DITLife December 12, 20015

Skipping a blog post?  Guilty as charged!

Last month I had a major surgery just 4 days before I was supposed to write my DITLife blogpost.  Since I could hardly get out of bed, and was definitely hopped up on *prescribed* pain kills, I thought it would be okay for me to skip that month.  Pretty sure I made the right call because I think anything I posted would've been non-coherent anyway.

So I'm a month out of my surgery, and still home recovering.  I'm blessed to work in an amazing district that is allowing me the opportunity to work from home, when I can, until I am fully recovered.  I think it also helps that I'm a coach, so there isn't a substitute teacher taking over for me back at school.  If this happened while I was a classroom teacher, I think I would be propping myself up behind my desk trying to muddle through the Percocet haze, pain, and frequent nausea because it would be better than stressing at home about how my class was going.  For the record, teachers are the hardest working people in the world. FACT.  Also, everyone needs to know that for a teacher, it is MUCH easier to go into work sick than it is to take the day off.   

Today was a Monday, so I should have done some work, but in all honesty, today was a bad day for me and I spent most of the day asleep trying to feel better. 

In the few hours I was awake, I replied to a few emails and followed up with some teachers about issues that they had asked me about last week.  Nothing very exciting.  I'm in my jammies still, fighting the urge to throw up the chicken noodle soup I had for lunch, and getting excited to watch the Patriots play the Ravens tonight.

Since this post is so boring, and my "day in the life" was pretty uneventful, I will use this post to talk about some things that I've been thinking about lately.  Recently, someone put my twitter handle on a list of 70 Must Follow Math Educators.  I was extremely flattered, but also very humbled.  I've been thinking fretting about how little I contribute to the twitter world, and MTBoS in general.  I check my timeline frequently and true confession:  I'm flat out intimidated.  The amount of brilliance shared by my fellow math educators across the country is overwhelming.  Often I read their tweets and think, '"I know nothing, what am I even doing here?!"  

It's scary.

I'm not afraid to admit that either.  I suspect that because I have the title of "Math Coach" many people feel I must know a lot, but truth is I feel like a first year teacher all over again.  I'm just opening my eyes to this new world of really energized, thought-provoking, and wonderful math instruction.  I always loved teaching my math classes, and my students were truly engaged mathematicians, but there's so many great ideas and amazing things that I'm eager to try, all because of what I learned on twitter.  

Twitter is the BEST professional development.  

So maybe this makes me a bad math coach, but the way I see it, maybe it makes me a good one.  I never claimed to know everything, and I'm so thankful to have this PLN to help me learn and grow as an educator.  My resolution is to contribute more to twitter, the MTBoS, and really earn my spot on that list of the 70 Math Educators to Follow.

Reflection Questions

1) Teachers make a lot of decisions throughout the day.  Sometimes we make so many it feels overwhelming.  When you think about today, what is a decision/teacher move you made that you are proud of?  What is one you are worried wasn’t ideal?

This is such a silly answer, but I think the smartest decision I made was to NOT rush back to work.  I really really wanted to go back to work after 2 weeks post-op.  My husband said that was stupid, my principal said that was stupid, my colleagues said that was stupid.  Guess what, they were all right.  It was stupid to think I could go back to the stress of work, plus all the physical activity I would've been doing.  Today was a perfect example of why I'm thankful I'm still able to stay home and rest and recover; I need it!

2) Every person’s life is full of highs and lows.  Share with us some of what that is like for a teacher.  What are you looking forward to?  What has been a challenge for you lately?

I'm so looking forward to going back to work and getting back into the swing of things.  I'm very busy planning our family math night for January 19th right now, and I'm excited to see how that goes.  It's been a challenge to coach from home though, but I'm trying my best.  I've been emailing back and forth with a few teachers, but it's hard to not be there and be in the classrooms.  I'm making the most of the situation though and and working with the situation.

3) We are reminded constantly of how relational teaching is.  As teachers we work to build relationships with our coworkers and students.  Describe a relational moment you had with someone recently.

I just love every single person I work with.  Being home for the last month has showed me their compassion and concern for my well being.  They set up a sign up system and every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, someone has made me a meal and delivered it to me.  I mean, who does that?!  People who care, that's who.  T'is the season of being humbled I suppose. 

4) Teachers are always working on improving, and often have specific goals for things to work on throughout a year. What have you been doing to work toward your goal?  How do you feel you are doing?

Well I did have a goal to participate in at least one twitter chat a month.  I've totally failed in that goal.  I did one in September, but none since.  The best way to contribute more to this community is to join in on these chats, so I'm going to start putting them into my calendars and making it a priority to participate in more.  

5) What else happened this month that you would like to share?

Not this month.  This month can be summed up in a few words:  books, Hallmark movies, the Crown, Good Girls Revolt, Price is Right.

