Bloggers gotta blog, blog, blog, blog....

Mrs. Bartel, at Mrs. Bartel's School Family is right.... Bloggers gotta blog! I am SO tired. New teacher training is really taking it out of me. Don't get me wrong, I am pretty excited. I feel really good about the district I am joining. I love that they give us so many tools to get started with. However, I did laugh a bit at the ecard on facebook today. It looked like this:

I have a half day training tomorrow and then I'll spend a little time in my room in the afternoon. However.... we are going fishing tomorrow night as a family. I am looking forward to it. I recently had the (joy?) of making an amends to my family for some behavior that took wayyyyy tooo long for me to see my part in and apologize for. But the *consequence* (there's a good "teacher" word) is that I feel better about being around my family and the tension that was thick enough to cut with a knife is no longer there. Whew. Sweet relief. See? Remember when we were taught that "consequences can be positive or negative?" I know I'm not the only skeptic in that thought.... "you just have to say that, reality is that consequences are punishment!" Seriously, on some level, I "get" it. I know the consequence thing. Or more down to my level of thinking/speaking.... I know that whatever I focus on increases in my life today! Maybe not quite the same thing. But our lives are the results of our actions, good or bad~ positive or negative consequences will follow whichever action we make.

Look, at that, I did it again. Went off on a bunny trail. Oops. Back to teaching, new district, training and more! I just wanted to reiterate that I am excited to feel like I am being equipped. Tomorrow is DRA training and I have experience (limited though it is) in AimsWeb screening and using QPS for a quick screener, but I have no idea how to use DRA. So I am glad we are getting trained.

Today was day 4 of a New Teacher Institute (NTI). Today probably should have been about half as long as it was. This afternoon we had FUNdations training and I have been looking forward to it. I know a little about FUNdations but I knew I wanted to know more! I want to be equipped! I was so tired today, I nearly fell asleep, miltiple times, during this training! My brain hit overload yesterday afternoon during CHAMPS training.  *sigh*

If you are familiar with CHAMPS you'll understand that some of my WBT rules that I've used until now are not going to work this year. According to CHAMPS teaching, they are procedures as well as the fact that at least one of them is contradictory. So.... *sigh* (yet again).... I am taking: "Raise your hand to speak" out of my rules, and I am also taking out "Respect others, respect yourself, respect your school." The idea of respect is more of a guiding principle and something to be taught, modeled, practiced, re-taught, modeled, and so on, for the entire year. It's an ongoing process, or learning event. It's not cut and dried. I agree with the logic. But these rules have worked pretty well for me so far.... not perfectly, but they've worked fairly well. Now I am trying to figure out how to change my rules and how to word them. I would like to have a rule about talking but not sure how to word it. I think the last draft I came up with said: "Take turns speaking." I loved the "raise your hand to speak" rule. But it doesn't ring true during the times when I give permission to "shout out" answers by making gestures with my hands that anyone can answer. And it doesn't apply to small group interactions when children need to be free to work in their group and share their thoughts and ideas. But even when we don't have to raise a hand and wait for permission to speak, we need to learn to be courteous and to give everyone a turn to speak. Small group expectations will be that all students get to share and that only one person speaks at a time. Do you see now why I am SO tired?! All this is rattling around inside my head!

I have a lot of other things on my mind. Things I'd love to share with teacher friends, hints and tips, and things I want to share with my "tribe." I don't know how to use Twitter/Periscope all that well yet, and so I wasn't able to figure out how to "save" the Periscope that my friend Alyce made, but she talked about our teaching tribe. It was awesome. I know I have food for thought to blog another day.

What have you learned about this summer that you can't wait to experience in your classroom with your kiddos? It can be a new training, or a procedure or rule, or maybe a cool hint that should totally make your life easier! What is it? I really want to know!

Goodnight teaching friends. Tomorrow will be here soon!