No School for 5 days = Stir Crazy Teachers January 18, 2007

I have not taught a “full” day of school since last Thursday. Am I about to go crazy. The answer is yes. School has been cancelled for tomorrow. We were released early on Friday, had Monday off for MLK Jr. Day. Tuesday, Wednesday, and now Thursday has been called because the roads are still extremely icy, and they have not been touched by the county road crews.

I’m starting to drive Clint crazy (even though he won’t admit it), and I’m going stir crazy and starting to get really really bored. I cleaned the house on Monday, worked on laundry yesterday, tooks naps today in between movies, and spent all night tonight working on my huge project for my grad class (even that isn’t helping).

I told Clint today that I’m going to go nuts this summer. I am meant to teach not sit around my house in my pj’s watching movies. Clint’s on his way home now from Sedalia. We are going to go to a movie. Maybe that will help with the whole stir-crazy bit.

We shall see!

Welcome CoCo!!!! January 15, 2007

Well, my students have been begging me to get HamHam a friend. They really wanted me to get a male so that they could mate, however I said nope on that one. I didn’t want to have to deal with lots of baby guinea pigs. I did agree however on getting another female. On Friday, I went and got CoCo

HamHam is the monster (not really) on the left. Little CoCo is hiding behind her. Here’s another picture (slightly better)

CoCo is still really skiddish around us, but she’ll get used to us. Ham was the same way. Slinky is somewhat upset with Clint and I because we brought home another animal. He doesn’t understand that they are going back to school on Tuesday.

The weather has turned crappy again. It’s been raining/sleeting/snowing since Friday. School released at 10am. No school tomorrow (already had that off). Again, Slinky HATES going outside, even with his new coat on. . .

Clint made fun of us (Slinky and I) because we have matching coats. I seriously had mine first. My parents found this one for Slinky. I think it’s cute!

I’ve got a huge unit project to work on tomorrow since I have no school. Human Body Systems using technology! WOOT!!!

Technology Geek. . . Who Knew January 5, 2007

So I started my second grad class tonight. It’s an uber accelerated course 3 weeks long instead of 6 weeks. It’s Classrooms in the Digital Age. As part of our introduction we had to tell our name, what we taught, and how we used technology in our rooms. We it got to me, I just started talking about the class website how I’m teaching the kids about the proper uses of blogs. Looking into podcasting their study guides into MP3 files, since 95% of my class has an iPod (or something similar), using a SmartBoard, etc . . . When I got down talking the instructor laughed and said, “Who knows what she just said” not very many people had there hands up, so I had to go back and explain blogs, podcastings, etc. . . Made me feel like a Geek!

I’m the youngest person in my class. Most of my classmates are in their late 30s to 50s. They really don’t know that much about using technology in the classroom. A few don’t know how to use PowerPoint, or Excel.

I’m really looking forward to this fast class, because I know stuff about the topic. Since I’m a first year teacher, i kinda struggle with having discussions about certain aspects of teaching since I’m a “pup.” This however, I feel like I’m be the “big dog.”