ATMNE 16 Conference Recap

I had the fortunate opportunity to attend the ATMNE (Association of Teachers of Mathematics - New England) conference again this year.  Last year was my first time attending any math-related conference, and I really had a great time and walked away with so much knowledge, tons of ideas, and a renewed passion to make math instruction better.  I was very hopeful going into this year's conference, which was hosted in Manchester, NH, my old college-days stomping grounds.

The keynote speakers lined up for this year were not as compelling as last year's, but the lineup for the workshops looked fantastic, so I was excited to be surrounded by like-minded educators talking about math for 2 days straight!

The opening keynote was by Dr. Larson, president of the NCTM.  His talk was passionate and invigorating.  He spoke about the book Principles to Actions which I've heard so much about but hadn't invested in yet.  After his talk, I purchased that book immediately and added it to my reading list.  The one big idea I took away from his keynote was that while we want student to know many different strategies, they mustn't be taught and practiced in isolation.  Students should always have the flexibility to choose to use whichever strategy they feel is most efficient for the problem at hand; whether that be a word problem in class or a real-world problem once they hit the work force.  I find that so often in the elementary classes I see, teachers are expecting students to use only the strategy they taught them that day, rather than giving them the flexibility to choose what makes the most sense to them.  This is something I am eager to read more about in the book and hopefully bring to my school in the near future.

After his keynote, the workshops began.  Here are the sessions I attended with my one sentence "take away" from each.

Family Math Night To Go!

• There are amazing games that can be adapted to all sorts of grade levels and make family math night fun and engaging!  

Making Fact Fluency Assessments Meaningful

• Ditch the mad-minutes, use the strategies we want the kids to know for all four operations during a one-on-one interview to really assess what kids know.

Desmos for elementary school

• Now I get what all the hype on Twitter is about!  This is a great website that can be used in the elementary classroom quite well once I've played around and figured it out some more!  Thanks Denis Sheeran (check out his book Instant Relevance and follow him on Twitter)

Promoting Mathematical Modeling, Problem Solving and Perseverance

• The types of problems we give our students will promote modeling and rich problem solving.  Ask WHY something makes sense!

The World is Messy: Enabling Every Student to USE math to address REAL problems

• This was more of a high-school geared talk, but I did get a better understanding of how to use real-life situations to make math tasks (rather than crazy word problems involving apples and ribbon!)

Overcoming Math Anxiety

• Math anxiety is a very real problem, it is preventable, and it is manageable.  This was probably one of my favorite sessions of the whole conference.  Cristina Post is an Educational Therapist out of Maine.  Check out her website and follow her on Twitter

Feedback is a Four-Way Street

• Effective feedback is more than a grade; it is specific, timely, personal, and offers constructive criticism.  

There were a few more keynotes sprinkled in with all these sessions.  The Thursday lunch keynote was completely irrelevant to me as it was all about high school math.  The Friday lunch keynote was by Peg Smith and she also spoke deeply about Principles to Actions.

Overall, it was a very productive conference.  In all honesty, I enjoyed last year's conference in Portland, ME a lot more than this one, but I still found this year's to be quite valuable.  I felt like last year's was a little bit more organized, the space they held it was a lot nicer, and the workshops and sessions they offered were much more beneficial than this year's.   I definitely learned a lot and am eager to share with my colleagues in the coming weeks. 

Yom Kippur #DITLife 10-12-16

Today was a very boring day in the life of this teacher!  I had the day off in observance of Yom Kippur.  

I stayed in bed until 9am; a pure luxury!  Brought the dogs for a run around a field, went to visit my husband at his work, went grocery shopping, took a nap, tutored my tutoree for an hour, made dinner, sat in the hot tub and then went to bed.  Pretty interesting day, huh?

I purposefully didn't bring my laptop home with me on Tuesday because I had a day off, and I truly wanted to enjoy the day off and not think about work.  I did pretty well with that mission until about 8:30 pm when a colleague asked for some scores for a kid from a previous year.  This wasn't a huge inconvenience for me since I have the Google Drive app installed on my phone so I just took a few minutes to look that info up and sent it over to her.  Other than than, work was the furthest thing from my mind all day, and I'm going to be honest, I loved it!

And now for the questions....

Reflection Questions

1) Teachers make a lot of decisions throughout the day.  Sometimes we make so many it feels overwhelming.  When you think about today, what is a decision/teacher move you made that you are proud of?  What is one you are worried wasn’t ideal?

I didn't really make any decisions at all today!  I guess the biggest, and best, one I made was to not bring my work home with me and just enjoy my day off.  It was nice to have those days of calm and relaxation.

2) Every person’s life is full of highs and lows.  Share with us some of what that is like for a teacher.  What are you looking forward to?  What has been a challenge for you lately?

I am really looking forward to working with teachers more closely this year.  The literacy coach and I did a brief presentation on what a coach is and how we can help, and I'm hopeful that lots of people got something out of it and will start utilizing me more.  A challenge has been spreading myself out across the whole building.  I have a core group of teachers who love having me in their room, and I tend to always be in those rooms.  I need to branch out more and visit every room. 

