary/file extra's at end of day
Answer five billion questions

Weekly:
email parents
update grades 3-4 times a week
get out new starters
get copies made for next week
see what I'm teaching next week

And this is not extensive...I do other things too, that get suddenly asked of me. I think this is only the basic stuff. As I began itemizing everything that I do, I realized there's a reason, besides growing another life form that I am tired everyday that I come home from school.

And then there is also trying to teach the minions how to act like responsible adults or at least semi-intelligent life forms.

It feels good to do a lot every day...I think I need to back off and try to not do some of this stuff.

Indiana or Bust

We just got word--We are moving to Indiana in June! We are going to Purdue University to study Forest Entomology! YAY!!!

New Year

It's always interesting to go back to school after a long break. Monday was the longest day I have ever experienced. I seriously thought that I had been back for a week--before lunch! It was bad.

Tuesday was a very interesting day at school. We had a drive by assembly. Everyone found out about the assembly about ten minutes before it was supposed to happen. I thought that I had given the kids 20 minutes to work on the assignment--turned out I only had given them 10, because of the shortened class period. Oops. Also, the other thing about this assembly--it was an AM assembly. Which means instead of going 1,3,4,5,6,8,7 we went 1,7,3,4,6,5,8, which messed everyone up. For being a drive by assembly, it was a good one, but it added tons of surprise to the day.

I'm very grateful that this week is almost over, and that I have one more week until the term is over. We're getting close!

Last Day of School

Today was the last day of school. The kids are driving me crazy right now. My minions are waiting for the assembly to start, and we've run out of things to do, and so I'm sick of them driving me crazy.

I am glad, however, that I have two weeks off and get to play with my family for a long time! I will be very glad in 50 minutes when school is out and I get to go home.

The other fun thing about today, is that in one of my classes we rewrote the lyrics to popular christmas songs and several of them are absolutely hystarical. There are several that the kids put me into the songs and it was funny. One of the groups used all these inside jokes about what has happened in class and everyone was rolling on the floor laughing.

Power of Sticker Charts and A Dream Fulfilled

I have a new success story for myself. The power of sticker charts! I decided that I would put a sticker on everyday on the calender that I read my scriptures and write in my journal. In the month of December, there is only one day missing a sitcker, because I decided at ten at night, I didn't want to write in my journal, but I still read my scriptures. I am so proud of myself!

I think that I am going to add on other stickers--but I'm not sure. I get so excited to do both things, because then I get to put on more stickers.

I had a dream fulfilled yesterday. My Hero and I went to the Christmas Concert put on by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. The dream fulfilled is from the special guest. They invited Brian Stokes Mitchell to preform with them. I have always wanted to see him preform live before he or I dies. And I did.

It was so amazing! At the end of the concert, the prophet came up and presented a gift to him. And then the president of the choir told the story that Brian Stokes Mitchell was willing to sing "The Impossible Dream" from Man of La Mancha for all the secretaries in the Church Administrative Building, and that the prophet had missed it. He then asked Brian Stokes Mitchell to sing it for the prophet, and he agreed!!! I have heard him preform "The Impossible Dream" LIVE!!! I feel so honored and it is a dream fulfilled!

Quadratic Toolbox

The first year I taught, after I was through the Quadratic unit, I got a really cool idea--over two thirds of the unit is teaching the kids all the different tools to solve a Quadratic equation. (For all you non-math people, a quadratic equation is one with x-squared in it as the highest exponent.) But last year, when I got to this unit, I couldn't find pictures of tools to use and was getting burned out from everything I was trying to do and so I didn't get it ready for the students.

This year is different. I got everything ready and today we made our quadratic toolboxes. They turned out awesome! There are four ways to solve a quadratic equation: 1. graphing, 2. factoring, 3. completing the square, 4. quadratic formula. So I made four tools: a hammer, a wrench, a screwdriver, and a tape measure. The assignment the kids got today was to take their notes and pick a tool to go with each quadratic tool and write the steps, create an example on how to use the tool and place them on the tools.

It was so fun to see the kids working on it! Most of the kids put Completing the Square on the tape measure "because it's square!" I just loved watching several of them realizing that what we've been talking about are all for solving quadratics and that they're tools. A couple of kids told me that they liked it because they could see that some tools are easier to use in different situations--just like sometimes it's easier to use the hammer instead of the screwdriver. I just felt like I was the queen of teaching!



Here's my example that I made with the kids to show for next year and absent kids.


Speaking of being the queen of teaching, I was JPASed. This is the method the district uses to make sure that teachers are good teachers and hypothetically they can get help if they need it. Usually it's used to fire teachers. So the VP came into my classroom twice and watched me teach lessons and evaluated me. I got my results back--I got exceptional ratings. I am an exceptional teacher!! I am proud of my achievements and get to toot my horn for the fact that I can improve, but the scores are as high as they go! (YAY!!!) The Math Super Hero Strikes again!!

The other big news is before my hero came home from Germany, I dyed my hair. I wanted to be a different hair color, and it's been so much fun to have dark hair. So we decided that it's time that we show my hair color to the world. (Disclaimer: My belly looks bigger than it normally does, because my arms are pulled back.) I really like my new hair color!

Belly Dance

My Panda has gotten big enough in my belly that he causes the belly to dance. It's quite interesting to look down at my belly--when he's going crazy inside and see my belly move.

It's also really weird to think that there is life growing inside of me. There is another person with me always. This person also has a hobby of kicking my belly. I don't know how I feel about that.