DITLife February 12, 2017

A snowy Sunday in New England!

This has been the longest weekend ever, as we had Thursday and Friday off due to a blizzard.  And, I just found out I also have Monday off due to another blizzard coming in.  Good grief!  I guess a 5 day weekend never hurt anyone, right?

The snow certainly helped me to do nothing.  I did my weekly grocery shopping early and then snuggled up on the couch with my dogs and tried to clean out my DVR with my husband.  We knocked off 10% of it, so I would say mission accomplished.

I did do a tiny bit of work today, but I lost motivation after a few minutes.  I started to work on my syllabi for the two courses I'm teaching this summer.  I made a few changes to the agenda for each class, but then when I looked outside and saw I was in the thick of a blizzard, I lost motivation to think about summer.

Finished the night watching the Grammys and reading People magazine.  Totally immersed in pop culture, fabulous!

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?

These reflection questions are so hard on days when I literally did nothing. So I don't have any thoughts about decisions I made. I guess I could've worked on school stuff a bit more, but I have really tried to separate myself from work on the weekends so I can be present with my husband and dogs. Looking back, would I change anything? Nope, not a thing. Today was a perfect Sunday.

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 taking my Google for Educators certification test. I just completed a workshop which helped prepare me for the exam, and I'm planning to take the test next week when we are on school vacation. These snow days have been the biggest challenge for me. I've got so much to do with teachers at my school, but I need to be face to face to get anything done. So I'm hopeful mother nature cooperates and lets me go back to work soon! ha!

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 recently started a Math League with some 5th grade students. We met over lunch on Wednesday and we had a blast! I was so worried that they would hate having to do math while they ate lunch, but it turns out they loved it. We had some challenging problems that we all solved together. It was really fun and at the end, they all thanked me. I can't wait to meet with them again this week!

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?

My goals have been a very slow work in progress. I wanted to complete a coaching cycle with a few teachers this year. So far I've only done part of one with one teacher. As I mentioned before, I'm anxious to get back in the building to finish the observation and feedback part of the cycle with that teacher. I'm hopeful that I can start doing more coaching work like this with more teachers in the coming months, but I also know that we have our standardized testing coming up soon which will put a halt to everything.

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

Nothing for me except I'm really looking forward to February vacation and going on a road trip to Pennsylvania with my husband!

DITLife January 12, 2017 (Thursday)

Another busy day in the books!

Started out the day getting math kits together for the family math night I have planned for next Thursday and emailing local community groups that are participating in the night.  Had to organize the dice and the cards and get the correct amount of materials to each kit and set aside for each game that the families will play that night.  I'm very excited about this family math night this year as I believe all families are going to walk away with a wealth of materials and ideas to incorporate math games at home!

Had to cover kindergarten morning duty this morning which is always so much fun and entertaining.  The kids wanted me to read a book, which I was happy to do, except they chose a book that had no words!  Coming up with a story on the spot was hard, but a lot of fun.

I then had a brief conversation with a vendor for an online math program that my school has been considering for a while.  Seemed good, but expensive for sure.  

I spent an hour in first grade trying to get some of her high-flyers up and running on the online math program we have at our school.  It's a pretty neat program that has no words and scaffolds the work based on the kids levels.  These four kids needed something challenging and I'm hopeful this program will do the trick.  Check it out here if you want more information.  

After my time in first grade, I went to second grade to help out with a skip counting lesson.  This turned into me taking a few of the students to help them finish the mid year benchmark assessment.  I had a lot of fun with these kids because they have very unique personalities and I thoroughly enjoy listening to them think about math and talk about how much they love math!

I spent the rest of my day preparing materials for the online benchmark testing I would be administering the following week.  We just started giving our benchmarks online for grades 3, 4, and 5 this year and it hasn't been the smoothest transition.  There are lots of kinks in the software and it's quite a process to even get logged in, so I needed to prepare some instruction sheets for every grade level.  This time of the year is always a struggle for me personally and professionally because I am so anti-benchmark testing, and especially the way these tests are designed, however, it's a requirement and I have to do it.  Even though I have a pretty direct role in creating these assessments, I know and fully admit that they are subpar and the data from them aren't used for the intended purposes.  It's a constant struggle all teachers have to deal with: delivering instruction or assessments that they don't agree with but are mandated by their districts and/or states. 

I spend the afternoon doing a few Uber rides.  Yes, I started driving for Uber to try to make a little bit of money on the side.  It's proving to be a ton of fun and pretty good money too!  Another joy of being a teacher, never having enough money!  

I participated in a Twitter chat at 7pm EST.  I think this is  one of the only Twitter chats that actually starts at a reasonable hour so I could participate and then go to bed.  Normally they start at 9pm, and I'm usually sound asleep by then. 

The topic of this chat was blended learning and using the ST Math learning platform which I mentioned above.  It was a great 7 question conversation and I found lots of new educators to follow. 

So there it is...a day in the life of me.  Let's see what February holds for me.

And now the 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 so glad I walked into the second grade classroom. It turns out she needed some help with a lot of different things and also needed a break to use the bathroom. I think my timing was perfect and I'm glad I could help out. I'm wondering if my decision to let the kids in first grade onto the math program. I know the teacher and parents had requested it, but I'm nervous that since it was only for four of them, that the rest of the class is going to get jealous and want in too. I also don't know if it's truly going to be challenging enough for them. Only time will tell.

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 getting back to instructional coaching. I had been out for 2 months post-surgery and now I'm finally back and getting into the groove. I have benchmark testing to get through next week, but then my schedule opens up again and I can start coaching again. However, a massive struggle lately has been getting teachers to want to work with me. There are a few who have "drunk the koolaid" so to speak and find me as an invaluable resource. I adore these teachers, but as I mentioned, they are a FEW. There's still a majority of the school who wants nothing to do with me and when I walk into their rooms they say, "What do you want". I struggle every day with whether or not I'm valuable or useful to this school, and whether people even want me there. Am I making any impact? Are teachers responsive to what my vision is for math instruction? It's so hard, and extremely isolating at the same time. I've definitely been struggling with my worth lately.

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've got some emails thanking me for the work I've put into Family Math Night that remind me how awesome the people are that I get to work with. They took time out of their day to acknowledge my work and it really meant a lot. I made sure to personally thank those teachers for thanking me.

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 wanted to do more coaching this year, and I'm working on it. It was very hard to be out for those 2 months as I feel like just as I was getting into the swing of it, I had to hit pause. I just put together a mini-PD for my teachers around one of my professional goals and I'm very excited to start sharing that work and see if it will go anywhere.

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

I came back from my 2 month recovery right after the winter break and had pneumonia!! So then after being out for 2 months, I had to miss 2 more days (should've been more to be honest) to recover from pneumonia. I'm finally starting to feel better now, thank goodness!!

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.