3) We are reminded constantly of how relational teaching is.  As teachers we work to build relationships with our coworkers and students.  Describe a relational moment you had with someone recently.

Recently I received some pretty bad news, (see question #5) and the amount of support, caring, and concern I received from my fellow teachers was amazing. I really felt loved and part of the community.

4) Teachers are always working on improving, and often have specific goals for things to work on throughout a year. What have you been doing to work toward your goal?  How do you feel you are doing?

I think I've fallen off the train of working towards my goal.  I wanted to participate in a twitter chat at least once a month, but I'm finding that I can't stay up late enough to do that.  I'm in bed by 9pm every night.  I also wanted to make sure I was more visible in every room this year, but as I mentioned above, I'm really struggling with that.  I made myself a schedule for the week of when math was being taught in my building so I could use it as a checklist and make sure I get into every room at least once a week.  Now I just need to start utilizing it!

5) What else happened this month that you would like to share?

My surgery that was scheduled for October 4th got cancelled because my insurance decided they didn't want to pay for it.  I was completely devastated and had to take 2 days off to fight with the insurance company and doctors and play that back-and-forth game.  I am so happy to report that I just got word it has been approved now and I have rescheduled it for November 8th!!  

Just another manic Monday! #DITLife 9-12-16

What just happened?!

Seriously, it's only the 7th day of school and I feel like I've been hit by several mack trucks and that it's May.  Sometimes I wish I could just turn my brain off for a few minutes.  I have a million different things swirling in my brain all at once.  I just want it all to stop so I can breathe for a second!

I stayed up rather late last night watching my beloved Patriots beat the Cardinals and I knew the morning was going to be rough, so I prepared by packing my lunch and putting out my clothes the night before.

Then the series of unfortunate events started.

When I got downstairs, I discovered my oven had been left on all night after we pulled out the nachos at halftime.  That's gonna be awesome in the gas bill next month.  Halfway to school I realized I had left my breakfast on the counter.  

Got to school very early and immediately started working on a testing schedule for grades 4 and 5.  Our district benchmark tests are going to be given online this year, so I needed to coordinate when and how the devices would get to each class.  I nailed down a schedule and shared it with my principal, STEAM teacher, and SPED department for review before sending to teachers. 

After that, I spent some time looking for data scores for students who transferred to our school from another school within our district.  This was a fruitless operation as I was only able to successfully find one student's data!  Feeling defeated, I sent out a few emails to my graduate class that I'm teaching about what is due at the next session, and updated the lesson plan template they are going to use and sent that off to them as well. 

I looked for information and/or presentations about what a coach is to show to my colleagues at a staff meeting in a few weeks.  I'm working with my literacy coach in the building to come up with a quick overview of what our job entails and what kinds of things we can help them with.  I'm hopeful that this presentation will be super helpful for all and that I'll walk away with a full schedule after that meeting.  Only found a few helpful things, but formulated a pretty good agenda in my brain.  Still need to hash it out with the lit coach, but there's never enough time for both of us to meet.

I was lucky to be asked to have a working lunch with the entire grade 1 team to go over how to work their math block.  They have a super funky schedule this year and their math block is interrupted twice by snack and preps.  We brainstormed several different ideas, but ultimately they're going to have to figure out what works best for their room and their students. 

Immediately after that, a second grade teacher came into my room for a mini-conference/planning session during her lunch.  She was concerned that her students are starting at a lower level than anticipated, and wasn't even too sure where to start with them.  We planned a Number Talk that I would come in and deliver after lunch, during her math block, and then quickly planned a few different center activities for after the Number Talk.  Made a few quick copies as she picked them up from the lunch room.

Making tens in 2nd grade

The number talk and the center work I had planned went well.  I started off with a doubles fact and then moved into an equation that would emphasize the make 10 strategy.  The kids did well with it, and started to pick up on the strategy by the third problem in the string.  Then we worked on a making ten activity using ten-frames.  She was right, they're starting somewhere around middle of first grade.  Made me wonder if this is just summer loss or what happened in the first grade last year that this is where these kids are starting.  Have made a mental note to pop in to her room again tomorrow to see where she goes next.

Then the bell rang, and a line formed at my office door.  First, the literacy coach apologized for being so busy herself that we didn't get to plan our coaches presentation together.  Second, a para came to talk to me about possibly taking over my tutoring gig I have.  And third was a 5th grade teacher wanting to figure out a spiral review homework situation for the rest of the year.  I just told all of them I would need a night to sleep on things and process and would catch up with them tomorrow.  

Rushed out of school to run home for 2 minutes, pick up my other laptop, and then head to my tutoring gig.  I have been working with this girl for 2 years and go twice a week and help her with her executive functioning skills. We had a good session, left her with lots left to do, and finally got to go home for the day!

