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.