three hours of sitting on your behind with three successive trips up and down four flights of stairs.  Today was our third day of 6th grade MCAS Reading tests, and around the 2.5/2.75 hour mark we were down to 2 students still taking the test.  The rest of the students are only allowed to read a book or put their heads down, no one is coming to ( Read more... )

Attention, griping ahead: It's been "one of those days". Late last week, my great-uncle passed away. I had been pretty okay about it, but having to come in to work and ask for the day off for his funeral on Wednesday kind of put me off center. On top of that, my one-day-a-week BU student teacher was in today. She's awesome and helpful, but I ( Read more... )

You know SunnyD...back in the Dark Ages when I was a kid it was known as Sunny Delight, but kids these days haven't got the attention span for something that long. Anyway, that is not my point. My point is ( Read more... )

What a difference a year makes! The last Parent-Teacher Night of last year, I had a total of three parents. At tonight's Open House, I've had 10 so far (eleven if you count the girl with the behavior issues who breezed her mom in and out before I could talk to her), and there is still half an hour left before closing time ( Read more... )

So here we are, back for another 9 or 10 months of fun! Today was my second day of school with the new batch of kiddies, and wow, what a crew! There is an accelerated math program in my district called Project Challenge. Each grade at my school has a project challenge homeroom. Last year, the fifth grade had a little bit of overflow, so maybe ( Read more... )

And I am just realizing how much I am truly going to miss these kids. Don't get me wrong, it is the end of the year and I am ready for vacation. However, a few of the conversations that I have had with my students over the past few days have made me take stock of how amazing this year has been. My homeroom this year has been incredibly well- ( Read more... )

That is all.

Today was field trip day! Hooray! The weather played nice and did not spoil our fun. We got to walk about half a mile down to the water where we got a tour of a 125 foot schooner called the Liberty Clipper. It (Sorry, she) is evidently a 23-year-old boat built on original plans from the 1850s. The kids got to learn to hoist a sail and tie a ( Read more... )

I am a young-adult-literature-a-holic. I don't know if there is a support group for this kind of thing, or if I would go if there were, but: Here we are 7 school days until the end of the year, and yesterday I purchased 8 new books. Now, most of them are these $2.99 specials Scholastic Books does at the beginning of every summer and every school ( Read more... )

We are at T minus 8 school days and counting, people ( Read more... )