My dear hubby has Mondays off, and I have to say, he didn't really take the day off!  So much stuff got done around the house I'm in shock in awe.  He trimmed out a few of the windows in our new kitchen, cleaned up the patio and put away some of the patio furniture for the winter, vacuumed the pool, did dishes, and did laundry.  Am I a lucky gal, or what?!  We made dinner together tonight because he wanted to practice cooking me grilled cheese and soup for when I have my surgery in a few weeks.  It came out delicious, though admittedly the cooking process was too intimidating for him so I ended up doing most of it myself!  I'm not worried for my surgery though, I know he'll find a way to take care of me as good as he usually does.

The rest of the night I spent looking for the aforementioned 5th grade spiral review homework and answering work related emails, all while watching the news, tv shows, and my two dogs playing tug-o-war non-stop!

Early to bed for me tonight since I didn't get much sleep.  8:00 pm and I'm calling it a day!

  

Reflection Questions

1) Teachers make a lot of decisions throughout the day.  Sometimes we make so many it feels overwhelming.  When you think about today, what is a decision/teacher move you made that you are proud of?  What is one you are worried wasn’t ideal?

I'm happy that I accepted the invitation to work with my grade 1 team during our lunch.  Even though we kept going in circles, it was really nice to have that time together and try to problem solve their tricky schedule.  I wish that I had consulted with the 2nd grade teacher earlier than a half hour before her math block started.  It was tough to thoughtfully plan out meaningful activities to do with such limited time.

2) Every person’s life is full of highs and lows.  Share with us some of what that is like for a teacher.  What are you looking forward to?  What has been a challenge for you lately?

I'm really looking forward to seeing where this team collaboration is going to go for the rest of the year.  If I already have one grade level asking to meet with me, and another grade level on the verge of asking me, then it can only get better.  As a coach, that is my dream to be able to collaborate with all grade level teams.  Time management has been an issue for me lately.  As I mentioned before, I have so much going on that sometimes I don't even know where to start.  There's a solid chance I have Adult ADD because I'll start one thing, and then a few minutes into that, think of something else I have to do and then switch gears!  I need to start focusing and setting small goals for myself to get all my stuff done.

3) We are reminded constantly of how relational teaching is.  As teachers we work to build relationships with our coworkers and students.  Describe a relational moment you had with someone recently.

Today I was walking in the hall and I saw a student I hadn't seen since last year.  He shouted with a smile, "HEY MRS. HUDAK!!" then came over and gave me a big hug.  Admittedly I can't remember his name, but he was so sweet and kind and I'm going to seek him out in the next few days so I can remember his name! haha  (Please cut me some slack, there are 400 students in my school, names are hard to remember!)

4) Teachers are always working on improving, and often have specific goals for things to work on throughout a year. What have you been doing to work toward your goal?  How do you feel you are doing?

I've put more thought into my SMART goal for the school year.  Personally, in order to help build number sense, I want to help the teachers to get the students to make their thinking visible in math.  I shared an article with my colleagues that gives some good tips for starting math journals or portfolios.  A few have already given me feedback that they really loved it and plan to start implementing them in their rooms.  I'm going to make sure to keep that momentum going in the next few weeks. 

5) What else happened this month that you would like to share?

I finally had the chance to share all the work I did to get all the district math resources on one central site. It was a huge hit! I think everyone was really excited with the layout and ease of use. During this day, I also got to do a mini PD presentation for all grades 1, 2, 3 teachers in the district, which also included all the principals and the assistant superintendent. Even though I nearly blacked out from nerves, I got a lot of feedback afterwards that I did great! So, with those two big presentations under my belt already this month, I'm feeling really good!

First Day of School

The day is finally here!  FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!

I woke up so optimistic, despite the two Tylenol PMs not working and tossing and turning all night.  *sigh*  Hubs made me a great breakfast, dogs snuggled me so good, I thought it was going to be such a great day.

Hello gorgeous, let's make it a great day!

I was driving along to work, enjoying the beautiful sun.  I stopped at a beach/park to look at how beautiful it was, and take a few deep breaths and send some positive thoughts out into the universe.  Just some thoughts of how spectacular this year would be, how I would work extra hard to do the best I could all year, and how great everything would be.  

Then I got to school.

And I forgot my lunch that I so carefully packed last night.  Not only did I forget my lunch, but also al my snacks and my water bottle. To make matters worse, I also have roughly $0.39 left from my summer of fun and we don't get paid until next week, so yeah...I'm pilfering from the snack box in the office for my lunch. 

It was so much fun to go out to the playground and welcome all the students and parents back to school.  I helped a few lost kiddos find their teachers and then the fun began.

I can summarize my morning in two words: Tech Support!  I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to troubleshoot everyone's computers and/or SmartBoard issues!  At 8:30 am I spoke with our district IT coordinator about creating a central district site to house all of the elementary math documents.  I didn't get the outcome I wanted, but I can live with what I've got for now.  At 9, I had to run over to the tech center located in our High School to pick up some hardware for our new teachers and principal.

Math Coach's Heaven

Then I finally got to unpack all my boxes of math manipulatives that I ordered in June!  Holy christmas morning batman!  Being the supreme math nerd that I am, this of course was the most thrilling moment for me.  I mean, just look at all these goodies ready for distribution!!

I spent some time walking around the building, going in and out of some classrooms and saying hi to the kids.  Then at 11, I finally had a moment of down time, so I started to work on my PD presentation for next Thursday.  I somehow have to fit an entire graduate course's information/work into a 30 minute presentation.  This should be fun! 

Have you ever seen anything
so cool as this?

I was hanging around in the office going over my purchase order with our secretary (because like a bozo, I ordered too much of one thing and not enough of another, but it was my fault...boo) and in walks a parent with the most amazing school supply "cake"!  It was for one of the 5th grade teachers.  I was in total shock at the creativeness of it.  

After a very filling lunch of an old ramen noodles that I found in my closet, I then discovered that the massive central website that housed every single important document pertaining to math for every grade K-5, and every unit within those grades was transferred to a new server and I lost access and most of the links didn't work.  Now, this project took me about 30-40 hours of work this summer, so to say I was frustrated was an understatement.  Luckily we have an amazing IT Dept. and within a few hours all was fixed and reinstated.  

2nd Grade Number Talk on Day 1

I spent the end of my day in a second grade classroom watching a Number Talk.  They were given a pretty basic doubles string to use and they did great!  They had some very unique strategies and all were eager to share their ways.  I'm so thrilled to see the Number Talks happening on day 1 and think it sets a really great tone for the rest of the school year.  I also introduced the teachers to the "With Math I Can" movement, and saw the pledge on a chart in her room.  She told me she plans on having the kids take the pledge, sign the sheet and keep that posted all year.  I LOVE to hear stuff like that!

Around 3, my brain was throbbing and I was starting to crash, so I left.  Came home to snuggle the boys and then promptly fell asleep.  Woke up a bit later, read and responded to some emails, and then did some more work on the central Math site that I'm working on.  One of the emails was from the Asst. Supt. asking me to do a "how to" sheet that I can share with the other coaches and staff.  Since I'm meeting the other coaches at 9am tomorrow, I knew I needed to get it done.

At 5:30 I put my work to the side and headed out to book club!  I have the best book club in the world, by the way.  We meet on the last Tuesday of every month and we always have a great time together.  This month's book was a real clunker, but the company of my girlfriends more than made up for it!  Plus, one of the girls is getting married next month, so we had a mini-shower for her.  It's great to get together with my girls once a month.  

It's 10pm, I just walked in the door and I have a colleague in a panic about something they may have lost in google docs.  I need to help her find her stuff, but I'm also dying to go to bed.  At what point should I just give up and try again tomorrow?  I'm thinking now is that time....night, night.  

Reflection Questions

1) Teachers make a lot of decisions throughout the day.  Sometimes we make so many it feels overwhelming.  When you think about today, what is a decision/teacher move you made that you are proud of?  What is one you are worried wasn’t ideal?

A teacher move I made today that I'm proud of was that I decided to be  a present face for the kids and parents when the day was first starting.  I think that set a good tone for the upcoming school year.  Plus, selfishly, I got so many hugs from students and that made me feel so great to be back.  I do wish that I had popped into more classrooms, but I felt so weird doing that on the first day.  

2) Every person’s life is full of highs and lows.  Share with us some of what that is like for a teacher.  What are you looking forward to?  What has been a challenge for you lately?

My biggest challenge right now is rolling out all this district curriculum work that I did, not only to the other math coaches in the district, but all the teachers as well.  I'm also nervous about this half hour PD that I have to give next week.  Not nervous for actually presenting, just nervous I won't be able to fit it all in in a half hour time slot!

3) We are reminded constantly of how relational teaching is.  As teachers we work to build relationships with our coworkers and students.  Describe a relational moment you had with someone recently.

Spending the end of my day in the 2nd grade classroom was awesome!  I got to chit chat with that teacher for a bit, and she asked my feedback afterwards.  She did so great, so it was a nice time to just remind her how awesome she is and give suggestions on where she should go next! 

4) Teachers are always working on improving, and often have specific goals for things to work on throughout a year. What have you been doing to work toward your goal?  How do you feel you are doing?

I feel silly answering these because I just answered the same set yesterday, but I'm still blogging, I'm sharing my blog with others, I'm building better teacher-coach relationships and I'm seeing some great Number Talks which are going to help with my number sense improvement goal.  Granted, it's only day 1, so let's see what happens next.  

5) What else happened this month that you would like to share?

Nah, I'm done sharing. ha! Just kidding, nothing else has happened since yesterday.

Back to School

It's the most wonderful time of the year!  Time to go back to school!!

And if you think I'm joking, you're wrong! 

I actually really look forward to this day.  Don't get me wrong, I love vacation, and I especially loved this particular summer vacation, but my brain and my heart are more ready to dive into teaching than my pool at this point.

Today was our PD day, the day before the students arrive.  Being new to this district, I still am impressed with how they operate their first day.  The day started off with an informative meeting with the Union presidents.  We're in a contract negotiation year, so it was good to hear what they had to say about that.  Not too confident much is going to change, though, to be honest.  After the union meeting, every single teacher in the district, from elementary through high school, were invited to a breakfast of croissants, scrambled eggs, sausages, bacon and fresh fruit.  It was so delicious, but also so great to catch up with everyone and hear about their summers.  

After breakfast, every teacher in the district then filed into the auditorium to hear welcome speeches from the Superintendent, School Committee and Mayor.  This may seem like a small thing, but I think it's so important to know that the big-wigs are totally on our side and in this with us.  We are very lucky to have a Mayor who is a former teacher, so he really gets it.  Also, each building principal had to announce all of the new hires, which is always awkward for everyone, but it's a nice gesture!

Then it was time to return to our buildings and have our normal beginning of the year staff PD.  You know, just a bunch of policy overviews, sign this form, report bullying, don't bully each other, usual shpeel!  Though I will give it up to my principal for showing us this great video about good and bad sportsmanship of the Olympics.  As you may remember, I'm a huge Olympic junkie, so she showed this video to us, and yes, I cried.  Like a baby.  

I also presented a very quick overview of what was happening in the math world to the staff.  Originally I had a 15 minute slot to talk in, but everything went late so I got cut down to just a few minutes.  The goal of my presentation was obviously to inform of all the curriculum resources available, but also to make them laugh.  I just know how boring this first day can be, so I wanted to lighten the mood a bit. I think I succeeded in that.   

The principal provided us all with a delicious lunch, and then it was time to work in our classrooms.  Since I don't have a classroom, I used the time to organize my office and sort out all of the manipulatives and books for distribution.  I walked around the school and passed out all the of supplies I had on hand.  Then met with the principal and the literacy coach until 3:30.  We were trying to work out the schedule for team times, data meetings and PD days.  So much going on, I honestly don't know if we accomplished much, but it was great to meet again and at least have a good framework for where the rest of the year is headed.

After work, I rushed home to realize that I had dog training with my babies.  Also realized I never got any training treats, so I had to quickly run out to grab those.  Made it home just in time for our trainer to show up.  We worked on the leave it, stay, and on your bed commands.  My dogs are obviously geniuses, so they picked up on these pretty quickly!

As soon as training was over, I had to go grocery shopping with the hubs to get food for the week.  We grabbed a super fast dinner at Burger King (also cheap because we had coupons).  After inhaling that, I put away all the groceries and packed my lunch and his lunch for tomorrow.  It is so weird to be back into this routine!  I still love it.  I wouldn't change a thing!  

Tomorrow is the first day with kiddos, so I just popped two Tylenol PM at 8pm, so I don't suffer from the "night-before-school-starts-stay-up-all-night-with-worry" bad night of sleep!!  I have about 30 more minutes until I'm dead to the world, so I'm going to finish watching American Ninja Warrior and then hit the sack!!  So excited to see all those smiling faces out on the school yard tomorrow!

Reflection Questions
1) Teachers make a lot of decisions throughout the day.  Sometimes we make so many it feels overwhelming.  When you think about today, what is a decision/teacher move you made that you are proud of?  What is one you are worried wasn’t ideal?
I'm really proud that I made the decision to share my blog with my staff.  One of my goals at the beginning of this year was to be as transparent as possible, and I think sharing this blog with them is a great step.  I wish that instead of cleaning out my own space, I had actually spent some time walking around and helping out the teachers when/if necessary.  I kind of feel like a jerk for not doing that, but hopefully I can make up for it tomorrow!

2) Every person’s life is full of highs and lows.  Share with us some of what that is like for a teacher.  What are you looking forward to?  What has been a challenge for you lately?

I guess I'm just all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the start of the school year, but I really have the feeling this is going to be a great year.  Last year was my first year as a coach, and my first year in the building and district, so I knew nobody.  Now that I have built some relationships, I'm excited to really start coaching this year.  My challenges are the same as my highs though.  I have only built some relationships.  I'd like to build even more this year so I'm not always working with the same group of teachers.

3) We are reminded constantly of how relational teaching is.  As teachers we work to build relationships with our coworkers and students.  Describe a relational moment you had with someone recently.


During my quick presentation today, I talked about how much I love the MTBoS and Twitter and how it is the most valuable PLN out there.  I made a quick "cheat sheet" to twitter and the MTBoS and passed out to everyone.  (Thanks to Tara Dass, @chatelet0211, for sharing hers...See why Twitter and the MTBoS is the BEST?!?!)  On this sheet was a list of people to follow immediately, how to tweet and use hashtags, different blogs to follow and cool math website.   I figured it would be just another paper that people toss in the trash, but then...at 7:36pm I get a text from one of my staff asking for more info about Twitter and she told me that she started following everyone I recommended on that list!!  HELLO!!!!  YES!  Mission accomplished!  I'm so psyched to get her on Twitter, and interested in this blog!  I just know she will be the Twitter queen in a matter of months!

4. What have you been doing to work toward your goal?  How do you feel you are doing?

First step was sharing my blog address with my staff today. I even made a spinning callout star reminding them to bookmark it so they can read it. I'll have to somehow figure out a way to get them to read it each month. As far as my blogging goal, I'm right on track. I'm nervous that as the school year really kicks into high gear that I will fall behind, but I have a good cheerleader who won't let me forget.

5) What else happened this month that you would like to share?

I found out I have to have a pretty major surgery in the beginning of October. I'm really nervous and also really sad, but luckily I now have school to distract me from thinking about it until then.

Summah Luvvin...

...had me a blast!

Wow, today was another superb summer day in Massachusetts!  I thank my lucky stars that school vacation is July and August for us.  I follow so many teachers who have already started back up, and I just feel so sad for them!  So this Day in the Life blog is going to be a fun one to reminisce upon...

My snuggly boy, Toby

Woke up at the leisurely hour of 8:30 am with two beautiful dogs snuggling up on me.  Turned on the Olympics and cried all over again for our hometown heroes Aly Raisman and Kayla Harrison for winning their medals in gymnastics and judo, respectively.  Lost my mind and sobbed uncontrollably for Simone Manuel and her history-making gold medal in swimming!  I am not too ashamed to admit that I suffer from Olympic Fever!  It is an addiction.  (Do they have an Olympics Anonymous?)  I can't fall asleep at night because I just can't turn it off! GO USA!  

By 9 am, it was already 102 degrees and muggier than a Tennessee swamp, so I knew I had to treat the boys (a.k.a. my dogs Toby Juan Kenobi and Ziggy Marley) to a swim in the ocean.  Loaded them into the car and brought them to our favorite beach/boat ramp so they could splash around and cool down a bit.  My youngest boy, Ziggy (who is Toby's biological son, by the way) is a spaz when he swims.  I swear he's the only lab in the world who doesn't know how!  He usually slaps the surface of the water in a frantic mess.  But not today!!  Today he swam like Michael Phelps with his paws underwater, so graceful!  I was so proud of the nugget!

Came home to float around in my pool for a bit.  I definitely practiced all of the strokes, and totally felt like I could make it on the Olympic team.  I feel like I might get the call in a few years that they're ready for my contributions to Team USA.

Husband gets to come home for lunch every day, so our summer lunch date was fabulous.  I pre-ordered some Panera, he picked it up and we sat inside melting while consuming it. We were lucky to enjoy a quick swim together too before he headed back in.

Olympics are life.  New couches
are pretty great, too!

Our brand new couch got delivered shortly after he went back to work.  We needed a new 
 one because the new one we bought just about 2 years ago got chewed to shreds when we brought our beloved Ziggy home.  I started to read my book for my book club (Life After Life for those interested) but I got real sleepy after a few paragraphs and decided to go upstairs into the AC and take a nap.

Woke up to a few emails and texts from colleagues about different math questions they had.  Responded to all, and also saw that the Assistant Superintendent wanted me to call her.  Chatted with her for an hour about our curriculum maps that we are working on, the upcoming school year curriculum schedules for all grade levels, my PD that I just finished presenting on Thursday, and the PD she wants me to present on the second week of school!  We covered a lot, but I feel great about where the district is heading this year.  Of course we didn't cover everything, so we set up a time to meet next Tuesday to hash out more of the details.

By this point husband was home and we tried to decide what to do for dinner.  He has a cousin visiting from Florida right now so his whole side of the family was getting together for a seafood dinner.  We weighed the pros and cons (pros: yummy food, spend time with family  cons: we're broke) and decided to go and order conservatively.  Before dinner, we enjoyed another float around in the pool!  Dinner was delicious and the company was wonderful.  Home in time to get into bed and watch Katie Ledecky DOMINATE in the 800m freestyle!  As Ice Cube says, today was a good day.


And now, time for reflection. I'll be ending every post with the following reflection questions:

1) Teachers make a lot of decisions throughout the day.  Sometimes we make so many it feels overwhelming.  When you think about today, what is a decision/teacher move you made that you are proud of?  What is one you are worried wasn’t ideal?

I am glad I made the decision to move upstairs to the air conditioning once I started feeling sleepy! I'm sitting in the non-air conditioning kitchen right now writing this and there is a puddle of sweat underneath me. I'm also glad I decided to call my doctor and ask if it was okay to swim again. I had a surgery last week that prevented me from swimming for some time, but I got the all clear from him today! I'm worried my less-than-ideal choice was to take the above-mentioned nap. I completely forgot that I had to finish my application for getting a graduate certificate in SpEd, so now I need to do that tomorrow. I really could've used the nap time to get some of that work done.

2) Every person’s life is full of highs and lows.  Share with us some of what that is like for a teacher.  What are you looking forward to?  What has been a challenge for you lately?

I know I said at the beginning of the post that I'm so thankful that I'm not back in school yet, but oddly enough, what I'm looking forward to the most is starting school again! Teaching my PD class this week and sitting in on some interviews for potential new teachers has gotten me really excited to jump right in. My biggest challenge for myself lately has been that I don't have enough confidence in what I'm doing. I'm a habitual worry-wort, so lately I've been uber stressing about whether I designed my PD course well enough (I didn't) or if I did enough to help coach my teachers last year (I didn't) or even if I spend enough time with my husband and dogs (I don't). I just need to get out of my own head sometimes, because I know in reality the PD was great, I coached the best I could, and my husband and my dogs are spoiled by me on a daily basis.

3) We are reminded constantly of how relational teaching is.  As teachers we work to build relationships with our coworkers and students.  Describe a relational moment you had with someone recently.

I work with a staff of 22 teachers.  Being brand new to the district and building meant that I needed to start at ground zero, and start with many people who wanted nothing to do with me.  It was a challenging relationship-building year, but I did form several good professional, and personal, relationships.  One particular teacher had an extremely difficult year last year, both personally and professionally.  I always got the impression that she fell into that category of "Leave me alone, I'm good", therefore I hardly ever visited her room, and didn't have much interaction with her.  She took my PD course this week.  We laughed, we bitched, we learned.  It was great!  She sent me an email Thursday night thanking me for such a great course and telling me how excited she was to work with me next year!  I may or may not have (yes, I did) shed a little bit of a tear when I read it because I'm so excited she's opened up that door.  I sent her a text thanking her for her sweet words, and her reply just made me smile all day long.  I know that this upcoming year is going to be a great one working with her! 

4) Teachers are always working on improving, and often have specific goals for things to work on throughout a year.  

I have many goals for this year.  I'm a list person, so here's my list:

• Write this blog on the 12th of each month, if not more
• Share my blog on Twitter, and with my staff
• Participate in at least one Twitter chat a month
• Inspire a colleague to start a blog
• Start my SpEd coursework, finish it in 15 months
• Stay on top of the coursework for those classes
• Increase number-sense in my building (I have no idea how I'm going to make this a measurable SMART goal, but it's a work in progress)

5) What else happened this month that you would like to share?

Well I planned and delivered that PD course that I talked so much about, and that was no small feat.  It was worth a graduate credit, so I guess you could call me a professor.  HAHAHA yeah right... Besides working on that course, I was also working on the curriculum maps for next year.  It's such a long process that I wish every teacher had the opportunity to be a part of.  The fact that I get to see the vertical alignment for 6 grades worth of math is such an advantage!  

Goal Setting and Blog Writing

I'm new here.

I've been the timid teacher observing from the fringe, intimidated by the depth of knowledge of my colleagues who actively participate in the #MTBoS on Twitter.  If you're reading this and thinking, "Okay, so MTBoS means Men Topless in Boston?", then first, we need to be friends, and second, you're not alone in your query!  It was all new to me when I started following math teachers on Twitter and kept seeing that hashtag.  The #MTBoS is an online community of Math Teachers of the Blogosphere who actively tweet and blog their ideas, thoughts, conundrums and best practices.  It's the world's best free professional development.  (Read: JOIN!)

I wanted in.

Last year, I took a major leap of faith.  I left a teaching job that I loved, with colleagues and administration that I admired, and an urban district that I thrived in.  I accepted a position as a K-5 Instructional Math Coach in a nearby, suburban community.  The overwhelming pride and excitement was met with paralyzing fear and self-doubt.  I immediately purchased every book on instructional coaching, read every blog I could find, and went on a following spree on Twitter.  I've followed many an #educhat, but never participated for fear of coming across as too much of an outsider.  And also, they always start so late that I'm usually in bed by the time question 2 hits the twitterverse.  (Is this something we can work on #MTBoS?)

This is a new year.  This is my 2nd year as an instructional coach.  This is the year I've decided to push myself and start a blog.  

This is the year that I'm all in.

Diving right in!

I'm joining Tina Cardone in her mission to blog a "Day in the Life" blog on the same day of every month for the upcoming school year.  I see this as a great opportunity to dive right into the MTBoS to become more of an active participant than a casual bystander.  I also see this as an opportunity to reflect more on my role as an instructional coach and grow professionally.


So my goals for this blog and this year are:

1. Blog every 12th day of every month.
2. Don't freak out and fret over every word I type and just let it flow naturally.
3. Be proud to share my blog with the #MTBoS and my staff.
4. Participate in at least 1 Twitter chat a month.
5. Network, network, network!  Make math-minded friends all over the country.
6. Build deeper professional relationships with my colleagues.
7. Hang out with Men Topless in Boston.
8. Improve every day!

Julian qualifies as a Man Topless in Boston, as well as offers a great piece of advice.